In this blog post, I would like to explain the steps to get maximum value from SAP Cloud ALM quickly and also a recommended sequence. You can watch the video linked below or just read as you prefer.

so lets first meet the characters in the story

These characters follow the sequence below

1. Requesting SAP Cloud ALM
2. Initial setup by Administrator
3. Project Setup by Project lead
4. Business scope setup by Business Experts
5. Fit To Standard Workshops
6. Requirements approval and decomposition
7. Test Preparation
8. Change and Deployment Management
9. Test Execution and Defect Management
10. Analytics and Reporting

 

This post is also cross-linked to many other sources so you don’t need to struggle to find the relevant information, so let’s get started

 

Requesting SAP Cloud ALM

The first thing you need to check is usage rights. Usage rights are included in the SAP Cloud Service subscription and in SAP Enterprise Support so in all likelihood you already have an entitlement and you just need to make use of it.

You can follow this procedure and request SAP Cloud ALM from SAP for me.

Initial Setup by Administrator

The details are documented in this guide. Basically, the job of the administrator is to ensure

• Users are onboarded and ensure they have appropriate authorization roles based on their responsibilities in User Management

• Optional integrations such as Integration to SAP Central Business Configuration and SAP Cloud Integration Automation service are evaluated and configured
• Check that Landscape  and Tenant data is available in the Landscape management
• Creation of System Groups to be used by Projects subsequently. (This can also be done later, please refer change and deployment section in this Blog Post)

 

Project Setup by Project Lead

Before you set up a Project, you may want to know What is what in SAP Cloud ALM

Given a user has the authorization role of a Project Administrator or a Project lead, this person can set up the project in these easy steps

1. Select a Roadmap Template from the SAP Activate methodology. This converts the roadmap instructions into actionable and trackable tasks
2. Set the appropriate access level. Default is restricted.
3. Setup Optional Integration to SAP Central Business Configuration.
4. Setup Timeboxes which include a combination of Phases and Milestones and also as an option agile methodology using sprints
5. Setup Teams and assign persons to appropriate project roles in a team
6. Setup Scopes as explained in the next section
7. Assign Landscape to the Project via a Deployment plan assignment ( (This can also be done later, please refer change and deployment section in this Blog Post)

 

If required you can add a lot of flexibility to the project by setup custom phases, roles, tags, workstreams, and deliverables for the Project to use. You can also use Excel Upload to bring content quickly to the Project

 

Scope Setup by Business Process Experts and Project Lead

The Project always has a charter or an objective. The Project has a scope. Scope in SAP Cloud ALM has a special meaning. It’s an entity that denotes a collection of solution scenarios which in turn constitute solution processes. This content is pre-loaded into SAP Cloud ALM from Enterprise Architecture Reference Library ( EARL).

The project lead in consultation with Business Process experts should decide

• How many scopes the Project should have
• Should a scope be restricted to one Solution Package or multiple
• which solution Processes should be set in scope for the Project

Fit to standard Workshops

SAP Cloud ALM enables you to expedite the time required to narrow down decisions on how close you can stay to SAP standard and which requirements, gaps I need to fulfill, and which extensions are really required. You can do this easily by reviewing the pre-loaded BPMN diagrams with Business Process experts and collecting requirements in the proper Business Process context.

That way you can eliminate all offline and outdated excel sheets and have completely alive and up-to-date environments. As the requirements proceed in developing the Business Process experts can still monitor Solution Process traceability ensuring the focus on process centricity is never lost

 

Requirements approval and decomposition

Requirements collected from the Fit to standard process are prioritized and categorized. This can be done in multiple ways for example using priority attributes, workstreams, or tags. You can easily extend the workstreams list using an Excel upload and the tag list via quick creation. Then the Requirements should be taken through an approval process and once approved the Requirement can be broken down into user stories and sub-tasks. To expedite this process you can download the template

and then use Excel upload and upload multiple requirements along with their user stories and sub-tasks

 

Test Preparation

The advantages of using SAP Cloud ALM for testing are many

• It can be easily connected to the Test automation tool for SAP S/4HANA Cloud. Even the results of your test executions are automatically available in SAP Cloud ALM once the integration is set up.
• You can maintain manual test cases easily even via Excel Upload
• You get out-of-the-box reporting for manual and automated test cases together

This Blog post can help you understand the testing process.

When you scope a process, a skeleton for the test case can be easily created

This saves a lot of time and increases accuracy as you can selectively decide which process steps are relevant for testing. When the test cases are prepared, they can be assigned to Requirements or user stories

Change and Deployment Management

SAP Cloud ALM also enables you for maintaining change records and also transport orchestration. One of the best sources to understand this is this Blog Post.

SAP Cloud ALM provides you with capabilities to automatically detect your connected systems in landscape management where connected products are referred to as Service Types.

once you validate that the tenant data is correct, you can create system Groups

indicating in which role these systems(tenants) are planned to be used

SAP Cloud ALM offers an entity called Feature which acts as the change record and orchestrator for Deployment. It’s important to understand how Requirements, Features, and user stories work together. A Requirement is broken down into smaller units called user stories and these user stories are assigned to Features for Deployment. So Feature can be considered a delivery vehicle that offers a route to production.

Possible options are

Feature -> Production ( in case of Bug Fix)

User Story -> Feature -> Production

Requirement ->  User Story -> Feature -> Production

so you get the idea. The feature is the entity that will bring functionality to production.

 

This entity feature uses a timeline called Release which indicates key events

To manage Release and Landscape together, a larger entity called Deployment Plan is created

which can be assigned to multiple projects. This ensures multiple projects can use the same Release timeline.

Features once created are moved to production following the Release Timelines

Features also contain transports that can be deployed to production

Test execution

Before features can be deployed to production, tests need to be conducted.  Test execution can be tracked at  a step level

if results are not as expected then defects can be raised

Defects can be assigned to persons or teams

 

The test progress can be easily tracked by predefined reports

Analytics and Reporting

SAP Cloud ALM delivers a Project overview by default

The cards shown can be easily finetuned as per your needs which is also explained in detail here

On Top of that, there are multiple Analytical reports delivered out of the box

 

 

Important Links

SAP Cloud ALM FAQ

Application Help

Expert Portal for Implementation

SAP Cloud ALM Community call

Support Portal

Master Blog Post

Media Center for Demos

Next steps

As we publish many blog posts its easy to get lost so please bookmark

Expert Portal for Implementation

and

Master Blog Post

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