Introduction
With this blog post I would like to summarize my key take aways of the SAP SolEd19 in Heidelberg. As an SAP ALM Consultant, I focused primarily on the lectures in the field of implementation, ie classic SAP project business. The key take aways reflect my personal view and are a summary of my visited sessions.
Enabling the Next Generation of Customer Success
The keynote focused on how the support for the Intelligent Enterprises takes place. Andreas Heckmann guide us through this exciting session and showed us which aspects will apply in the future for On Premise, Cloud and Hybrid scenarios.
What I see not too much reflected in the triangle is the inclusion of the sap partners. These are only mentioned in the plan and build phase, but this involvement could take place even earlier, and is also important during the run phase.
Source: SAP
Today and tomorrow
Wieland Schreiner demonstrates the architecture behind the new Cloud ALM solution. Key features of this new architecture are clear Scaling, Mico Services, Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI / CD). It is based on the SAP Cloud Platform and Cloud Foundry. If this architecture succeeds in this way, I believe SAP's ALM solution is very well prepared for the digital future.
Three strategic ALM solutions to match customer reality!
Marc Thier, Head of Customer Experience & Solutions, makes it clear that SAP will have three strategic ALM solutions in the future.
- SAP Solution Manager with Focused Build and Focused Insights
- Focused Run
- SAP Cloud ALM
Source: SAP
Product road map for SAP Cloud ALM
The certainly very ambitious road map provides that starting from 2022 the complete ALM process is supported. Personally, I am looking forward to the first functions in the field of Test Management, which are planned for 2020 already. What I also learned during this presentation is the term "minimum viable scope". I associate this with the term in the Lean Startup environment "minimum viable product" which means nothing more than a product equipped with the most necessary core functions.
Source: SAP
Focused Build Support for Conversion Projects
It can be assumed that many so-called conversion projects are planned in the next few years. This involves the transformation of an existing SAP system to the new SAP S/4HANA release. This process is now supported with Focused Build.
Source: SAP
Test Management in SAP Solution Manager and Focused Build
In this area, the SP08, SP09 and SP10 for Solution Manager and SP03 and SP04 for Focused Build once again delivered many useful functions, which were largely developed on the basis of customer requests. I'm glad to see that also some of my Influence Requests have been realized. At this point, hands up for the entire Test Management DEV Team from SAP - good job!!
Ohhh yess, online editing of test documents is now possible!
Source: SAP
It goes too far to describe all the individual improvements, so here are my favorites:
- Edit Test Documents Online
- Direct Access to the Signature in Manual Test Execution
- Business partner search
- Test plan / package copy improvement
- Priority attribute
- Release status / Mass test plan update
SAP Cloud ALM Test Management
Now it gets really exciting - for the first time we see some mock ups for test management in SAP Cloud ALM. There are only Lab Previews but the look & feel is going to the right direction. The UI's are build with SAP Fiori 3.0. If SAP succeed in developing these mock ups, I strongly looking forward to working with them. Simple, reduced to the max and easy to use - that rocks !!
Source: SAP
Source: SAP
What's New in Process Management of SAP Solution Manager 7.2 and Focused Build
Again, many new features and optimizations were delivered in this area. Here is an overview:
- Assign test cases to interface elements
- Provide the check out date of documents as a column
- Enable implicit personal settings for column widths
- Enable setting for columns width in column browser
- Simplify the assignment of existing documents
Show only unique documents in search results list for existing documents - Improve where used list
- Provide reference IDs in file download
- Enable the edit online for MS PowerPoint
- Use a date picker for date fields
- Diagrams open in display mode by default
- Export of diagram entities to MS Excel
- Tooltip appears when mouse is over any part of the lanes
I am very pleased about this realized improvement request with 29 votes 🙂
Source: SAP
Source: SAP
Focused Build FixPace (SP4)
With SP4 it is now possible in Focused Build to handle the Fix Pace as well. This is especially needed during the hypercare and surgery phase. However, it is important to check in detail whether the new Fix Pace covers individual needs or whether it is better to use the standard ChaRM process.
Source: SAP
Partner Influence Session for SAP Cloud ALM
This session is one of my absolute highlights. Sharath Shasheendran has prepared a Design Thinking Session for us SAP partners and we have collected ideas that reflect the requirements from the point of view of SAP partner to SAP Cloud ALM. The SAP partners are an essential part of the SAP ALM ecosystem and it is nice to see that we can actively influence the development and the vision of the product. That's the way it has to go, and that's a win-win-win for SAP, the SAP partners, and the customers.
In my group, we have the following aspirations, formulated as a user story for the product SAP Cloud ALM: "As <SAP Partner> From SAP Cloud ALM I need the <support of an agile approach> in order to achieve the goal of being able to handle <multi and cross projects> ". At this point a "shout out" to our group and all SAP partners who have participated in this Design Thinking Session Community is the key to success!
Source: SAP
Closing remarks
Quotes from Steve Jobs were mentioned by the audience. For me, the confirmation that the direction in the field of SAP ALM is definitely right and the issues of customer centricity and simplicity have definitely arrived in the area of SAP ALM and is also being developed strictly thereafter.
That was the last SAP SolEd, because from next year the event is called then SAP ALM Summit. This underlines once again that in future, in addition to the SAP Solution Manager, further ALM solutions will be in strategic focus.
Last but not least, I would like to thank SAP and the entire ALM community for this great event.
In this sense - see you next time and don't forget: "The digital future needs a strong, agile ALM - so let's write history again".
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