Using Change Requests in the SAP NetWeaver Portal

[Former Member]

Those of us who are used to the ABAP world know about Change Requests. This is a collection of recently changed objects, such as programs etc. In the SAP NetWeaver Portal we don't have this concept.

This is my attempt to get this implemented, plus I'm looking for some ideas about part of the process...

First the theory. I have a portal component that holds a change request metadata. This is basically a status (Open or Closed) and a list of PCD objects that I want to work with.

Then I have a Web Dynpeo Java application that is used to create and manipulate the change requests. We can find recently changed PCD objects and assign them to change requests and then release them. We can also generated an XML file that is used to copy the changed objects to the change request area.

The Change Requests themselves are held in the PCD in a folder with the ID portal_content/changeRequests. The name isn't important.

Inside this folder is a folder for each Change Request. This folder contains the iView which is the metadata and a folder where the contents will be copied later on.

Here is an example from a training system:

Those of us who are used to the ABAP world know about Change Requests. This is a collection of recently changed objects, such as programs etc. In the SAP NetWeaver Portal we don't have this concept. This is my attempt to get this implemented, plus I'm looking for some ideas about part of the process... First the theory. I have a portal component that holds a change request metadata. This is basically a status (Open or Closed) and a list of PCD objects that I want to work with. Then I have a Web Dynpeo Java application that is used to create and manipulate the change requests. We can find recently changed PCD objects and assign them to change requests and then release them. We can also generated an XML file that is used to copy the changed objects to the change request area. The Change Requests themselves are held in the PCD in a folder with the ID portal_content/changeRequests. The name isn't important. Inside this folder is a folder for each Change Request. This folder contains the iView which is the metadata and a folder where the contents will be copied later on.

Here is an example from a training system of a released change request which has been through the copy ptocess. The content folder has a copy of the original objects.

After creating a new change request you might see:

The Web Dynpro application is used to find recently changed PCD objects and assign them to Open change requests. This is a sample screen:

After assigning an object to the change request it might look like this:

The release process marks the change request as closed and allows the user to create an XML script that can be used through the portal System Admin -> Transport -> XML -> Import to copy the source PCD objects to the content folder under the change request folder. This works OK.

You could now transport the whole change request folder to another system and have the same change request structure imprted.

Now the tricky bit, where I need some ideas. At the moment the generated XML file uses the com.sap.portal.copy action to do the content copying. If I want to copy from the change request folder to the original location I could use the same mechanism, except for one problem. Basically the copy makes a new object! I can't get it to overwrite the original contents.

Ideas most welcome! I don't really want to reinvent the copy functions...