Upgrade to SPS09 now and kill two birds with one stone

In this update:

• Why it makes sense to upgrade to SPS09
• Impending deadline: upgrade to SAP Solution Manager 7.2 before January 1, 2020, or lose access to the SAP Support Backbone
• If you let us know by October 15 this year that you want to do this with blueworks, we’ll give you a 10-percent discount

SAP have just released SPS09, the latest support package stack for HANA. As always, there are many reasons to upgrade—though this time, there’s an important extra element involved.

Below is a quick overview of the most important improvements in SPS09 that we’ll look at in a minute. But first, there’s a more urgent issue to talk about, and that’s the upcoming Solution Manager update.

SAP’s notes will be digitally signed starting January 1, 2020. Because the currently most common version of Solution Manager isn’t able to read those like that, everyone who hasn’t upgraded to Solution Manager 7.2 by December 31 this year will completely lose access to SAP’s Support Backbone.

If you don’t upgrade soon, you won’t be able to get SAP support come January 1.

How does this connect to the SPS09 upgrade, you ask. Well, quite simple. To read the digitally signed notes, your systems need to run at least at the level of SPS07, which was released in 2014. And though that was a while ago, not everybody has caught up yet.

While you will need to upgrade to Solution Manager 7.2 anyway, you have the option to go straight to SPS09 instead of upgrading to SPS07 to make the digitally signed notes readable and maintain your access to the SAP Support Backbone.

Why not get it all done: upgrade to SPS09, and get all of your systems up to speed.

And this brings us to blueworks’ recommendation:

If you are still behind on an upgrade to SPS07, why not go for SPS09—and get all the newest updates and extensions included.

Feel free to drop us a line if you’re interested in details. It pays to act soon, as we’ll explain at the end of this news piece.

Now, let’s look at SPS09 in more detail.

Quick overview: Most important additions of SPS09

1. Project Management

In Project Management, SPS09 better integrates Test Management by adding a dedicated new “Test Management” tab in Project. This shows you the aggregated test status, and also gives you an overview of open defects.

The benefit of this is that you can very quickly check your Project status, and it improves the transparency of assigned test plans.

2. Test Management

In Test Management, SPS09 now allows you to edit documentation in real time. This disposes of time-consuming and fiddly uploads and imports. The only condition is that you still have Internet Explorer available to access documents based on Microsoft formats.

What you get out of it is a quicker and easier way to get updates done. Instead of wasting time on menial tasks, you’ll be able to move on to higher-priority issues sooner.

3. Change Control Management

SPS09’s improved Change Request Management (ChaRM) integration means that you can now move Solution Documentation elements between Change Documents. In essence, the main benefit here is that handling the documentation of your technical components (SAP and non-SAP), your business processes, and your interfaces has become a lot slicker and has been made easier.

For Change Control Management, a useful upgrade with SPS09 is that the process for developers to add objects to the white list is becoming a lot easier. There is a direct request built into the transport-related checks pop-up that can be approved or rejected via the Administration Cockpit Web Client UI, via the My Inbox SAP Fiori app, or optionally also via email.

What your business gets out of it is more time saved. Developers can easily request additions, and managers can very easily approve or reject them.

Another addition in the same category concerns lock conflict logs. These will now also show up as an additional entry in the system log in case there is a conflict during a retrofit. The additional entry will tell you when and why the conflict occurred.

This again increases the transparency of processes and improves the trail of events.

Also new in Change Control Management is the automatic import of Transport of Copies (ToC) into QAS. This means that creating a ToC manually now includes an automatic import into the follow-on QAS system. This new feature is available for all change documents on the transport management assignment block, according to SAP.

With this new addition, yet another time-consuming task falls away, as there is more automation. In effect, your people can concentrate on more important things, rather than wasting time on repetitive import jobs.

ATC Check results for warnings that were previously ignored can now be displayed in the Transport-Related Checks assignment block via the new “Show Conflict History” button. This allows you to quickly check processing logs, for example during an audit.

4. IT Services Management

A new feature in IT Services Management introduced with SPS09 is EU Data Protection Flag for Communication with SAP. This allows SAP users to flag system in the SAP Support Portal as falling under EU data protection rules.

As a result, any incident related to a flagged system are made visible in the user interface, and at the same time, incident processors outside the EU can’t establish a remote connection. Any files involved also get flagged, and access to them limited to processors confirmed to physically reside within the EU.

In short, the flagging feature limits access to certain systems and files to keep your operations and actions within EU data protection limits.

5. Technical Administration

An addition here in SPS09 is any scheduled work mode for a HANA database gets automatically propagated to the related HANA tenant databases, and also to related application systems if that is needed. This means that the scheduling of work modes gets easier, and that dependencies between databases and related systems are resolved automatically.

The interface for the work mode scheduling now also includes a list of dependent tenant databases, different database instances, and the costs and application systems involved.

6. Job Management

SPS09 introduces a simplified job management process including validation checks and BAdI options for the integration with your own ticketing system, if that is required. This means there is no need for ITSM, and that you have the option to integrate your own job management more tightly with that of other organizations.

7. Support for Cloud and Hybrid products overview

Availability of support for Cloud and Hybrid products as of SPS09:

All in all:

SPS09 includes a range of changes that are specifically created to optimize processes and save time, and in effect also resources and money.

This upgrade makes particular sense because it will bring your systems up to speed regarding the changeover to digitally signed notes.

This, in turn, is an absolute condition for continued access to SAP’s Support Backbone.

Last but not least: An offer

The impending upgrade to SAP Solution Manager 7.2 and also to SPS09 is time-consuming and, depending on your particular set-up, could get fussy as well.

This means that the closer to the deadline of December 31 we get, the more companies will remember that they need to get it done. This, in turn, might mean more work for us over Christmas—

Which is why we’ve decided to offer everyone who wants to upgrade with blueworks before October 15, 2019 a 10-percent discount. If you are interested, act soon, because this one is going to be popular.

For more information about SAP Solution Manager 7.2, the SAP Support Backbone change, and the upgrade to SPS09, do not hesitate to contact Kenneth Staub at kenneth.staub [at] blue.works