How to manage Objects using gCTS in S/4HANA 2020

[taranam]

DevOps is catching up pace in S/4HANA World where any new customers starting their Greenfield Implementation journey are evaluating use cases and benefits of CI and CD framework in their landscape. SAP also understands the need of the hour and recent open SAP Session "Efficient DevOps with SAP" was a step towards it .GitHub usage for other technologies have been there since long and now for SAP its available since 2019 using gCTS app.

I had covered the 1909 set up of gCTS app in How to manage objects using gCTS  . Now with 2020 SAP has improved the app UX and its features, so thought to share experience of working with 2020 version and how the configurations are simplified .I will be only covering delta settings here which has changed in 2020 system as compared to my 1909 blog. New features of gCTS in 2020 are well by Karin Spiegel.

Let us see sequence of key steps that are required to push objects to remote Git repositories. The steps have significantly been simplified in 2020 version

1. Activate the Fiori app and assign the role to user for accessing the Fiori app .


2. Using Wizard, Enable the gCTS in the current system by providing the details for below parameters


3. Perform Health Check to validate that the required authorizations and configurations are in place
   


4. Configure the Repositories: Create Repository by providing details listed here


5. Manage the Configurations and the Configurations for the Repository; parameters to be set in Configurations are listed here


6. Clone the Repository: Clone the GitHub Repository to the ABAP system by clicking on Clone Repository


7. Now we are ready to use gCTS - You can push the Objects manually (By adding the Object using Push Objects Option under Objects tab) or automatically by releasing the Transport request.

Once the Object is pushed ; you will find the information on whether its success/error under the Log Tab and all the Commits to Repository will be available in the Commits tab

 

And the most recent Commit also will be available on the top as well

So while configuring gCTS in S/4HANA 2020 ; you will notice the below improvements /changes

• 
  
  
  
  • New user friendly Wizard on click of Enable button is available to configure the gCTS
  
  
  • New feature Health Check to validate system readiness for gCTS usage
  
  
  • Support for Configuration TRs is now available
  
  
  • Feature to disable automatic Push and Pull is available
  
  
  • Under Manage User Settings (new feature) ,If you set user-specific authentication, you don’t need to set authentication for repositories. If both user-specific and repository-specific authentication is defined, gCTS uses the user-specific authentication.
  
  
  • In Objects tab we have 3 new features
  
  
  • In case of Conflicts , new feature Conflict Resolution is available
  
  
  • Format of Repositories : In 2020 data will be stored in JSON format for newly created repositories. XML is still supported . New Option under Properties tab is used to define it
  
  
  
  

Also you can refer central note 2821718 for more details and ensure that all the Notes applicable for your current version have been implemented . So in this blog post I just covered how the configurations have been simplified with 2020 version and now configuring gCTS in system would be very straightforward .

So this app is baby step towards DevOps in S/4HANA ; next step would be to create CI n CD set up and evaluate Use Cases for Customers since at the end we have to evaluate its potential benefits for a customer.

So if you are already using CI and CD framework in your customers please do share use cases implemented .

Regards
Taranam