New Support Package 11 released for Focused Build

[joerg_marenk]

With todays release of Focused Build SP11 for SAP Solution Manager we continue with the shipment of customer demands requested in the last Customer Connection Program. Although this program is officially over, the provided improvement requests were valuable feedback and therefore taken over in the functional scope of our product.

Enhance Pace for performing maintenance changes

We received in the past feedback from customers that they wish to have a Focused Build solution in place after their implementation project is finished. Due to technical limitations this was not possible, so customers needed to enable Change Request Management for their Maintenance activities, for example in a dual-phased system landscape. With SP11 we were able to overcome this technical limitations and are now able to provide this solution which allows customers to continue working in their well-known UI5-applications.

Supported Change Paces in Focused Build

Also dual-phased landscapes are supported, including the Retrofit-process to keep both landscapes always in sync.

Recommended Landscape for customers performing Project Implementation and Maintenance

The Enhance Pace includes the options to demand requests for change, performing bugfixing with urgent changes, process uncritical preapproved changes with standard changes or work on regular changes with normal changes. These normal changes can also be bundled in packages to be deployed together.

Scoping of Change Documents and Documentation Changes in Maintenance Branch

Together with this new change pace there are additional functionalities that are leveraged by the Fix Pace process as well, for example a new application "My Requests for Change for Approval" (an entry point for Change Managers to see directly all Requests for Change where they are entered as approver) or an improved handling of the required process documentation.

Extended support of customer fields for Requirements

Customer fields for Requirements have been available for quite a while. With the latest release we are closing the remaining functional gaps. In the Mass Change Application it is now possible to mass-edit custom-defined fields. Also the sequence of customer fields, how they are displayed in the My Requirements Application, can now be controlled by customizing. And we encountered an issue with newly added custom fields which are added in the course of a project. To bypass this we ship an update report to prevent deadlocks.

Sequence-Customizing for customer fields

Improved handling of technical solution documentation objects

So far it was only possible within our different applications (for example My Work Packages or My Work Items) to create documents like Functional Specification or Test Cases from the Documentation tab. With the newest release it is also possible to handle technical objects (assigning already existing ones or creating new ones) like transactions or configuration units without the need to jump to the respective part in the Solution Documentation. This makes the whole process less error-prone and more efficient.

Improved handling of technical objects

These and also all the other functionalities which are part of our newest Support Package you can see in the What's New Webinar taking place on February, 8th. You can register for this event, but also for the other What's New Calls (for SAP Solution Manager SPS16 and Focused Insights SP11), here. Check out Evan's blog with news about SAP Solution Manager Support Package 16.

Feel free to provide your feedback to the newest Support Package directly below this blog post, or in case of questions submit them here.

[stav_cortiz]

Hi Joerg!

Great news!!! In this case, what are the main advantages to use this Enhance Pace scenario instead of Charm?

At this moment we have to decide to implement charm in a dual landscape scenario in order to include our mantenaince project but with this new functionality probably this is not needed.

Could you provide the benefits with focus build?

 

Best regards

[joerg_marenk]

Hi Cristina,

the main benefits to use Enhance Pace would be:

• you can continue using the UI5-applications of Focused Build to control all changes in both landscapes (no differences for developers who work in both landscapes -> less training effort required)


• the workflows are already in place and you don't need to configure individual workflows


• we are shipping authorization roles that can be directly used

Hope this helps.

Best regards,

Joerg

[RiccardoEscher]

Hi Joerg,

I hope I may point out the - until now - only dot of vermouth concerning Enhance Pace: to my knowledge, you are forced to use the continual cycle (SAP1 task list variant) in the maintenance landscape, which is OK for pure Detect2Correct processes, but many SAP customers have a phased approach in their maintenance landscape too, because they are aware of the "Caution" warning here.

[joerg_marenk]

Hi Riccardo,

it's true that the SAP1-variant can cause some trouble especially when you build smaller packages of normal changes which is then bypassed by an urgent change. That's why this variant only works if you activate CSOL + DGP which is our strong recommendation.

Best regards,

Joerg

[martin_bruch]

Hi Joerg,

which group/tile do I have to use from the SolMan landing page to be able to use the Enhance Pace (where to create the Request for Change) from Focused Build or is is the same as in ChaRM.

Regards

Martin

[joerg_marenk]

Hi Martin,

to create the Request for Change you can use our "My Requests for Change" application. Check our L3-material where everything is described step-by-step.

BR, Joerg