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Procedure documentationAnalyzing Business Processes Affected by Changes

 

Use this analysis to check whether a solution documentation is affected by changes. You can specify both the relevant parts of the process structure and the relevant changes. The result of the analysis is a list of the affected nodes in the solution documentation. You can use the result to create test plans to retest the affected parts of the solution documentation after the change.

Prerequisites

  • You have created TBOMs for all executable entities in your solution documentation.

  • The TBOMs are up-to-date. The analysis results are only correct if the TBOMs are up-to-date.

    For more information about identifying errors or obsolete TBOMs, see Identifying and Handling Obsolete TBOMs.

    Note Note

    Analysis Results with Obsolete TBOMs

    You can also run analyses with TBOMs that have the status Obsolete. This status only identifies TBOMs that are potentially obsolete but the analysis results are generally accurate. An obsolete TBOM can only produce inaccurate analysis results in the following special cases:

    • An influence is not identified although the analyzed changes do affect objects of a program flow.

      This can occur when an object contains too few objects. New objects have been added to the program flow since the TBOM was last updated. The planned change affects only these new objects.

    • An influence is identified, although the analyzed changes do not affect the program flow.

      This can occur when an object contains too many objects. Objects have been removed from the program flow since the TBOM was last updated. The planned change affects only these objects that are no longer relevant.

    Both of these special cases are rare, since a change generally affects older objects already contained in the obsolete TBOM, not only the deleted or new objects.

    End of the note.

  • To restrict an analysis to critical objects, you have assigned criticality values to the objects in the TBOMs. For more information, see Editing the TBOM Criticality.

Procedure

  1. Expand the information area Change Impact Analysis.

  2. Under 1., select the type of analysis. There are the following scope types:

    • Support Packages/Support Package Stacks: This option offers a basic selection of support packages. The support packages must have been installed in the managed system using the SAP Maintenance Planner.

      For more information, see SAP Help Portal at http://help.sap.com/maintenanceplannerInformation published on SAP site.

    • Enhancement Packages: This option offers a basic selection of support packages and enhancement packages. The update must have been planned with SAP Maintenance Planner.

      For more information, see SAP Help Portal at http://help.sap.com/maintenanceplannerInformation published on SAP site.

    • Planned Activation of a Business Function: You can select business functions and check which parts of business processes will be affected, before activation. You can select the business functions directly from the managed system. The managed system must have at least one of the following software statuses:

      • SAP ERP 600 Enhancement Package 4: Support Package Stack 06

      • SAP ERP 600 Enhancement Package 5: Initial delivery

      • SAP CRM 7.0 Enhancement Package 1: Initial delivery

      Note Note

      You can also select the scope of the change events for other systems, via business functions, if they have at least one of the following software statuses:

      • SAP NetWeaver Enhancement Package 1: Support Package Stack 06

      • SAP NetWeaver Enhancement Package 2: Support Package Stack 02

      The Business Process Change Analyzer only finds such objects for these systems as have been changed in an enhancement implementation, so the change impact analysis may not capture all changed objects.

      End of the note.

    • Transport Requests: Analyze the impact of specific transport requests. You are not restricted to your own transport requests, but you can also select delivery transports from SAP.

      Example Example

      You installed a support package without using the SAP Maintenance Planner to plan the update. When you search for support packages or enhancement packages, you receive no hits. By searching for transport requests, you can filter by the corresponding piece lists (Piece List for Support Package (D) or Piece List for Upgrade (P).

      End of the example.

      Note Note

      You can upload a list of transport requests in csv format. See below.

      End of the note.

    • Object List: Carry out the change impact analyses for objects that you are planning to change. You can enter the object names directly or import them in a csv file.

    • Change Transaction: Analyze the impact of change transactions from Change Request Management.

      Prerequisites are:

      • You use change request management.

      • There is at least one change document in your SAP Solution Manager system. The changes have already been carried out, and are recorded in transport requests in a managed system.

  3. Under 2., specify the system and client in which you have made, or plan to make the change.

    If you are analyzing change transactions, select the type of change transaction.

    • IT Requirement/Request for Change: Analyze all change documents for one or more IT requirement or requests for change.

    • Change Document: Analyze only specified change documents.

  4. Under 3., enter details of the change that you want to analyze (for example, the number of the transport request, the number of the change request, or the names of objects).

    If you maintain a list of transport requests or objects, you can upload it in CSV format: To check the required data structure, do the following:

    1. Choose Upload.

      A dialog box appears.

      Note Note

      You can download a list of objects as an XLS file. To do this, choose Download.

      You can save this XLS file with MS Excel as a csv file. You can upload the csv file later for further analyses by choosing Upload, which imports the object list.

      End of the note.

    2. Choose Quick Help.

    Note Note

    To avoid long response times for the input help, specify the selection conditions as narrowly as possible. Fill at least the Object Type field and restrict the object name or the higher-level object as precisely as possible using wildcards. If this is not possible, enter the package or the object owner.

    End of the note.

  5. Under 4., specify which branch or views you want to analyze.

    If no view is selected, the default view will be used.

    If you check Exclude used executable and process step originals, the system will exclude all of the following objects:

    • Executable originals that are referenced in scenarios, processes, process step references, or process step originals.

    • Process step originals that are referenced in process step references.

    Only executable originals and process step originals that are not referenced will be considered by the BPCA analysis. This ensures that used executables and process steps are not analyzed several times (as original and as references).

    If you do not check this option, originals will be included in the change impact analysis, regardless of whether they are used or not.

  6. Under 5., enter a description for the analysis.

  7. Optional: To specify additional optional parameters for the analysis, choose Details under 6.. You can use the following optional parameters:

    • Location of Test Cases: You can specify in which system you manage your test cases.

      If you do not manage your test cases centrally, you can select the system role of the system in which you manage the test cases. If you manage your test cases centrally, this selection has no effect.

    • Filter Options for Business Process Nodes

      • Logical Component Group: You can restrict the analysis to executable entities that are assigned to a specified logical component group.

      • Extended Parameters: If you have assigned attributes to nodes in the solution documentation, you can use these attributes to restrict the nodes for the change analysis. See Assigning and Locking Attributes for further information.

    • Filter Options for TBOMs: Specify whether you want to restrict the analysis to objects with a specified criticality.

      For more information, see Editing the TBOM Criticality.

    • Filter Options for Executable Units: Specify further parameters to restrict the executable entities that are relevant for the analysis.

      You can also specify additional filter criteria for each type of executable entity.

  8. To start the analysis immediately, choose the Run button.

  9. To start the analysis at a later time:

    1. Choose Schedule.

    2. Select the starting point and confirm your entries.

    The result ID is displayed at the top of the screen; you can find the analysis results using this ID.

  10. Refresh the results list so that you can select your analysis results.

    Note Note

    If you get a time-out when refreshing test case data (if you analyze large SAP Solution Manager projects or solutions, for example), schedule the refresh as a background job.

    End of the note.

    Scheduled analyses that have not yet been executed are also included in the results list. The scheduled start date and scheduled time of these analyses are displayed. After this time, you can access the analysis results in the same way as the other analyses.

Result

You have carried out the analysis. You can evaluate the analysis results and create test plans from the analysis results.