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Function documentationDowngrade Protection

 

The downgrade protection function tracks objects in transport requests, and reports conflicts in five scenarios when an object that is saved in two or more transport requests is released, reassigned, or imported.

For more information about the cross-system object lock, see Cross-System Object Lock.

Note Note

Downgrade protection is available only for ABAP systems.

Downgrade protection can be used in Change Request Management and in quality gate management. The function is identical, however, the user interfaces and the related terminology may differ.

If you use these functions on a regular basis and with a large amount of data, consider using the housekeeping reports as described in SAP Note 2138047Information published on SAP site.

End of the note.

Prerequisites

  • You have configured downgrade protection and the cross-system object lock in Customizing under Start of the navigation path SAP Solution Manager Next navigation step Capabilities (Optional) Next navigation step Change Control Management Next navigation step Cross-System Object Lock and Downgrade Protection End of the navigation path, globally, and locally in the development system.

    Note Note

    In Customizing, you can configure the conflict criticality for each check type as well as the systems that have custom downgrade-protection responses. For more information, see the detailed documentation for the Customizing activities in the SAP system.

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  • The SAP Solution Manager system has an up-to-date CTS plug-in version installed.

    For more information, see Technical Details of the CTS Plug-In and SAP Note 1665940Information published on SAP site.

    The import check logic depends on the central CTS import check logic for downgrade protection, which is a part of the CTS plug-in.

  • If you want to use the predecessor and the imminent downgrade checks, you have installed and distributed the CTS service plug-in to the managed systems (including development, quality assurance, and production systems). For more information, see Using the CTS Plug-In Management Web UI and SAP Note 1665940Information published on SAP site.

  • Authorization object SM_CM_DGPN has been assigned to your role so that you can explicitly ignore conflicts.

    Note Note

    In the standard SAP delivery, the following roles contain this authorization object:

    • SAP_CM_SMAN_CHANGE_MANAGER (Change Manager)

    • SAP_CM_SMAN_OPERATOR (IT Operator)

    • SAP_CM_SMAN_ADMINISTRATOR (Administrator)

    • SAP_CM_SMAN_DEVELOPER (Developer)

    • SAP_CM_SMAN_TESTER (Tester)

    • SAP_SM_QGM_CM_CHANGE (Change Manager)

    • SAP_SM_QGM_CM_TRANSPORT (IT Operator)

    • SAP_SM_QGM_CM_ALL (Administrator)

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    If you do not have one of these roles, the authorization object needs to be assigned to your user.

Features

  • In Change Request Management, the Downgrade Protection assignment block in the WebClient UI is available for change cycles and change documents. Whenever the system detects a conflict, the conflict is displayed in the assignment block. For more information, see Using the Downgrade Protection Assignment Block.

  • In quality gate management, information related to downgrade protection is displayed in the Downgrade Protection dialog box (see Using Downgrade Protection).

  • There are two ways to trigger downgrade checks:

    • Manually

      In Change Request Management, you can trigger downgrade checks from the Downgrade Protection assignment block. In quality gate management, you can trigger the check proactively from the Downgrade Protection dialog box, which you can access from the scenario overview or the change overview. The system analyzes potential release check conflicts for all open transport requests in the development system, and import check conflicts for all released transport requests in all systems into which they can be imported. This helps you to handle the conflicts before triggering the transport.

    • Automatically

      Downgrade checks are triggered automatically when transport requests are released, imported, decoupled, or assigned. They are also triggered when a change document is reassigned. If a conflict arises, the system displays a popup from which you can ignore the conflicts and continue the operation. If you cancel this popup, the conflicts are shown in the Downgrade Protection assignment block or dialog box. You can configure the system in such a way that developers and testers can ignore any automatic check. For more information, see the documentation in the Customizing activities for downgrade protection.

  • In Change Request Management, you can trigger a downgrade check from a task list. If a conflict arises, the system displays a popup notifying the user about the conflict. The user can choose to ignore the conflicts or to cancel the operation.

Note Note

The manual check analyzes all open transport requests (release check) and all importable transport requests (import check), including all corresponding target systems. The automatic check checks only the transport requests to be released or imported, and only the relevant target systems, so the automatic check checks a smaller number of transport requests.

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Downgrade Check Types

The following downgrade checks can be performed by the system:

Cross-System Object Lock

The cross-system object lock (CSOL) ensures that when an object is changed in a managed system, it is locked in the central SAP Solution Manager system. Depending on the conflict scenario, this prevents changes being made to this object in any other transport request. For more information, see Cross-System Object Lock.

Release Check

When you release a transport request, downgrade protection can detect conflicts for objects in transport requests. The conflicts are the same as those displayed by the cross-system object lock when saving the objects to the transport requests. For more information, see Release Check.

Reassign Check

The system performs this check when you reassign a change document or assign or decouple transport requests in a change document. For more information, see Reassign Check.

Predecessor Check

The system can detect conflicting predecessors, that is, preceding transport requests containing conflicts, at the time of importing transport requests or transports of copies to the production or quality assurance system. For more information, see Predecessor Check.

Imminent Check

The system can detect impending (imminent) downgrade conflicts when transport requests are imported. This kind of conflict would become an actual downgrade if you ignored the conflict. For more information, see Imminent Check.

Note Note

Import checks depend on the transport requests being imported. Any conflicts found while importing a change cycle or urgent change task list are displayed in the Downgrade Protection assignment block of the change cycle document. Any conflicts found while importing a change document are displayed in the same assignment block of the change document.

The check for potential downgrades is carried out both when you perform a preliminary import of a change (normal change or urgent change) and when you import via the task list for the change cycle. The duplicate check ensures that potential downgrades are identified even if changes belong to the same change cycle. If you plan to ignore the conflicts, pay attention to the type of import operation you are performing. If you perform a preliminary import, the system prompts you to ignore the conflicts at change level. When you later import the changes at cycle level, the system prompts you to ignore the changes again, but this time at cycle level. If you import changes only at cycle level, you have to ignore only the cycle-level conflicts.

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Caution Caution

Release check conflicts are sometimes not seen during an import check. This is because the release check reports conflicts between the same objects in different transport requests to be imported into the production system. In one particular case, they are not reported as import check conflicts: when the import order of the transport requests is the same as the release order. For example, if TR1 and TR2 have modified the same object, they result in release check conflicts. However, if TR1 is released first, TR2 is released second, and TR1 is imported first, TR2 is imported second, the system reports no conflicts during the predecessor check and the imminent check

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