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Function documentationChange Reporting

 

The change reporting function provides information about which and when changes were introduced into a software system landscape. For example, information about the current and historical values of technical configuration parameters, transport requests, or software maintenance activities can be provided from monitored systems. Change reporting can be accessed from the Root Cause Analysis work center via System Analysis.

The change reporting function is the end-to-end solution operation standard to analyze, compare, and track changes in the software landscape. This ensures that all software changes remain transparent and traceable, which in turn increases the quality and availability of the software landscape. The change processes can be monitored continuously throughout the software application lifecycle.

Change reporting is a stand-alone function as well as part of change analysis: You can access it as described above, or when viewing change details using change analysis.

Integration

Change reporting is based on the data of the configuration and change database (CCDB) within SAP Solution Manager. Any change of configuration items and the configuration data itself is stored in the configuration stores of the CCDB. The configuration stores are part of the CCDB and contain all configuration details. Additionally, all detected changes are aggregated into SAP NetWeaver BW into the change analysis info provider to provide change statistics.

Prerequisites

You have the required authorizations for the Root Cause Analysis work center. For more information on prerequisites and change reporting system architecture, see the Change Reporting User Guide on SAP Service Marketplace at Start of the navigation path http://service.sap.com/diagnostics Next navigation step Tools in End-to-End Root Cause Analysis. End of the navigation path

Features

Data Viewer

The data viewer provides a snapshot of all the changes at a given time for the selected system. For each system, a tab page is displayed. You can display the content (that is, the configuration stores) either grouped by landscape or by alias and then navigate through the details. The default time of the snapshot is the current date which you can change by selecting another timestamp.

  • Navigation tree

    Displays the landscape and configuration store content at the time that you have selected in the Timestamp field. The system displays the store groups (for example, ABAP SOFTWARE) and the related store entities. When choosing a configuration store, the system displays detailed information on changes in the store list.

  • Filtering and searching

    In the filter area, you can define filter conditions for store groups, for individual stores, and for store elements. Use the search entry field to find and display system landscape elements. You can use asterisks (*) and plus signs (+) as wildcards. The asterisk replaces any number of alpha-numeric characters, the plus sign stands for a single alpha-numeric character.

    Activate the filter conditions by choosing Apply. The system performs a filtering of the configuration stores based on the defined conditions. The search value has no effect on the current filter condition. In the search area, a search value can be used to find items in the selected configuration stores. Resetting the filters also deactivates the search. Note that a green symbol in the Filters or the Search area indicates that a filter condition or a search value have been applied.

    The content of the navigation tree is updated according to the applied conditions. The search result is marked in the navigation tree with a lens icon. In the store list and in the store content list the result lines are highlighted.

  • Store list

    Displays the configuration stores contained in the selected store group. The list contains the name, the alias / subalias of the store (which is useful for filtering), the store type, and information on the current and historical store states. The state qualifier “outdated” indicates that the last known store state is older than two days and the last known state at that time is displayed.

    Click the Store State Log and the More Details symbols to expand the table row to display the available information.

  • Store content

    Displayed when you choose an entry in the store list . It varies depending on the store type:

    Store Type

    Store Type Content

    Store Content List Columns

    XML

    XML format

    Element Name, Value, History

    Text

    Plain ASCII text file

    Lines, History

    Table

    ABAP table (n keys and n values)

    Example for an ABAP_COMP_SPLEVEL store:History, COMPONENT, RELEASE, EXTRELEASE

    INI

    .ini file (table with 2 keys and 1 value)

    History, Section, Parameter, Value

    Property

    .property file (table with 1 key and 1 value)

    History, PARAMETER, VALUE

    Event

    ABAP transport request event (timestamp, n keys and m values)

    Example for an ABAP_TRANSPORTS store: TIMESTAMP, TRKORR, AS4TEXT, TRFUNCTION, TRFUNCTIONT, OBJECTS

    The displayed content is a snapshot of the selected store at the time selected above. Click the History icon in the Store Content list to expand the table row and display the available history information. History in this context means all changes that were not part of the initial data upload when the store was created.

    Note that configuration stores of the type event do not provide history information because the data is event-based, and not snapshot-based. Instead, they show a timestamp.

    In addition to a search function and the option to download the results to Microsoft Excel, the header of the Store Content list contains filtering and navigation pushbuttons:

    • History Filter: Toggles the list content between displaying all elements (white dot) and displaying only elements with available historical values (green dot). This feature is deactivated for XML stores.

    • History: Sets line selection to the next element with available historical values.

    • Found: Sets line selection to the next element on the list that fits the search criteria.

    • Incl. deleted: By default, deleted elements are not displayed in the Store Content list. This pushbutton toggles the list content between displaying current elements (white dot) and displaying all elements, including deleted ones (green dot). Deleted elements are highlighted in red.

    • Deleted: Sets line selection to the next deleted element.

    The Element History sub-list also shows the Modification Type (modification, addition, or deletion).

Comparison Tool

The comparison tool provides information on what has changed in a technical system between two specified points in time or what is different between two technical systems from a configuration point of view.

  • Reference and custom system

    While the reference technical system is the technical system selected when starting the change reporting function, you can choose the custom technical system that you would like to use for comparison. For either technical systems, you can choose a timestamp. The system displays the aggregated number of changes that is calculated as the sum of all elements that were added, deleted, and changed during the defined time frame. The number is “0” for newly added empty stores.

    Note that only those technical systems are available for selection as custom technical systems that have the same system type as the reference technical system (for example, ABAP or Java).

    When activating the multi-compare option for the custom technical system, you can mark several elements of identical types for comparison. In ABAP technical systems, this refers to multiple instances, in Java technical systems it refers to multiple server nodes.

  • Compare options

    Note that the Compare pushbutton is only enabled if entities of the same type are selected for comparison.

    You can choose between fast or deep comparison. Deep comparison compares all entities of the selected technical systems and stores the results in the result summary. The fast comparison mode skips all identical entities. In this mode the speed of the comparison is much faster, which is especially helpful for the comparison of XML entities. The result summary from a fast comparison only contains changed entities.

  • Comparison results

    The result summary shows an overview of the comparison results including the status. You can download the results to Microsoft Excel.

    The following statuses are possible and displayed for the reference and custom technical systems:

    “empty”

    Only for reference selection entities (as the parent node for the comparison)

    “=”

    Compare algorithm did not detect any changes.

    “≠”

    Changes were detected.

    The entry in the Timestamp field shows the time of the entity change data collection, that is, when the change information was pulled from the system.

    When selecting an entry in the summary, the details are displayed. The Status column displays an icon to specify the status of the comparison. Possible values include “Identical”, “Not in Reference”, “Not in Custom”, “Modified”, “Modified in Children”, and “Compare not allowed / not relevant”. Note that the Result Details list also offers a Filters selection field, which depends on the previously selected Comparison Types:

    • If Fast comparison is active, the Result Details filter setting is ignored, and only different entities are shown.

    • If Deep comparison is active, the Result Details filter setting determines the display of “Show All”, “Show only Differences”, or “Show only Identicals”.

Activities

  1. To start change reporting, choose System Analysis on the Root Cause Analysis work center.

  2. In the Detailed Selection list, select one or more systems for which you want to run the report.

  3. In the header area of the Detailed Selection list, click Change Reporting to launch the change reporting application. You can decide whether you want to display the reporting on the same screen or in a new window.

  4. Choose the Viewer or the Compare tab page depending on your information needs, and use the features as described above.