Automated Note Search Tool Call-SAP Mentor Webcast Recap

Q&A collected from the chat. I hope you find all your questions here. Otherwise, please create a new comment in this blog and I will try to answer your question. Feel free to reopen your questions if you think I got the question wrong;

QUESTION: Do I understand correctly that there must be code correction for ANST to find the note using trace? What about notes without code correction where solution is maybe to upgrade NW kernel or adjust parameter...

ANSWER: So far, ANST has been designed to match the ABAP trace objects with ABAP correction instructions. The functionality caan be extended to search with the same ABAP objects into the whole note. This way you would obtain consulting notes. Even KBAS could be found... as long as the note creator includes the appropriate search terms in the note. The great advantage of ANST (compared to traditional search and even to PANST and ST22) is that ANST does not rely on the inclusion of all the necessary search terms in the note, since the correction instructions have to be created anyway. PANSK and ST22 reply on the notes and KBAS quality so, if you encounter a case where PANKS or ST22 does not find the target note, please report the case tu us at SAP so that we can improve by adding the necessary search terms, And the other way around (This applies for ANST), if you find cases where unrelevant notes are displayed in the hitlist (e.g. very old ones), please report the case to SAP (In the meantime you have the "DATE" parameter in ANST_SETTINGS to set a date for which older notes are not considered).

QUESTION: But maybe those can be - if trace is done which is later associated with note describing solution - maybe the trace ifself can be attached to the node as invisible object so that later it can be used to find the note... It might be interesting to analyze the trace itself and then recommend the notes - it might be used also for basis - maybe suggesting parameter change notes or kernel update notes... however it would be probably more difficult to make reliable.

ANSWER: Not the whole trace but the most significant part that would make ANST find the note. But still... the note owner shoould have ANST in mind when he/she creates the note if we want ANST to search for notes that do not contain ABAP code (correctin instructions)

QUESTION: Seems to be this is more focused on functional errors (for functional consultants) rather then basis errors (basis support)... ANSWER: Not necessarily, if the note (released for customer) that solves the issue contains correction instructions and you can reproduce the issue by following some steps until you get the symptoms, then ANST will find the note. But true, if the solution is like (install a newer kernel level), it won't (yet) work. I insist ANSt can be extended to look not only in the correction instructions but in the whole note, but it should be tested carefully as too much notes could be brought to the hit list. Maybe I would make 2 separate lists of notes (corrections notes and the rest...).

QUESTION: What about having not a real "issue". You might expect something which does not show up correctly. For example you do the messaging at a S/4 HANA system and you customized everything but nothing happens.

ANSWER: An "issue" happens when the system does not behave as expected. All issues are real issues and ANST will search for notes as long as the issue can be replicated. Do not identify issue with message pop-up or dump. An issue can be that something does not happen when it should be expected to happen. e.g. an error message should be displayed when I enter wrong data but the message is not prompted. The fact that the error message is not displayed is an issue that ANST can try to solve. And the other way around, the fact that you get an error message does not mean there is a bug, so before using PANKS, Read the long text because most of the times it turns out that the message makes sense...

QUESTION: What are the authorizations requires to run ANST.

ANSWER: I have just updated KBA 1818192 with the Authorizations required:

Auth object: S_TCODE: Transaction ANST

Auth object: S_TCODE: Transaction SNOTE: For the note search functionality.

Auth object: S_DATASET: Authorizations for file access

Auth object: S_ALV_LAYO: for displaying/editing ALV lists Auth object: S_GUI authorizations for GUI activities (for example, download / upload)