Change Recording for Non-ABAP Applications

Use

You can use change recording to record information about changes to development objects that have not yet been transported in the non-ABAP development systems of your system landscape and to manage changes. Creation, change, and delete procedures are recorded in change lists. Every element of a change list corresponds to a change version of a development object in your non-ABAP development system.

Using the display of the change versions in the Change Organizer, you can see at all times which changes were made by whom and at what time.

In the Change Organizer you can also set up transports that include all changes of all users that have not yet been transported or only those of a specific user. In addition, you can transport these changes to other systems. This ensures that your own changes are not activated and released for transport by another user by accident. With the change recording you can also easily ensure that no changed objects are omitted from the transport and that changes are transported completely.

Depending on your tasks you can use the Change Organizer for different purposes:

Development teams can use the Change Organizer to view their own change lists, edit them, and to follow their life cycle.
Quality managers can use the Change Organizer as a tool for monitoring development activities. In this way you can see who in the development team made which changes and transported them.
Project managers can use the Change Organizer to transfer development tasks to change lists and to distribute these to members of a development team.

Change recording functions as a complete tool that supports both development teams and project leaders in their work, as well as making quality assurance easier.

Integration

The following graphic shows the Change Organizer in combination with the Transport Organizer in an example landscape. The system landscape consists of a CTS system and a Portal development system, a Portal test system, and a Portal productive system. The Change Organizer is integrated into the development system and communicates with the Transport Organizer in the CTS system. All transport requests are forwarded using Deploy Web Services and imported into the test and productive systems.

Prerequisites

Non-ABAP development system: SAP NetWeaver 7.3 with usage type EP Core - Application Portal
CTS System: SAP enhancement package 1 for SAP NetWeaver 7.0 Support Package 7 ABAP + Java
Change recording is activated in your non-ABAP development system.

Caution

Activate change recording for all required subtrees at the start of your development activity and keep activated. Remember that changes are not recorded when change recording is deactivated. If you activate change recording during a running development activity, there is the risk that the data status is inconsistent in the target system.

Recommendation

If you want to activate change recording at a later time during the running development activity, first manually transport the changes that have already been made to the subtree for which you want to record changes. This produces the current status in the target system and avoids inconsistent data statuses.

For more information, see the online documentation for your application.

Activities

The following graphic represents the life cycle of a change list from the different options for creating it through to releasing it. It also gives you a step-by-step overview of how you can use the Change Organizer.

Life Cycle of Change Lists

Create Change Lists

With change lists you can manage changes to development objects and attach them to a transport request together. You can create change lists of different types:
- You can create changes lists manually in the Change Organizer ( 1.A ).
  
  For more information: Creating Change Lists
- If a development object ( 2 ) is created in a development workbench, this is defined in a change list. Either the change list that was already selected in the Change Organizer as the default is used for this or a new change list is created automatically ( 1.B ).
  
  Note
  
  You can control this automation using system settings in SAP NetWeaver Administrator.
  
  For more information: Configuring the Change Organizer
  
  For more information on how to preselect change lists, see Preselecting Change Lists .
Modify or Create Development Objects

Development objects are created and modified in the development workbench in your system landscape. These changes are recorded as change versions in change lists. In change lists, change versions where the content is dependent are summarized as procedures. Procedures with content dependencies are grouped as related procedures.
Modify Change Lists (Optional)

In the Change Organizer you can modify change lists and the change versions that they contain as long as the change lists have the status Open .

For more information: Modifying Change Lists
Activate Change Lists

If you do not want to make any further changes to a change list, activate this change list. The change versions that it contains can then no longer be changed, moved, or deleted. However, the related development objects can be edited again without conflict since they are no longer part of an open change list.

The most up-to-date change versions at the time of activation are used when transporting a change list. Aside from these change versions, information about the change list itself is retained and delivered with the transport.

A change list must have status Active to be able to release it for transport.

For more information: Activating Change Lists
Release Change Lists for Transport or Download Export File

You have the following options for transporting an active change list:
- Attach the change list to a transport request and use the Change Organizer to transport it. The change list then has status Released for Transport .
  
  For more information: Releasing Change Lists for Transport
- Download the export file of the change list and transport it manually using the Import Service in the connected development system. You do not need a transport request.
  
  For more information: Transporting the Export File of a Change List
If you release a change list for transport, it is possible for consistency reasons that older, previously-active change lists (predecessor change lists) are automatically released as well. For more information about dependencies between change lists, see Ensuring Consistency when Transporting Change Lists .
Release Transport Requests

In the Transport Organizer you can release the transport request with your change lists for transport through your system landscape.

For more information, refer to the documentation under Transporting Non-ABAP Objects in Change and Transport System .