Job Monitoring – Notes to be implemented

About Job Monitoring:

The Job Monitoring is used for the proactive monitoring of business critical jobs/ BW Process Chains to ensure the business is running smooth. The following technical objects can be monitored with Solution Manager 7.1 SP12,

• ABAP Jobs
• BW process Chains
• Business Objects Jobs
• Data Services Jobs

The provision of configuring the Jobs/ Process Chains from Managed System as well as from external scheduler (Central Process Scheduler powered by Redwood) is available with SP12. The Job Monitoring is well integrated in the below entry points,

• Technical Monitoring
• Business Process Monitoring
• Job Management

Highlights

Prerequisites

Please make sure the notes that needs to be implemented in Solution Manager and Managed System are implemented. Its MANDATORY to have all the notes.

Notes to be implemented in Solution Manager System,

Please choose any one of the note below based on your Solution Manager SP,

Notes to be Implemented in Managed (satellite) system,

Once all the aforementioned notes are implemented in Solution Manager system and Managed System, the issues in the data collection would be solved.

Solution Manager 7.2 was initially scheduled to be generally available by the end of 2015 (But reportedly postponed to Q2 of 2016) and will introduce big changes. From what we could see in the previews, we get a revamped Solution Documentation. What should we expect exactly? I have tried to synthesize all the information I got from the SAP webinars, with my comments as a Solution Manager consultant.

It would be great to discuss these planned changes. However, keep in mind that this blog entry is based on previews by SAP, and that the finished product might be different.

Pragmatic Business Process Management

Solution Manager 7.2 introduces what SAP calls “Pragmatic Business Process Management”. This is a way to underscore the fact that SolMan 7.2 is more “Business Processes Oriented. 7.1 was IT/Operations focused. 7.2 will try to balance things more, increasing value for Business Processes/Implementation. The goal is to get Business Process Experts more involved... This translates into most of the following items:

Documentation before project start

With more focus on implementation and Business Processes, one major flaw needed to be addressed. In 7.1, you can’t start documenting unless you have a landscape. This means that you business process expert can’t document unless the project actually starts. For 7.2, SAP want to decouple the documentation (or at least, the modelling of processes) from the actual landscape. The link will of course need to be done later on, but at least, there will be  no need to “wait” anymore.

Graphic Business Process Modeling

We gain a business process modeling tool, adapted from Power Designer. SAP is simply using the graphic libraries, so we shouldn't expect the functionalities of the tool. This modeling environment should be for business processes only (No enterprise architecture, no UML).

Source: SAP

Open interface to other Modelling tools

So far we had an integration with ARIS (that wasn't made by SAP). We should be getting an open interface that will make things simpler. Bi-directional, it will be possible to use it with any tool. It won't be part of the ramp-up (but added later).

Analytics extended to business cases

We should be able to relate business cases to KPI and thresholds from Business Processes Analytics Framework. The way to do it: We define this in implementation, store in SolMan, do our project, and in Live phase we can analyse and continuously check how well our KPI are met by the system users.

A new Documentation Lifecycle Model

Projects and Solution are two similar concepts for Solution Documentation in SolMan 7.1.

To document in Solution Manager, you will need to create a Project.

Let’s say you are starting an implementation, but will shift to maintenance after go-live. Then, the proposed model is as follows:

Source: SAP

So, you need to create an implementation project and document. This can be made from scratch, or using  “templates”. Once your project goes live, you need to transfer your documentation to a productive “Solution”, and then create a maintenance project. This maintenance project will be used for documenting your changes to the productive environment.

You end up with documents in double or triple, with different versions. You need to use the “compare and adjust” functionality…

As if this is not enough, projects and Solutions share a lot, but have a few specificities that make both of them necessary. So you should maintain both.

Solution Manager 7.2 will remove this issue by introducing one common directory for Business Process documentation. Projects and Solution are unified. New concepts are introduced. Old ones are rendered obsolete.

