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Solution Manager 7.2 – How to build up your documentation faster than light (for ERP ECC 6.0, HCM, etc.)
Asking yourself about ALM and how it can help your SAP COE in 2019?
UPDATE 2019: Files are available here: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/softwarecenter/template/products/_APP=00200682500000001943&_EVENT=DISPHIER&HEADER=Y&FUNCTIONBAR=N&EVENT=TREE&NE=NAVIGATE&ENR=73554900100200008423&V=INST
Let’s say you have implemented Solution Documentation 7.2, and you really like it. Now is the time to start documenting your Solution, but building it up from scratch is difficult and time-consuming. Besides you never know how “good” your processes are compared to your industry. You can generate executables and custom objects automatically in your Libraries, but the Reverse Business Process Documentation capability is gone. There is no way to do it in the 7.2 version.
Oh wait, there is. If you are among the customers using S4/HANA, then you can leverage the “Best Practices Packages” feature and import pre-documented processes, including diagrams, fiori apps and configuration units assigned at the right level, in Solution Documentation 7.2. It is really something. But hey, what if you have not migrated to S4 yet?!
Well, have a look at SAP Note 2418929. Not many know about it, but this makes pre-7.2 RDS content available for the new 7.2 version of Solution Manager. For starters, here are the two (2) options that were available to you in the past, but since have been replaced by SAP Best Practices Explorer:
- SAP Best Practices RDS Packages: Based on successful software deployments, these solution packages cover the entire SAP portfolio and offer best practices for a wide range of processes and topics. This helps customers to standardize implementation projects (ie. functionality specific to your line of business), and reduce go-live risks and costs.
- Business Process Repository: This is an old functionality within Solution Manager 7.1. It provides a central overview of the available Reference Content structured both by organization areas and available solutions respective applications and underneath by business scenarios, business processes and process steps.
Now, back to SAP Note 2418929 (SAP Solution Manager 7.2: Get SAP Best Practices RDS Packages and content from Business Process Repository (BPR)). The note provides you with a list of all RDS packages and BPR content that have been converted to .JSON format so far. This is the only format supported by Solution Manager 7.2 when it comes to content import.
Here, you can see an example of ERP7 ECC 6.0 RDS packages, including regional releases. You also have Best Practices for other products (CRM, SRM..), and even business specific packages (Payroll Processing, SuccessFactors Compensation..).
| SAP ERP607 for Baseline Germany (DE) V3 | https://support.sap.com/content/dam/SAAP/Sol_Pack/Library/JSON/ERP607_DE.zip |
| SAP ERP607 for Baseline United States (US) V3 | https://support.sap.com/content/dam/SAAP/Sol_Pack/Library/JSON/ERP607_US.zip |
| SAP ERP607 for Baseline China (CN) V3 | https://support.sap.com/content/dam/SAAP/Sol_Pack/Library/JSON/ERP607_CN.zip |
| SAP ERP607 for Baseline India (IN) V3 | https://support.sap.com/content/dam/SAAP/Sol_Pack/Library/JSON/ERP607_IN.zip |
| SAP ERP607 for Baseline Brazil (BR) V3 | https://support.sap.com/content/dam/SAAP/Sol_Pack/Library/JSON/ERP607_BR.zip |
| SAP ERP607 for Baseline Canada (CA) V3 | https://support.sap.com/content/dam/SAAP/Sol_Pack/Library/JSON/ERP607_CA.zip |
Once the content imported to your Solution Manager (follow the steps in the SAP Note), you will have pre-documented SAP standard processes (FI, SD, MM, etc.) for the target product. This includes, for example:
- Business Processes
- Process Steps (incl. in the Library)
- Process diagrams
- Configuration Units
- Standard Transactions
- Best Practices URL documents
Have a look at the “Make-to-Stock Production (Discrete)” process for ERP ECC 6.0:
So, you have these brand-new SAP processes documented in your Solution, what now? I highly recommend you to follow the SAP Activate guidelines. RDS content is an accelerator, not the end result. The next steps could be organizing validation workshops, adapting some processes, building custom ones, etc.
The work begins!
Hi,
Yes, SAP Note 2418929 assists in loading best practices and import pre-documented processes, including diagrams, fiori apps and configuration units assigned at the right level in Solution Documentation 7.2.
Does it serve the purpose for others who are yet to migrate to S4 HANA ?
Either we need to start from scratch by creating business process structures and then schedule library generation cockpit or import best practices for ERP and design as per customer standard and release to PRD branch as suggested.
Thanks
Sateesh
Hello,
This SAP Note is specifically designed to help you document standard non-S/4 processes. It is a bundle of the RBPD and RDS content from Solution Manager 7.1. You don’t get as many items as with S/4 BP packages (ie. diagrams will not be fully documented), but it is a great starting point.
You should first (1) decide which packages are to be imported (the more you want to import, the more time it takes to adjust the SLAN system landscape), (2) import the content and verify its integrity, and (3) release it to another branch and start making customer adjustments.
