Transports

The last regularly scheduled transport release to Production will take place on Thursday, October 27, 2022. Development in SF2 will be allowed through Friday, October 21, 2022 at 5pm after which  a restricted window of non-critical transports to SH2 and Production will be in effect until after the Support Pack Project Go Live date. The normal Production transport import schedule will resume on Wednesday, December 7, 2022. Migrations to the SH1 Test environment and Production will be limited to critical fixes that need to be moved to Production as soon as possible before the project go-live date. Starting on October 21 at 5pm, a special transport procedure will be enforced for changes to SAP. This section explains the approval process. It lists the necessary approvals and documentation, and what steps you need to take in ZUTTREQ/ServiceNow. Questions about this process should be directed to Elda Prudden, Transport Coordinator, at  eprudden@mit.edu or 617-253-5153.

Development/Transport Procedures

For the duration of the restricted development window  (10/21/2022-12/07/2022), a special process will be used for development of fixes to SAP. The aim of this process is to avoid the introduction of non-support pack changes into the Support Pack test system (SH2) or the Production system (PS1).

The following are the steps in the special development process.

Fixes for Support Pack related issues found during Unit Testing in SF2 or SIT in SH2
Development steps:
  1. Change the development object(s) to implement the required fix.
  2. Perform unit testing in SF2.
  3. Release the transport(s) once unit tested
  4. Create a ServiceNow 'test' deployment request, select 'Routine' as the 'Type', leave the 'State' as 'Pending', and send an email to the Project Manager, Kevin Lyons (klyons@mit.edu) who will change the ServiceNow request 'State' from 'Pending' to 'Work in progress'; additionally, the Project Manager will add a note to the SN request indicating that they approve the request.
  5. When executing ZUTTREQ, make sure SH2 is the 'To' environment, and include the ServiceNow request number from step 4.
  6. Include the ZUTTREQ details in the ServiceNow request as usual.
  7. During SIT, transport the fix to SH2 and test to confirm the efficacy of the fix.
Transport request procedures:

Send an email to the Project Manager for approval of the ServiceNow ticket. 

After the necessary approvals have been given, the R3 Admin team (r3-chmgt@mit.edu) will move the transport(s) to SH2.

Transports generated during SF2 Unit Testing will be accumulated and moved as a group as part of the Support Pack application process to the SH2 test system after it is refreshed with a copy of production.
Transports generated during SH2 SIT will be imported as needed into SH2.

Transport path = SF2 -> SH2
Approver: Kevin Lyons (Project Manager)

Critical fixes for non-Support Pack related issues found in Production during SP2022

Before development is begun, it should be clear the business owner considers the problem is critical and requires an immediate fix. Send an email message describing the situation to the Project Manager, , Kevin Lyons (klyons@mit.edu), with a copy sent to Elda Prudden (eprudden@,mit.edu), to facilitate consideration of the critical fix. When ready to move to Production, the Project Manager will request approval from one of the business members of the Steering Committee.

As usual, development will be performed in SF2 both before and after the support packs have been applied; however, while the support packs are being applied to SF2, SF2 will not be available for development. If an emergency arises during this period, SH1 will be used for development.  After the support packs have been applied to SF2, SF2 will continue to be used for development of critical fixes, with transport to SH1 for QA testing.

Critical Transport path SF2 -> SH1 -> PS1

Support Pack path SF2 -> SH2 (for regression testing) -> PS1 (with the support pack go live)

Approvers to begin the development work:

  • One of the business members of the Steering Committee
  • Kevin Lyons (Project Manager), Olu Brown (backup)

The functional team needs to follow the standard QA Issue Resolution procedure, which includes the SAP mini-spec and associated test case documents.

Approvers for importing transports to production:

  • Refer to QA critical transport procedures

These transports must be tested twice, once in the production support path (SF2 -> SH1), then in the Support Pack upgrade path (SF2 -> SH2), before the transport(s) can be imported into production.

Development Steps:
  1. Change the development object(s) to implement the required fix in SF2 and then transport to SH1.
  2. Perform unit testing in SF2 & SH1.
  3. For testing the change as part of the Support Pack application process:
    1. Release the transport(s) once unit tested
    2. Create a ServiceNow 'test' deployment request, select 'Routine' as the 'Type', leave the 'State' as 'Pending', and send an email to the Project Manager, Kevin Lyons (klyons@mit.edu) who will change the ServiceNow  request 'State' from 'Pending' to 'Work in progress'; additionally, the Project Manager will add a note to the SN request indicating that they approve the request..
    3. When executing ZUTTREQ, make sure SH2 is the 'To' environment, and include the ServiceNow request number from step b above.
    4. Include the ZUTTREQ details in the ServiceNow request as usual.
    5. Transport the fix to SH2.
    6. Perform testing required to confirm the proper functioning of the fix in SH2 (as part of the Support Pack application process).
  4. For testing the change as part of the critical production issue process:
    1. Create a second ServiceNow 'test' deployment request, select 'Routine' as the 'Type', leave the 'State' as 'Pending', and send an email to the Project Manager, Kevin Lyons (klyons@mit.edu) who will change the ServiceNow request 'State' from 'Pending' to 'Work in progress'; additionally, the Project Manager will add a note to the SN request indicating that they approve the request.
    2. When executing ZUTTREQ, make sure SH1 is the 'To' environment, and include the ServiceNow request number from step a above.
    3. Include the ZUTTREQ details in the ServiceNow request as usual.
    4. Transport the fix to SH1.
    5. Perform testing required to confirm the proper functioning of the fix in SH1
    6. Create a ServiceNow 'Prod' deployment request, as usual, including ZUTTREQ details, etc. 
    7. Obtain the required approvals.
    8. Transport the fix to Production.
Transport Request Procedures:

Send a request to the Project Manager for approval of the ServiceNow ticket(s).
After the necessary approvals have been given, the R3 Admin team (r3-chmgt@mit.edu) will move the transport(s) to SH1/SH2.

What to do in ZUTTREQ:

  1. Check 'Critical'
  2. 'To' environment as:
    1. for the Critical Transport path - SH1
    2. for the Support Pack path - SH2 .

After approval, the R3 Admin team (r3-chmgt@mit.edu) will move the transport(s) to PS1 and SH2 respectively.

Transport paths = SF2 -> SH1 -> PS1 and SF2 -> SH2
Approvers: see above

Ongoing Projects with planned install in Production with Support Pack Go Live

Will require regression testing in SH2 to confirm proper functioning with support packs.

Resumption of normal transport cycle

On December 5, 2022, SAP system SH2 will be opened for normal testing activities to all IS&T SAP support personnel and business owners. The normal QA procedures (documents in the review folders, all business owner approvals captured, ServiceNow tickets updated) will resume at that time as well.  All changes approved on or after December 5, 2022 will be considered part of the December 7, 2022 transport cycle.

Transport Coordinator Instructions:

Transport Coordinator Instructions & Audit Process (requires authorization to access the Tech Services wiki page)

 

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