No more Reverse Business Process Documentation

We could see this coming. RBPD, or Reverse Business Processing Documentation, is a great functionality of 7.1. It helps you jumpstart your documentation in the less painful way possible. Instead of manually creating your process steps/ Business Processes and Scenarios, or having to choose them in the very dense BPR (Business Process repository), RBPD creates for you, based on your system usage, an almost ready to use Business Process Structure.

The disappearance of RBPD could be foreshadowed with the introduction of SEA, who also creates a ready to use business process structure for you (because SEA needs one). Or, even more so, with the introduction, with note 2061626, of the Blueprint Generator (used by SEA) as a separate functionality. The blueprint generator/SEA analyzes your system usage and create a Solution Documentation Project that contains all transactions and reports structured by the Application Component Hierarchy comparable to what you can already see in the IMG. Objects that are not standard are listed at the end, under “Customer objects”, and it is your responsibility to affect them to the right process step. This blueprint generator becomes standard tool to generate blueprints, and will be used by Solution Documentation.

And no more BPR

It gets replaced by the RDS Content.

A new architecture

New concepts are introduced by 7.2. Layers of libraries are now used to avoid redundancy of objects.

They are of 3 types:

Source:SAP

Objects will be in the TOL only if used, with only one occurrence, and structured according to the application component hierarchy.

The PSL will also be created automatically based on usage. Multiple occurrences (of technical objects) will be allowed.

Process Step Library and Technical Object Library are available by system. E2E business process will be used to document across systems.

The creation of the E2E should be simple (you pull steps from the individual systems in the E2E library) but not required, as the TOL& PSL are enough to work with SolDoc. You can start testing as soon as SolMan is set up.

No more Solar Transactions

If you are somehow familiar with Solution Documentation, then you must know about the SOLAR Transactions. They are used to create, manage and do some reporting on your documentation project.

Those transactions are the heart of solution documentation in SolMan 7.1, and simply disappear in 7.2.

We gain instead, it seems, two mains views: The Solution Landscape UI, and the Solution Documentation UI.

Business Process Hierarchy with unlimited levels

In 7.1, you document with a 3 levels hierarchy: Scenarios, Business Process and Process Steps.

Without Solar transactions anymore, it's no surprise that the way structures are represented will change considerably. Instead of this 3 levels structure, we are getting boxes representing levels, and the possibility to have as many levels as we want. However, the 3 levels are still there, and will be the core of the documentation. We will simply be able to add as many levels as we want on top of them. This will be very close to the workaround used right now, which consists on coding levels through naming convention (combining levels in Scenarios names, for example).

Lifecycle based on Branches

Among the new concepts introduced, the “branches” hold a significant place. If you want a simple definition for a branch, it is simply, according to SAP, a versioning context for documentation. What this means is while we don't have the implementation/maintenance projects anymore, you will be able to maintain your different documentations without affecting the one that is productive. It's based on views that contains only pre selected processes.

Source: SAP

Integration with ChaRM

You have a change document open for some maintenance in your system, tracking your changes. The corresponding documentation is in the maintenance branch of your documentation. When your ticket is productive, you will simply need to make your maintenance documentation productive. And apparently, this is done automatically. So, 7.2 adds a new layer of SolDoc/ChaRM integration, which is great.

Source: SAP

Requirement management

SAP introduces requirement management in Solution Documentation, and in ChaRM. This will be particularly interesting for ChaRM, as It seems we are getting new transactions types for IT and Business Requirements. A workaround so far had been to adapt some of the standard transaction to allow requirement management using some specific statuses.

Logical component group

They get introduced to make logical components management easier and avoid redundancy of documentation. We should end up with much fewer logical components.

This is what I got for the previews. I will update my blog post or create a new one once I get access to SolMan 7.2.

The SAP Solution Documentation webinar can be found here:

https://service.sap.com/sap/bc/bsp/spn/esa_redirect/index.htm?gotocourse=X&courseid=70283905

Some additional information in the webinar on Solution Manager 7.2:

https://service.sap.com/sap/bc/bsp/spn/esa_redirect/index.htm?gotocourse=X&courseid=70275220

If, for some reasons, you have to change the MetricCollectionDefinition.xml for some agents, make sure, you do not use any XML Pretty Printer (like Notepad++ with XML add-on). According my tests, the SAPControlWSCollector interprets added \n and \r (by the pretty printer), although these characters are outside the CDATA area.