PS. You can import S/4 HANA Best Practices packages, even though you don’t have any S/4 system connected to your Solution Manager yet.
Thanks for your comments
(3) release it to another branch and start making customer adjustments.
Making Changes to DOCUMENT - Adding one step in the process, that can be done in S/4HANA. Can you also provide some support on - How/where the actual CONFIG changes in S4HANA OnPremise should be done, so that they are maintained /captured in SOLMAN & Document accordingly remains up-to-date.
Hi Alexandre SABATIER,
Thanks a lot for the blog. This was very useful in importing the RDs packages in our SolMan system. We are facing an issue. All the Document URLs which are created in the RDS folders are pointing to the wrong URL and we are getting a message that the page is not found. Is there a way to fix this issue.
Thanks and Regards,
Dinesh Ghanta
I believe I have the final answer:
“Because of the sum of SAP Best Practices RDS Packages and SAP Solution Manager 7.1 Business Process Repository content the focus of the project was on the technical enablement for SAP Solution Manager 7.2 use. It was not possible to check all documentation assignments if they still work right. As a consequence there might be several documentation assignments (e.g. on Process level) which will not be possible to be executed any longer. We are not able to correct this.”
Hi, my pleasure!
I think you did not perform all the required steps. Did you import the .A4H files in the transport repository? You need to transport these files to get the KW documents.
Besides that, no all URLs are working since they are inherited from 7.1 content. See this sentence from SAP: "Because of the sum of SAP Best Practices RDS Packages and SAP Solution Manager 7.1 Business Process Repository content the focus of the project was on the technical enablement for SAP Solution Manager 7.2 use. It was not possible to check all documentation assignments if they still work right. As a consequence there might be several documentation assignments (e.g. on Process level) which will not be possible to be executed any longer. We are not able to correct this.".
Thanks for the great post. When importing BPR content -- are we going to have to duplicate all the source logical component groups? A single file has up to 30-ish groups and the importer does not allow different source groups to be assigned to the same target group. Just wondering what the best practice would be if we're importing multiple BPR files with multiple overlapping groups in these files. And maybe this is a good opportunity to create a one-off solution with all the noise implemented so you can weed out what org units and groups are relevant? I like having the full BPR at hand but was wondering if you need a hundred or more groups created to get it all in?
Hello,
You will not end up with duplicates in the case of overlapping LCGs. However, you will end up with a lot of useless LCGs if you choose to import all the BPR contents.
Besides, you should be careful if you plan to go to S/4 at some point. Some processes (ie. Accounts Payable) exist in different BP packages, but are not exactly the same. I would recommend to start documentation these processes based on S/4 BP content, and attach the ECC executables to the steps manually, until you actually do the upgrade. You would benefit from both.
Your idea of having a "fake" solution for import is indeed interesting. You could build the documentation there, then export the final content to a new Solution. However, I feel that having 3 branches to handle the import cycle (Development -> Design -> Import) is quite the same.
Thanks for your response Alexandre. I appreciate your suggestions. The separate solution idea is an attempt at not having to add any noise around import LCGs polluting our “main” solution and our valid LCG’s. i.e. 30 source LCG’s in an import file need 30 unique destination LCG’s in the solution. As you suggest we can focus on S/4 content but it would be nice to have this info as a reference still
Hi guys,
Please note that the mentioned SAP Note has not been adapted to Support Package 5 yet.
As a result, you could get errors such as "W_CONTENT_OFF_ATTR_CRMWEBCLIENTLOGLINKID_TO_LONG".
The SP5 has introduced some new checks during the content import that prevent some of the BPR content to be imported, such as "SALES". According to SAP, a newer version will see the light in the near future.
Hi Alexandre SABATIER,
Great post- thank you for writing on this! Our team has recently added the baseline to our solution and noticed there were a few transactions missing, namely:
These are important transactions to us and we would have thought to others using SAP as well. We understand we can add these separately to the solution, but can you let us know why these were left out of the baseline and what was SAP's reason for this? We are curious to know. We are also wondering how we should construct our own hierarchy based on the End-to-End / Modular process approach that SAP recommends using based on the fact we need to add the above transactions to our solution. Your help is appreciated, thank you!
K
Thank you Alexandre- I appreciate your getting back to me on this! And yes, we are located in Canada, very much right in the middle of it 🙂
Have a great day!
If I want to add a step in process path - I can do in SOLMAN, view process, add process step. This I have seen possible in SOLMAN, however two questions request inuts.
Two question –
2) If I have to change Best Practice Package or extend it – E.g. Instead of sales document type OR, I want to use ZOR, how and where SOLMAN CHARM should be used to reflect this change in SOLUTION Configuration ?
Hi,
How can we download all the .BPM file at one go of the collaboration diagrams created as part of a project ?
There is no functionality in Sol Man 7.2 SP6 that I see for the same. Needs lot of effort to download manually.
Regards,
Suv
Hello,
I get an error in SolDoc, If I open diagrams from the imported libraries ERP607_DE. The opened process is not complete. Please help.
thx in advance
Best regards
Georg