Release Assessment and Scope Dependency Tool(RASD 2.0) Released to Customers

Release Assessment and Scope Dependency Tool (RASD) has been given an upgrade!

What is the Release Assessment and Scope Dependency Tool
What does Release Assessment and Scope Dependency Tool do?
How is RASD 2.0 different from RASD 1.0?
How to access the Release Assessment and Scope Dependency Tool?
How to effectively use the Release Assessment and Scope Dependency Tool??
Other features
New Features with the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2308 Release?
Example Use cases

What is the Release Assessment and Scope Dependency Tool?

The Release Assessment and Scope Dependency (RASD) tool is a  simple, self-learning tool for the customers of SAP S/4HANA  Cloud, Public Edition. This tool enables the ease of consumption and adoption of impacts, improvements, and innovations which are rolled out with each release and upgrade.

It presents to the customers, a tailor-made list of deleted, deprecated, new and changed objects like apps, APIs  CDS views, Scope Items etc. for each SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition  release and continuous delivery. This list is filtered based on the customer’ s used and activated scope which means that the customers only see the changes relevant to them and not the entire list.

Customers get a time window of approximately three weeks between Release to Customer(RTC) and release. RASD helps the customers to narrow down to the changes which need immediate attention and perform regression tests which are crucial during the short window of upgrades.

In addition to the impacts, RASD also shows the customers all the new and improved features(based on their scope) which  can add value for their business

What does Release Assessment and Scope Dependency Tool do?

It is an add-on tool for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition Customers, which provides a personalized view of SAP’s What’s New Viewer

Every half-yearly release of SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public edition, brings in many improvements and innovations. Since the number of features is often large, it might be challenging for the customers to consume them. Release Assessment & Scope Dependency Tool serves as a ready reckoner for customer’s release preparation by providing a personalized list of features. Hence,  it aims to make a customer’s upgrade experience smooth and seamless.

How is RASD 2.0 different from RASD 1.0?

The principal functionality of both versions of the tool remains the same. To access RASD 1.0, customers had to request access via their Customer Success Partners(CSP). This is no longer the case with RASD 2.0 . Customers can login with their S-user IDs. Partners can login with their customer’s S-user IDs.

RASD 2.0 comes with Fiori based screens for a uniform user experience for SAP customers.

*RASD 1.0 is no longer updated with data. This system will be decommissioned soon.

How to access the Release Assessment and Scope Dependency Tool?

There are three ways to access this tool.

• Access the URL www.sap.com/rasd and login with a customer linked S-user ID
• RASD 2.0 is also available on SAP for Me (Portfolio & Products-> SAP S/4HANA Cloud -> Additional Information -> Selected Content)
• The URL is also available on the help portal of SAP S/4HANA Cloud , Public Edition. Scroll down to the section “What’s New” to see the details.

How to effectively use the Release Assessment and Scope Dependency Tool?

We recommend that you analyse each card in the tool so that you do not miss out on important updates.

Home screen has four filters: Tenants, Region, Release and Scope. By default, used scope is displayed. Customers have option to see the overall scope (Release details) or their activated scope. “Used Scope” here refers to:

1. App, APIs and CDS views used by the customers in the last three months.

and

2. Scope items used by the customers in last three months.

Release Assessment and Scope Dependency Landing Page

The data marked in the above picture is filtered by the usage of Apps, APIs and CDS views by the customer.

• Deletions and Deprecations:
  • Usage Based Impact: This card is visible on selecting either used or activated scope. It shows the deleted and deprecated objects based on the customer’s usage (used apps, APIs and CDS views during last few months )for the selected release. On the card you see a summary of changes . Click on this card to get the details of the personalised list of changes for you . Click on the “Download Impact” button to get a detailed report in a spreadsheet format .
  • Usage Based Catalogs: This card shows the deleted and deprecated business catalogs and renamed Fiori application tiles. Clicking on this card will take you a detailed view showing catalogs id, catalogs title successor catalogs , new application name etc. This information can be downloaded to a spreadsheet using the “Download Catalogs” button on the card. This information is derived from the usage of catalogs and apps by the customers in the last few months.
• Changed and Must Know
  • Usage Based Improvements: This card is visible on selecting either used or activated scope. This card shows the changed, and “must-know” What’s New items  for the customer’s used scope/activated scope for the selected release. The card contains a “Download Improvements” button, which lets the user download the same information into a spreadsheet. When you click on this card, it shows a tabular view of this information. As the above two cards, this card is also based on usage of apps, APIs and CDS views.

The data shown in the cards marked in the above picture is filtered by scope item usage of the customer.

The cards below are filtered according to the scope item usage of customer.

• Scope item details: This card shows the most impacted scope items among other things. This impact is measured by the number of What’s New line items linked with a particular scope item.
• Personalized What’s New Viewer: This card presents a filtered What’s New Viewer, filtered by the customers’ used /activated scope. It can be considered akin to a personal What’s New list.
• New Features**: This card shows all the new features available with a certain release. Object types include APIs, APPs, Authorizations and many more.

• Localization Features: This card shows the objects applicable for the selected regions(in the Region filter). It also provides links to the localization toolkit and Roadmap explorer.
• Summary**: This card gives the summary of all the changes; this can be filtered based on lines of business or categories.

(**These are not available in the default view. They need to be activated using the “Manage Cards” button)

Other features

• Upcoming Events: Shows important release and upgrade related dates.
• Filter for Content Version(Relevant for 3SL customers): A filter labelled “Content Upgrade Relevant” is  provided on the detailed section of each card . This filter can be used to drill-down to the features which are dependent on the latest content version.
• The “Download” feature: Some of the cards on the homepage has a “Download” button. Using this feature, you can download a comprehensive list of deletions, deprecations, changes (depending on the button that you choose) into a spreadsheet. Here is  sample header of the spreadsheet for “Download Impact” button.

***Clicking on “Download Catalogs” results in two spreadsheets, one for deleted/deprecated catalogs and one for the renamed applications.

New Features with the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2308 Release

These are the latest features in the Release Assessment and Scope Dependency Tool with the 2308 release of SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition

• “Where used list” for CDS views and deleted apps: This view will show:
  • Custom  CDS views based on the standard CDS views which have been deleted, deprecated, or changed.
  • A list of all the business catalogs associated with deleted / deprecated applications.
• UI/UX related changes: Any changes with respect to the Solution capability “Fiori UX Technology” will be shown here. This is a generic list and not filtered by usage.
• Availability in seven languages: The tool is now available in English, German, Chinese Simplified, Japanese, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. The language displayed depends on your browser language.
• SAP Cloud ALM compatible spreadsheet: You can now download a spreadsheet from the Release Assessment and Scope Dependency Tool, which can be uploaded to the “Tasks” app in your SAP Cloud ALM tenant. For details, please refer to the blog

What are some of the use-cases for the Release Assessment and Scope Dependency Tool ?

How  to know the impact of an upcoming release (deletions/deprecations)

1. Login to RASD via a customer S-User ID
2. Select the desired scope (default is “Used”), release, region(s), tenant(s)
3. The card “Usage Based Impact” will show the summary of the objects impacted.
4. Click on the card to know details about each of these objects.
5. Click on the “Download Impact” button to download this list to a spreadsheet.

How  to know the improvements shipped in an upcoming release (changed/must know in the What’s New Viewer) 

1. Login to RASD via a customer S-User ID
2. Select the desired scope(default is “Used”), release, region(s), tenant(s)
3. The card “Usage Based Improvements” will show the summary of the objects impacted.
4. Click on the card to know details about each of these objects.
5. Click on the “Download Improvements” button to download this list to a spreadsheet.