You'll notice gray metrics in technical monitoring as well as following errors within the diagnostics agent's protocol, it a MetricCollectionDefinition.xml was formated using an XML Pretty Printer and uploaded to a Diagnostics Agent.

[MAIJobObserver] ERROR occurred for metric collection 00000000000000000002[com.sap.smd.mai.model.collector.SAPControlWSCollector].
[EXCEPTION]
com.sap.smd.mai.model.collector.CollectorException: [SAPControlWSCollector.collect] Connection to SAPControl Web Service failed. Collector : [SAPControlWSCollector]
Id: 00000000000000000002, SID:
<SID>
, instance number:
<INSTANCE_NR>

at com.sap.smd.mai.model.collector.SAPControlWSCollector.collect(SAPControlWSCollector.java:147)
at com.sap.smd.mai.job.MetricJobRunner.run(MetricJobRunner.java:32)
at com.sap.smd.server.exec.TaskRunner.run(TaskRunner.java:46)
at com.sap.smd.server.util.concurrent.PooledExecutor$Worker.run(PooledExecutor.java:781)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:761)
Caused by: java.rmi.RemoteException: [WSConnectorFactory] Illegal sid
<SID>

at com.sap.smd.agent.plugin.connectors.webservice.WSConnectorFactory.configureSAPStartSrvEndPoint(WSConnectorFactory.java:237)
at com.sap.smd.mai.model.collector.SAPControlWSCollector.connect(SAPControlWSCollector.java:504)
at com.sap.smd.mai.model.collector.SAPControlWSCollector.collect(SAPControlWSCollector.java:145)
... 4 more

This is at leasst valid for any Diagnostics Agent >7.40.

Since June 1, 2015 a new general KPI Catalog is available at (SAP Service Marketplace login required)

https://zkpicatalog-supportportal.dispatcher.hana.ondemand.com/?sap-language=EN

to browse through key figure content that SAP ships out-of-the-box. The catalog uses SAPUI5 front end technology and hence can be accessed by any device with any kind of screen resolution from anywhere in the world with internet connection.

In its first version the current content of the catalog consists of key figures that were developed for Business Process Analytics and Business Process Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager, but key figures from other applications shall follow. Today the catalog "only" contains 562 different key figures as several hundred key figures (especially related to SAP APO and industry specific ones) are not yet included. Compared to the MS PowerPoint presentation (SMP login required) that was used so far to list all our key figures, the content in the KPI Catalog is not yet complete...but this will happen over time. Also compared to the MS PowerPoint, the new cloud catalog has many advantages that shall be described in this blog...actually there are so many things to cover that the blog is split into 2 parts to not overload this one single blog. This first blog will describe the different available filter criteria. The second blog will focus on the full text search capabilities and the available detail information.

One big advantage of the KPI Catalog is that you can filter for key figures according to different dimensions/attributes.

Filter according to Application Area

The application areas "roughly correlate" to the traditional SAP modules, e.g. 'Manufacturing' relates to PP or PP-PI. But an application area can also comprise different modules across different products, e.g. 'Sales' relates to SD in ERP as well as CRM Sales or 'Sourcing & Procurement' covers MM in ERP as well as SRM self-service procurement.

Filter according to Business Goal Area

As most of the Business Process Analytics key figure content was designed to support Business Process Improvement for SAP solutions activities, we took the most typical business goals that customers want to improve and used those goals as additional attribute for the key figure content. So if you are trying to reduce the costs in your Financial Shared Service Center and set the filter accordingly you should see key figures that can support such activities based on project experience from previous years.

Filter according to Category

In my blog about the 5 main key figure types, I described in 2013 how we categorize our content. Meanwhile we got a new category about Master Data related checks. All those categories are now available for selection so that you can wuickly find those key figures of a certain type of interest to you.

