Importance of keeping up with Support Packs

I had the opportunity to learn about the importance of keeping up pace with new developments in SAP. It is all the more important with the new dimension products such as Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) which are theoretically designed from scratch.

It is my practice to review the support portal regularly to keep an eye on the new SAP notes for EWM. One day, the new functionality on Packaging Specification Check attracted my attention. It was about the new check monitor functionality provided to check the Packaging Specification in EWM. Since it was very relevant and useful, I proposed this note be implemented in my client’s EWM system. The client was equally happy about the new functionality and gave approval to proceed.

It is only when we began implementing this one single note, we realized that it comes with a baggage of dependant notes and manual activities. We did note the manual activity that is necessary but were not ready for such a big bunch of notes pre-requisites (~30+).

My client has been putting off Service Packs update since 2010 and is currently at least 2 packs behind the latest version. With my regular research, I have been observing several hundreds of notes, specially in the area of Physical Inventory and new functionality which would greatly enhance the speed and reliability of the system.

In a nutshell, we spent triple the time allotted and double the budget allocated for the implementation of this note. The escalation was partially also due to the fact that we had to open 2 messages with SAP to resolve unforeseen issues seen with the note implementation. To add salt on the injury, we discovered that the SAP note to install the Check Monitor functionality on pack speck was missing couple of manual activities. This resulted in the program hanging if we click on a check button. SAP acknowledged this issue released a subsequent note to address the missing manual activity.

Just to let you know, we are still working with SAP to find a solution for the missing configuration node that did not get created automatically with the SAP not implementation!!

The lesson is learnt from this episode. It is quite important and useful to be on the latest SP to avoid pick and choose implementation of SAP notes and get the latest functionality and stability without much trouble.

Ref: SAP Note 1748641 implemented on EWM 7.0 SP6

2013-05-29

SAP provided 2 notes showing the missing manual activities and all good finally. These notes are useful to fix issues when you want to implement Check Monitor functionality for Pack Spec in EWM 7.0 SP6.