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Transports

The last regularly scheduled transport release to Production will take place on Thursday, October 26, 2023. Development in SF2 will be allowed through Friday, October 20, 2023 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 6, 2023. 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 26 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 This Wiki page provides information related to the transport process during the SAP Support Pack 2023 project. Further questions about this process can be directed to Elda Prudden, Transport Coordinator, at  eprudden@mit.eduor 617-253-5153.

Development/Transport Procedures

For the duration of the restricted development window  (10/22/2023-12/06/2023), 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 SP2023

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.

Key Dates

• SF2 unavailable - to be upgraded starting Sunday Oct 22 at 5pm until Wednesday Oct 25 at 8am

• SH2 unavailable - to be refreshed and upgraded starting EOD Tuesday Oct 24 at 23:59 until EOD Friday Nov 3 

• This year’s “restricted window” (i.e. when the transport path to PS1 changes and dual testing is required for critical production changes) starts when SF2 goes down on Sunday Oct 22 at 5pm and ends after SP2023 go-live weekend (Dec 1-3)
  

• The last normal transport to PS1 (until after Support Pack go-live) is Thursday Oct 26.  This would include any transports that have been tested in non-upgraded SH2 and approved between Oct 19 and Oct 24 for production deployment

• After Support Pack go-live, the normal transport to production schedule will resume on Wednesday Dec 6.

SAP Environments During Restricted Window

1. Upgraded environments - SF3, SF2, SH2

2. Non-upgraded environments - SH1, PS1 (upgraded on go-live weekend in Dec)

3. SE1 (non-upgraded)

   1. While the support packs are being applied to SF2, SF2 will not be available for development. If an emergency arises during this period,

1. 1. SE1 will be used for development

1. 2. If a critical issue is discovered in PS1 that requires the application of an OSS note, SE1 will be used instead of SF3 for the application and testing of that note (production support path for OSS notes is SE1

1. 1. -> SH1 -> PS1

1. 1. ).  Additionally, scrutiny would then be needed to ensure that the OSS note is included in SAP's support pack.

Types of Transports/Changes During Restricted Window

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:

Note: for dual testing, the changes will need to be tested in both non-upgraded SH1 and again in upgraded SH2 to ensure expected behavior is found in both environments.

Transport procedures

1. For transports related to SP2023 Project

Create a ServiceNow ticket as usual (directed to SH2), except for the following SN details:

1. 1. leave the 'State' as ‘Pending’
   2. add Kevin Lyons as a watcher
   3. send an email to Kevin (klyons@mit.edu) asking for an approval (Olu Brown obrown@mit.edu as backup).

Create a ServiceNow ticket as usual (again, directed to both SH1 and SH2), except for the following SN details:

1. 1. leave the 'State' as ‘Pending’
   2. add Kevin Lyons as a watcher
   3. send an email to Kevin (klyons@mit.edu) asking for an approval (Olu Brown obrown@mit.edu as backup).

Transport Request Procedures:

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

Upon successful testing in SH2, these transports/changes will be deployed a second time to PS1 on go-live weekend, along with all the other SP2023 Project transports/changes (i.e. to ensure that PS1 is in synch with SH2 by importing the same transports in the same sequence as they were imported into SH2).