Filter according to End to End (E2E) business process

Especially if you left behind the thinking in traditioanl SAP modules (application areas) and rather think of a business process from end to end, then this filter possibilty should be to your liking. If you filter for a process like Procure to Pay, then you should see SRM content related to shopping carts, purchase orders, confirmations, invoices as well as ERP content related to planned orders (type NB), purchase requisitions, purchase orders, MM invoices and even FI-AP related open items or payments.

Filter according to Industry Solution

Most of our standard out-of-the-box content is good enough to be used no matter what industry you are working in. But here and there, there are industry specifics that can only be covered in industry specific content. This content is currently not yet in the catalog, but shall be available soon, e.g. for Automotive, AFS, Banking, Retail or Utilities.

Filter according to Product

You can also filter the key figure content specific to the respective SAP BusinessSuite component, i.e. ERP, CRM, SRM or SCM. The later content for Supply Chain Management (SCM) is not yet  in the catalog, but should follow soon.

Filter according to Usage

Perhaps the least interesting filter is about Usage. This filter should only indicate the following. In general all key figures work for Business Process Analytics and Business Process Monitoring (--> usage 'Business Process Analytics'), except a few (often rather technical key figures), which are only available for Business Process Monitoring but not for Business Process Analytics (--> usage 'Business Process Monitoring').

Filter according to New / Updated

Like any nice catalog, we wanted to share insghts what is (relatively) new or which content was significantly enhanced lately (updated). In this first version of the catalog these attributes are related to the latest key figure shipment with ST-A/PI 01R support package 1. The status attributes will then change once the next ST-A/PI 01S will be shipped.

If you have further questions, remarks or suggestions then please post them as remarks in this blog or send an email to bpimp@sap.com.

The second blog about full text search capabilities and the available detail information can be found here in part 2.

Further reading

You can find all necessary information about Business Process Analytics in this document. More information on Business Process Improvement for SAP solutions can be found here.

Frequently Asked Questions about Business Process Monitoring and Business Process Analytics are answered under http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/SM/FAQ+Business+Process+Monitoring and

http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/SM/FAQ+Business+Process+Analytics respectively.

In the previous part 1 blog I described the different filtering attributes which are currently available for the newly launched KPI Catalog in the cloud at

(SAP Service Marketplace login required)

https://zkpicatalog-supportportal.dispatcher.hana.ondemand.com/?sap-language=EN.

In this blog I want to mention some other features that are part of the catalog.

Full text search

So instead of starting with some filters on different attributes you can also just perform some full text search. In the screenshot above you can see the search for 2 terms 'delivery' and 'billing'. The search engine will then search according to the following priority:

1. The best search results are those where the search strings can be found in our key figur name itself
2. The 2nd best results are those where the search strings could be found in the text below the key figure name
3. The 3rd best results are those where the search strings could be found in the definition text in the detailed section (not shown in this screenshot, this will be handled further down in this blog)

The search is a fuzzy search, so also slight deviations from your search terms 'deliveries' instead of 'delivery' or typos like 'delviery' should be found accordingly. Once you see your search results, then all the filter attributes are adjusted according the limited set of findings.

Multiple filter

Probably it is self-understood for yourself, but besides the full text search and the single filtering, it is of course also possible to set multiple filters, e.g. filtering on all key figures which are 'backlog' key figures in 'ERP' and belong to 'sales'. If you then click on some key figure of interest, then you get to see some additional details.

Details Overview

If you click on one search result, then you see all the assigned properties/attributes and you still see the (business) text description of the key figure on the next page. This text shall give you an idea what business problem can be realted to the measurement and some key figures even mention a possible business risk/impact.

Details Definition

The details definition section provides a more technical text description (priority 3 for the full text search mentioned above). This text should roughly describe (on table and field basis) the logic of the underlying data collection.

Details Technical

This last detail section describes the technical details, which output fields you can expect in the result list of the data collection ('Fieldlist') and which input parameters are available ('Filters') during the design time when you want to schedule/start the data collection.

If you have further questions, remarks or suggestions then please post them as remarks in this blog or send an email to bpimp@sap.com.

Further reading

You can find all necessary information about Business Process Analytics in this document. More information on Business Process Improvement for SAP solutions can be found here.

