Issue Tracking

Purpose

Issue tracking is an interface between your support organization and SAP support. SAP support staff can coordinate the cooperation between you and SAP support, with this function, for example by proposing solutions for problems.

With this function, you can monitor issues and top issues which have been identified in a business process or solution during production processing, and must be resolved. You can trace the entire life-cycle of your issues and their solutions.

Issue types:

●     Issue

Issue which must be reacted to, because it can disturb production processing, now or in future. This issue type is more than just errors or problems which can be reported in a Service Desk message. The cause of such issues can be:

○     System administration: e.g. hardware does not satisfy the requirements of full-load processing

○     Operational processing: e.g. poor performance in certain process steps

○     Administration or organization: e.g. planning too few training courses for an implementation project; no clearly-defined resposibility for monitoring systems and applications

The priority of issues can be:

○     Low: The problem is not serious.

○     Medium: The issue is not immediately serious, but should be resolved

○     High: Production processing is (partially) threatened, or could be threatened

○     Very High: Financial loss threatens or has occurred

 

●     Top Issue

More serious problem than a normal issue, or a set of similar problems. Top issues allow the problem to be discussed, e.g. at management level.

The Top Issue „Sales & Distribution Process Performance“ comprises the following problems:

■      Performance problem in the transaction Create Customer (VA01)

■      Performance problem creating deliveries (VL01N, VL04 batch), because the system repeats checks

Prerequisites

You have:

●     assigned the required roles to the users, and created authorization objects according to SAP note 834534.

●     an allocation contract number for Expertise on Demand requests

Integration

From an issue, you can:

●     create Service Desk messages.

●     order a Service.

●     manage the assignment to a change request.

You can also create Reports for Issues.

Process Flow

       1.      You or SAP Support identify a problem in your solution which requires action (issue).

       2.      You or SAP Support create a new issue in SAP Solution Manager Issue Tracking directly, or from a service. The SAP Support enters a recommendation to SAP Support Services.

       3.      You contact SAP and request a Support Service which solves it. The link between the issue and service is retained.

       4.      SAP support or the support team perform the service for your solution landscape at your site, or remotely.

       5.      While performing the service, SAP Support updates the problem information in the Issue Tracking.

       6.      You can analyze open issues.

       7.      Implement the recommendations for the problems.

       8.      Update the issue status in the SAP Solution Manager, and close it.

Result

You can trace the entire lifecycle of a (top) issue, and all activities connected with it.