Reading Behind the Timeline: Update for SAP Customer Connection – SAP Solution Manager 7.2

Check our position on the SAP Customer Connection timeline below. It looks to be about quarter past the start of the develop phase. While the timeline shows the overall path for driving customers’ improvement ideas for SAP Solution Manager 7.2 to real results, here’s a behind-the-timeline update regarding where we are now.

Develop phase means . . . checking what is now being developed

As expected, developing is ongoing in the timeline’s develop phase. You can also expect resulting changes or enhancements to be delivered via SAP Notes and support packages. So look for SAP Solution Manager in this SAP support pack schedule. That said, you don’t have to wait until the end of the develop phase to find out which ideas from customers earned a status of Accepted. Check out the Selection Call’s slide deck today for detailed lists of projects in development.

Develop phase means . . . discovering cool ideas SAP has already developed

Here’s what I also learned from the Selection Call in April: Both customers and SAP developers alike apparently found certain improvement requests to be great fits for SAP Solution Manager 7.2 areas of Process Management, Test Suite, or Change and Release Management.

While these improvement requests received voting support from fellow customers, developers analyzed the requests and confirmed that the concepts had already been developed and delivered. This means the ideas in the following influence pages, which have a status of Already Offered, are available now:

• Delivered Requests: Process Management 2019 in SAP Solution Manager
  • My favorite: Export report results to Excel (23 votes)
• Delivered Requests: Test Suite 2019 in SAP Solution Manager
  • My favorite: Tester group maintenance (33 votes)
• Delivered Requests: Change and Release Management 2019 in SAP Solution Manager
  • My favorite: ChaRM search capability by transport request (28 votes)

From an influence page, select an improvement request title. This brings up a detailed view, where you can select the Decision field. Developers explain how the customer’s idea is already realized in the system. When necessary, developers further direct you to screenshots in the Comments section. In addition, the Selection Call slide deck lists these developed ideas and provides matching information on where to find the features.

Develop phase means . . . deciding how to develop future projects

Further, the slide deck is your resource for requests with a status of Under Review for Portfolio. At this point in the develop phase, all requests submitted by the Final Call deadline have been assigned a status. Portfolio items have been identified. What kind of ideas will be arriving as portfolio items?

To discover the criteria for portfolio items versus other influence requests accepted for development, dive deep behind the timeline graphic. Dive into the slide deck for more information about portfolio items and their future planned availability.

Rounding out the last two statuses of requests: There are a number of requests pending selection decision and a number of requests not planned to be developed. According to the selection criteria, “SAP endeavors to accept and develop the set of requests that are doable and that make sense for both customers and SAP.” Of the 389 total improvement requests, some understandably missed the threshold for development. These were considered out-of-scope, would violate SAP design rules, or simply did not receive enough votes compared to other ideas.

You can visit the influence pages (see links above) and navigate to All Improvement Requests on the left side panel. Next, scroll down on the left side and choose a status filter to read details about any of these varying developments in the develop phase.