Frequently Asked Questions about Business Process Monitoring and Business Process Analytics are answered under http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/SM/FAQ+Business+Process+Monitoring and

http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/SM/FAQ+Business+Process+Analytics respectively.

The following blogs (in chronological order) provide further details about Business Process Analytics and Business Process Monitoring functionalities within the SAP Solution Manager.

• New Business Process Monitoring functionalities in SAP Solution Manager – ALE / IDoc Monitoring
• New Business Process Monitoring functionalities in SAP Solution Manager – qRFC Monitoring
• Best Practice: Business Process Monitoring for Manufacturing
• Best Practice: Business Process Monitoring for Procure to Pay
• Best Practice: Business Process Monitoring for Order to Cash
• Typical Use Cases for Business Process Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager
• New key figure catalog for Business Process Monitoring available
• Why SAP offers different tools for Business Process Monitoring &amp; Business Process Optimization
• Create your own auto-reaction messages in Business Process Monitoring via BAdI exit
• Protect your SAP ERP investment &amp; improve your core business processes
• Create your own customer-specific key figure for Business Process Monitoring within 5 minutes
• Best Practice: BW Process Chain monitoring with SAP Solution Manager - Part 1
• New key figures for Business Process Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager, especially for CRM Marketing
• New functionality "Business Process Analytics" - how to improve your business processes
• New key figures for Business Process Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager, especially Lead Time measurements
• Traditional Business KPI approach vs Business Process Monitoring
• Systematic errors vs real exceptions or improving efficiency vs effectiveness
• Before you get started with SAP HANA...you should also consider cleaning-up your backend system first
• Best Practice: Business Process Monitoring for CRM Sales
• Business Process Operations dashboards - ALL AT A GLANCE
• Customer testimonials on Business Process Analytics
• Customer Exit: Create your own key figure for BPMon AND Business Process Analytics
• Heads-up: Setup environment of BPMon & Analytics changes with SolMan 7.1 SP5
• New key figures for BPMon & BP Analytics, especially for working capital improvement
• New Business Process Monitoring functionalities in SAP Solution Manager - BPMon Alert Reporting Analysis
• New Business Process Analytics features with SAP SolMan 7.1 SP5
• New Business Process Analytics - The filter sequence makes the difference
• New key figures: Analyzing/Monitoring exceptions during delivery due processing
• New key figure: Analyzing/Monitoring exceptions during billing due processing
• Enhanced key figures: Analyzing/monitoring SD invoices not transferred to FI
• New key figures: Analyzing/monitoring exceptions in CRM Sales or Service documents, Business Activities or Tasks
• New keyfigures: Analyzing/monitoring exceptions from APO planning runs
• New key figures for BPMon & BP Analytics - new exception and automation rate key figures for ERP plus new content for FSCM, APO and CRM
• New key figures: Analyzing/monitoring exceptions during Period End Closing
• New key figures: Analyzing/monitoring exceptions in Controlling (CO-PC)
• Enhanced key figures: Bridging the organizational gap between SD and FI-AR
• Business Process Analytics: Types of key figures and their respective use cases
• Business Process Analytics: Types of functions and their respective features & purposes
• New key figures for BPMon & BP Analytics - new content for Travel & Expense Management, Banking and Utilities
• SAP Business Process Analytics" available for download in Apple's App Store
• Discrete manufacturing: Mapping BP Analytics key figures to system status
• New key figures for BPMon & Analytics - new content for vendor invoice processing (e.g. Shared Service Center scenarios) and new delta throughput for Order to Cash
• Business Process Analytics: ad-hoc and real time with or without SAP HANA
• New landing page for "Business Process Improvement for SAP solutions"
• New KPI Catalog available in the cloud - Part 1

The SolMan 2 Cloud (S2C) Setup (Transaction S2C_SETUP) is the starting point if you plan to Monitor SAP Based Hybrid Solutions in your Solution Manager 7.10 (starting from SP13):

• DELL Boomi
• SAP Cloud for Customer (C4C)
• SAP HANA Cloud Integration (HCI)
• SAP SuccessFactors
• SAP Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) with SP14

This is the prerequisites to Exception Management (EXM) and Interface and Connection Monitoring (ICMon).

