Transports

The last regularly scheduled transport release to Production will take place on Thursday, October 12, 2017. Development in SF2 will be allowed through Friday, October 13, 2017 after which  a freeze of non-critical transports to SH1 and Production will be in effect until after the Support Pack Project Go Live date. The normal Production transport import schedule will resume on Thursday, December 14, 2017. Migrations to the Test environments (SH1 - PreSP QA) 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 16, 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. Questions about this process should be directed to Eping (Lucia) Wei, Transport Coordinator, at lma@mit.edu or 617-253-0231.

Development/Transport Procedures

For the duration of the development freeze (10/16/2017-12/13/2017), 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. Questions about this process should be directed to Eping (Lucia) Wei, Transport Coordinator, at lma@mit.edu or 617-253-0231.

Fixes for issues found during Unit Testing in SF2 or SIT in SH2
Development steps:
  1. If necessary, revert each development object to be changed to the version currently in Production. In-process changes should be saved as a non-transportable copy of the object, as a downloaded text file, or as a printed listing.
  2. Change the development object(s) to implement the required fix.
  3. Perform unit testing in SF2.
  4. Release the transport(s) once unit tested
  5. Execute ZUTTREQ making sure SH2 is the 'To' environment
  6. Enter the transport(s) into the Transport # Sequence field within the SP 2016 ticket 
  7. During SIT, transport the fix to SH2 and test to confirm the efficacy of the fix.

All transports must be associated with a Request Tracker (RT) ticket recorded in the RT SAP::Test Issues queue under the project name 'SAP Support Packs 2017'.  Note: Any in-process changes saved during step 1 will need to be manually merged into the corrected objects after the development freeze.

Transport request procedures:

What to do in ZUTTREQ:
Select SH2 as the 'To' environment. The ZUTTREQ program will send the request to Frank Quern for approval.
After he has given his approval, the R3 Admin team (r3-chmgt@mit.edu) will move the transport(s) to SH2 twice a day (shortly after 12 noon and then again after 5pm).

Transports generated during Unit Testing will be accumulated and moved as a group as part of the Support Pack application process to the test system, SH2.
Transports generated during SIT will be imported into SH2 twice a day (shortly after 12 noon and then again after 5pm). Requests must be received by 11:30am and 4:30pm, respectively.
These transports must be associated with RT tickets recorded in the Request Tracker SAP::Test Issues queue under project name "SAP Support Packs 2017".

Transport path = SF2 -> SH2
Approver: Frank Quern

Critical fixes for issues found in Production

Before development is begun, it should be clear the business owner considers the problem is critical and requires an immediate fix. An email message describing the situation must be sent to Frank Quern (fquern@mit.edu), with a copy sent to Eping (Lucia) Wei (lma@mit.edu), to facilitate consideration of the critical fix. After review Frank will request approval to migrate the fix to Test from one of the business members of the Steering Committee.

Development will be performed in SF2 both before and after the support packs have been applied. While the support packs are being applied to SF2, SF2 will be unavailable for development. If an emergency arises during this period, SH1 will be used for development.

Transport path SH1 -> SE1/PS1; 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
  • Frank Quern (PO), Garry Zacheiss (backup)

The functional team must 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

All transports must be associated with a Request Tracker (RT) ticket recorded in the Functional Team's Support queue and within the  RT SAP::Test Issue queue under the project name 'SAP Support Packs 2017'. These transports must be tested twice, once in the production support path (SH1), then in the Support Pack upgrade path (SF2 -> SH2), before the transport(s) can be imported into production.

Development Steps:
  1. If necessary, revert each development object to be changed to the version currently in Production. In-process changes should be saved as a non-transportable copy of the object, as a downloaded text file, or as a printed listing.
  2. Change the development object(s) to implement the required fix in SF2 and SH1.
  3. Perform unit testing in SF2 & SH1.
  4. Transport the fix to SH2 (as part of the SP application process).
  5. Perform the usual regression and user-acceptance testing in SH1.
  6. Perform testing required to confirm the proper functioning of the fix in SH2 (as part of the SP application process).
  7. Obtain the required approvals.
  8. Transport the fix to Production.

Note: Any in-process changes saved during step 1 will need to be manually merged into the corrected objects after the development freeze.

Transport Request Procedures:

What to do in ZUTTREQ:
     Check 'Critical' and 'To' environment as SH1 -> SH1 (Prod path); SF2 -> SH2 (SP path). After approval, the R3 Admin team (r3-chmgt@mit.edu) will move the transport(s) to SE1/PS1 and SH2.

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

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

Resumption of normal transport cycle

On December 13, 2017 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, RT tickets updated) will resume at that time as well.  All changes approved on or after December 13, 2017 will be considered part of the December 14, 2017 transport cycle.

Transport Coordinator Instructions:

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