Processing a Release Cycle
You can use release cycles to create and process normal, urgent, administrative, and general changes, as well as defect corrections, based on the release plan.
Prerequisites
For a selected change control landscape, at least one release cycle must be available. It is used as a copy template for the cycle to be created. The go live dates and other data of the release cycle are automatically adjusted by the system.
If there is no release cycle for a change control landscape, you must create the first cycle manually.
Process
The release manager creates a release cycle based on a release, and enters the relevant data.
The change manager sets the phase of the release cycle to “Scope”. The system displays the guided procedure for creating task lists. For more information, see Creating Task Lists.
The relevant change documents are created and assigned to the release cycle. As soon as development starts, the phase is set to “Build”.
When the planned activities are carried out for a release during the “Build” phase, requests for change and change documents are created and assigned to release cycles.
When a release cycle is switched from “Build” to “Test”, all change documents assigned to this change cycle must have the status “Successfully Tested”. If there are change documents that do not have this status, the system does not perform the phase switch. Instead, it displays an error message telling you that some change documents must be reassigned to a successor release, or that the documents must have the correct status “Successfully Tested”. You need to reassign every change document separately and manually using the “Change cycle assignment” action.
When a release is going live, that is, when the status is switched to “Deploy”, only the changes that have been successfully tested are imported into the production system, depending on their status. Change documents that are not finished must be reassigned to a successor release and will be imported into the production system with the go live of the successor release.
When a release cycle is switched from “Deploy” to “Hypercare”, all assigned change documents must be finished. If there are unfinished change documents, they are reassigned to the successor release cycle during the cycle switch.
NoteUnfinished change documents can be change documents that either do not have the status “Canceled” or “Final”, or that have the status “Final” but still contain transport requests in the buffer of the production system.
The system performs an additional check whether any change documents or requests for change that have an ITPPM project assigned are allowed to be reassigned to the next cycle. If the ITTPM project does not allow the transaction to be reassigned, the system displays an error message.
End of the note. NoteThe successor release is automatically determined by the system. The following applies:
If change documents of minor release 1.4, for example, must be reassigned, they are automatically reassigned to release 1.5 provided that release 1.5 already exists (and minor release 1.5 is in the same system landscape and the same branch).
If a minor release 1.5 is planned but does not have a change cycle assigned yet, a new change cycle is created automatically as a copy of the minor release change cycle 1.4.
If the successor release of minor release 1.5 is major release 2.0 and the major release is not performed in the same system landscape (in the same branch), the change documents are reassigned to minor release 2.1, assuming that minor release 2.1 is performed in the same branch as minor release 1.4.
At the cutover point from the development branch to the maintenance branch, make sure that any changes made to objects using change documents assigned to minor release 1.4 are also implemented in major release 2.0.To do so, either use the retrofit feature or adjust the changed objects manually.
End of the note. NoteIn case there are any change documents created in/assigned to the release cycle after its phase has been switched to “Hypercare”, the same behavior applies when switching a release cycle to “Retired” or “Canceled”. If there are still unfinished change documents, they are displayed in a popup. You can decide whether they should be transferred to the successor release.
End of the note.