Exception Management will collect errors and exceptions directly from your Cloud Service using HTTPS connections.

Interface and Connection Monitoring will integrate these errors into the Monitoring and Alerting Framework. Notifications and Incidents can be automatically created in case an error is occurring in your Cloud Service.

“Select and unmark group id SM-CREATE”

Dear followers

I would like to post a video that I presented this month regarding LMDB troubleshooting. I made this presentation using the Meet the Experts framework from SAP.

In this video I showed some points that must be checked in case of issues with LMDB, where to look, what are the most important transactions, how to check and ensure the consistency of SLD and LMDB. The link with this video is available below.

https://service.sap.com/sap/bc/bsp/spn/esa_redirect/index.htm?gotocourse=X&courseid=70284599

Best Regards

Mateus de Freitas Pedroso

On July 9th Evan Stoddard will be going over the SAP Solution Manager Road Map Webinar.  Evan will be going over current and future capabilities for SAP Solution Manager.   Register here today: https://sap-events.dispatcher.hana.ondemand.com/#/event=3638

Keep up to date on road maps here: http://scn.sap.com/community/product-and-solution-road-maps

How many of you remember ASAP, which used to come in a CD format? It had the necessary tools and content (right form QAdb to CI templates, if you remember) necessary for SAP Implementation. It evolved into ValueSAP & which finally evolved into Solution Manager.

Now I know, most of us from the SAP community are aware of SAP Solution Manager (fondly called as SolMan for brevity sake ), but are blissfully unaware of the rich functionality it has & so we end up utilizing it, to maybe, only 10% of its features. 

Don’t believe it?

Ok, let me ask you a simple question. Will you buy a smartphone and use it only for, say, morning alarm?

Absolutely NO!

...But that’s what we’re doing with SolMan (which incidentally comes absolutely free bundled with the SAP licenses you purchased) Most of the SAP customers are using its only one feature of SolMan, and that is to configure the SAP Router as a diagnostic agent connected with SAP and vice versa.

And unlike other freebies, SolMan is a power-packed tool, an integrated online platform to support implementations, operations and optimizations, in short the entire suite of ALM (Application Lifecycle Management). The ALM approach is holistic, because it covers aspects of deploying as well as optimizing your SAP solution.

During the deployment (more popularly called as ‘Implementation’) phase, it helps you in (related ASAP phases mentioned in brackets) are:

• Central maintenance & access to all managed systems  (Project Preparation & On-going)
• Central design & storage of all your business processes (Business blueprint)
• Central definition, maintenance and storage of all business processes & technical documentation  (Business Blueprint & Realization)
• Central creation of storage of test information (Realization)
• Central creation and storage of custom development  (Realization)

Once the Implementation phase is over, Solution Manager comes handy in the post-Go-Live support (popularly called as Sustenance phase) for IT Service management. Solution Manager can easily be configured as a ticketing tool to manage the incidents/tickets. Considering other ticketing tools (like Remedy / Peregrine) come with a heavy price tag, it is worthwhile for customers to explore Solution Manager as a better (& cost-effective) option. 

More importantly, SolMan is very effective for Technical Monitoring during the Sustenance phase. It provides:

• System monitoring – Allows you to access the latest snapshot of monitoring data for systems, databases & hosts
• Jobs & BI monitoring – Allows monitoring of backgrounds jobs or complete BI scenario
• End User Monitoring – Provides you availability and performance information from end user point of view
• Integration Monitoring – Provides central access to monitor interfaces for performance, usage, availability & exceptions
• Alert Inbox – Provides you access to alerts coming from different areas

• Automated reporting – Provides access to view EWA (Early Watch Alerts) & Service Level Agreements
• Interactive reporting – Provides you various pre-built reports about availability, performance, capacity & usage of your systems, scenarios, databases & hosts

Most of the reports are available as a Dashboard, which is a big plus.

For those who follow ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) closely, SAP Solution Manager 7.1 has been also verified as ITIL compliant in following 15 core processes (to name a few ranging from Availability Management, Change Management to Service portfolio management etc.)

