Change Request Management (ChaRM)
What is Change Request Management? -
- A. SAP ChaRM is tool delivered with SAP Solution manager that manages activities performed during a change from design to testing to final promotion to production system. It allows you to track change requests, transport requests in change management system in the entire business solution.
- B. SAP ChaRM uses a workflow based approval for Transport management, audit proof documentation of the functional changes in solution landscape.
- C. with the help of ChaRM by using project we can extend the TMS functionality by ensuring all transports are moved together into QA, integration/regression tested as a whole, and imported into Production collectively.
- D. Spreadsheets are no longer needed as the SAP Solution Manager Project will keep track of which transport requests are associated to which project and the order they need to be imported.
Pre-requisite for Charm -
- 1. Proper configuration of system in landscape using proper configuration path.
- 2. See the RFC communication between solution manager and satellite system established.
- 3. STMS configuration.
- 4. Define transport routes between the systems in system landscape.
- 5. Activate extended transport control in TMS
- 6. Deactivate the quality assurance approval procedure and activate the single Transports strategy.
Process Steps –
ChaRM involve many agencies which are given below
- Requester – Person who think that the problem is because of configuration change or ABAP change. Requester will raise change request in Solution manager.
- Change Manager – It is advisory board which decide and Approves change Request.
- Developer – These person will make changes as per Change Request. These may functional consultant and Technical Consultant.
- Tester – Testing team (including functional consultant or Users)
- IT Operator – in SAP Basic consultant will be as IT operator.
The steps are explained In below Flow chart.
Actual steps in Solution Manager CRM are given below –
We got Change request in "SM_CRM" in the work list which will be for configuration changes in SAP. This is incident which we get from service Desk about some changes in Configuration.
When any incident created, we need to change the status to “Change Request or Changes required as per configuration of status.
Now this required for configuration change. Change the status to "Suspended” or Change Request as per Status configuration. As example we will show the cycle with status “Suspended”.
Take a list of all suspended issues and create Request for change.
Go to "SM_CRM” T-code from Solution Manager. To create Change Request click on "Request for change" tab as shown below
When you click on "Request to change" this, system will give below screen
In this screen, enter
- Description
- Sold to Party - select person name who is asking for change.
- Requester - Name will come automatic. This is the person who is creating the change request.
- Change Manager - Person who is going to approve this change Request, anybody from approver team.
- Approval Procedure - select "Change Request Approval Procedure" from the drop down list.
- Priority - Set the priority for this Change Request.
- Project - enter project name.
System status will come automatically. We can't change the status manually.
At the bottom screen write the Description in Detail.
We can attach document also with it.
Enter Request for change scope.
In this we need to select client as 600 and configuration item as "7100000058"
Save it.
Now Requester will go to change request and set status for “validation" as shown below. Requester will go to action tab as shown below and select "Set Request for change to Validation".
Save it. System will show Status as "Validation" as shown below
Now Requester complete his validation and now he is ready to send this request to for approval. He will go to Action tab at the top and select "Release for Approval"
Save it. Once he open again the status change to “To be approved” as shown below.
Change Manager will start working on this change request. He will check the request and approve it as shown below
Change manager will change the status to "Approved" or one of the status in the list shown in above screen shot.
Save this request. The system will show status as "Approved" as shown below
Now Requester see the approved request. now that approved request he will put in Development by changing status as shown below.
Save it. this status show that the approved change request is now under progress. If the Change Request is for ABAP Development FS need to attached with this Request.
We can see the status is showing as "Being Implemented".
When we save the Change request document with Status "Being Implemented", System will generate one change note number as shown below
Go to Change object. It will show below screen.
Now current Processor will put all the detail shown below
Developer - Processor will select Developer name, who is going to develop this or configure this.
- Tester - Who is going to Test it after change in Configuration or After Development.
- IT Operator - Tester from Business Side or Basic person who will send that request to QA and finally in Production.
Change the status of this issue to "In Development” as shown below
Save it.
After this step Request will be moved to Quality or Test Client and All the testing need to be done with proper documentation.
Benefits –
- SAP ChaRM allows organization to control and manage changes in the SAP system efficiently.
- It Guaranties that any change to SAP system follows the standard process flow and procedures with mandatory controls and documented steps.
- Tracking and audit ability on changes.
- By configuring CTS+, ChaRM extends to all ABAP and non-ABAP SAP landscapes in your project.
- Much more than just a Technical Administrators tools for transports, ChaRM is also a powerful project change tracking system. It provides capabilities to:
- Provide traceability to requirements and change requests
- Communicate actions to be taken for each change request by utilizing workflows
- Report and track statuses on individual change requests and the project as a whole
- Provide tracking of approvals for change management auditing
- Provide safeguards to control where transports applied based on the project phase. Example: If the project is in the test phase and an attempt is made to apply a project transport to production, there will be a TMS Alert Viewer error message, "You cannot import any requests for project xxxx at the moment."