SAP Technical Upgrade- How to carry out testing & possible errors may come
Recently we went through a technical upgrade of company’s SAP system from SAP AFS 5.0 & ECC 5.0 to AFS 6.5 & ECC 6.0.
Technical upgrade is upgrading the SAP system to a higher version from the Basis side. Functional consultant should ensure all the functionalities are working fine in upgraded system including enhancements, BAPI, BADI , User Exits , BDC, custom developments etc.
General procedure is to take a copy of live system and upgrading it then start testing cycles in that system. Testing cycles should be prepared in advance in a way which covers all business processes in the company. This should cover all transactions in the system. For an example manufacturing to the local market and manufacturing to the export market are two business scenarios which you need to make two testing cycles. Testing cycles should include scenarios like subcontracting, vendor return, customer returns, de-grading, scrapping etc. And you need to test activities which you perform annually, bi annually etc. i.e.: physical stock process
It is essential to create new master data to carry out testing cycle in upgraded test system. End users should not find any difficulty in upgraded system after you have done the live upgrade. This is what you need to ensure. Program error can be happen even in the standard when you are upgrading a system. Therefore you need to do comprehensive testing cycles which covers all their activities in system.
What you need to keep in mind is any standard or customized report/program can give errors after the upgrade.
I would like to share some errors we’ve found after upgrading to have an idea about what type errors may come after an upgrade. These are in scope of PP and MM modules.
We’ve logged all errors in SAP OSS and they released SAP notes to resolve errors.
1. ME57 – No suitable purchase requisitions could be found
This report did not show newly created PRs and giving the mentioned error. And PRs were not visible in MD04 also. This came due to a program error and you need to apply SAP note 2027527. Refer the forum post for more information. http://scn.sap.com/thread/3557849
2. Automatically rounding off in MIGO
SAP does not round off anything in MIGO since it is a physical quantity entered by the user. However SAP was rounding off decimal quantities entered in MIGO after the upgrade. Cause for this was also a program error. You need to implement SAP note 1971912 to solve the problem.
Refer the forum post for more information. http://scn.sap.com/thread/3555567
Even after resolving above error we found same rounding off for EA unit of measure. For that we had to apply SAP note 1932640 and also we had to add decimal figures for unit of measure settings in configurations. Refer below forum post regarding the error.
http://scn.sap.com/thread/3568448
3. Wrong batch quantities displayed in MB1A
MB1A did not work properly with batch assignment functionality. (Read more about this functionality; (http://scn.sap.com/community/erp/manufacturing-pp/blog/2014/04/14/batch-assignment-in-production-order-sap-afs )
For this SAP released the note 2001949.
Apart from this we could notice a change in batch assignment screen. They have changed the screen to ALV from table control of previous version.
Apart from above errors in standard we found many errors in other customized developments also.
- All user exits should be checked thoroughly, there’s a possibility user exits are getting deactivated after the upgrade.
- Custom developments which use BDC programs should be tested carefully. Screens can be changed in upper version therefore BDC are not working.
- Reports based on SAP queries needs to regenerate.
Results of each testing cycle should be recorded including methods of resolving errors. These records should be used when you are upgrading the live system. You’ll definitely find the same error once you’re upgrading the live system. Now you exactly know how to resolve the error since you’ve done same in test system before.