Now, again ask yourself the question, “How much functionality of Solution Manager my organization (or, my client) is using?”

We are in the Big Data age, we want to process a large amount of data and provide with enough predictive information to take an executive decision, if possible in a tablet format.

SAP Solution Manager is for sure one of the key data collectors that contain critical information about your IT landscape, system health, KPI’s, SLA’s, etc.

So, here we have the challenge: We need to provide executive dashboards for decision takers, in a tablet format (role based) and take the information from different sources, including the SAP Solution Manager

How to do this? Simple, with SAP Smart Business executive edition

Note: This is valid for on premise SolMan or for hosted editions (VAR’s, SMaMS) in this case, you need to ask your provider to provide you with the information required

Let’s plan it in just four steps:

1^st Step:

First at all you need a SAP HANA System, some of you will stop reading now, but is not than complex, you don’t need a big system, on premise, nowadays with the SAP Cloud Appliance Library you can get a SAP HANA System in less than an hour, just go to http://cal.sap.com and select the cloud provider most suitable and that is all.

2^nd Step:

Define a SAP HANA datamart (in this case your SAP Solution Manager) and connect it to your SAP HANA standalone system, data is transferred into SAP HANA with data services from several sources

3^rd Step:

Install the SAP Smart Business executive edition, it needs no extra license beside the SAP HANA license itself, and you can download it from the SAP Service Marketplace:

Installations and Upgrades >> Browse our Download Catalog >> SAP In-Memory (SAP HANA ) >> SAP HANA Add-ons >> SAP SMART BUS EXEC.ED >> SAP SMART BUS EXEC.ED 1.0

4^th Step:

Start building your Dashboards:

4.1 Select Data Source in SAP HANA

From your datamart you populated some SAP HANA view or table, it become available as the basis for the dashboard. By selecting the view and giving it a talking name, a catalogue of usable views is built up. 

4.2 Define KPIs

In this step the measures, dimensions, hierarchies in the view are identified. “Speaking names” can be assigned. Technical dimensions and hierarchies in the SAP HANA view can be assigned to a logical dimension in the KPI repository to allow global filters. Benchmarks, trends and the information design are defined. Number formatting is specified. Calculated KPIs may be defined. This can be done by business experts in a very simple and straightforward way. 

4.3 Define Visualization

The visualization of KPI's through tiles and charts are defined in this step. However, the information design, semantic coloring and number formatting is inherited from the KPI definition. The same holds for filtering dimensions. So per definition the information design is kept consistent throughout the dashboard and global filters are possible. This again can be done by business experts in a simple and straightforward way.

4.4 Compose Stories and Dashboards

Stories are collections of semantically related tiles, e.g. tiles about a certain topic like “Profitability”. Stories also define the multilevel Navigation between the different tiles. Dashboard can be composed by selecting on or several stories and either using all or a subset of tiles contained in that story. This is easy to do for end users.

Then you can consume the dashboard with your laptop, tablet or smartphone and take informed decisions without delay or need to be "at office"

1. Issue

When configuring solution manager CBTA for test automation related to SAP CRM 7.0x, some CRM services need to be activated.
Services such as UIF_LOGON en TAF_APPLAUNCHER.

example of error message: Service cannot be reached. What has happened: URL xxxxx/sap/uif_logon call was terminated because the corresponding service is not available.

2. Activating service TAF_APPLAUNCHER

In CRM backend, tcode SICF,

Search for service name *TAF* and apply filter.

note that taf_applauncher is not active.

Activate service.

3.Activating service  – UIF_LOGON

In CRM backend, tcode SICF,

Search for service name *UIF_LOGON* and apply filter.

note that service is not active.

First timer blog, any feedback is welcome.

Thanks and with kind regards,

Yee-Tee

You can create CBTA test cases for SAP CRM for test automation.

I had trouble with the configuration, couldn't find any documentation about it and found a way to do so.

One way to launch the CRM WebUI is described below.

*prerequisite: maintain process structure of your project

(tcode Solar02, select process step and the tab `Transactions`)

In a process step; add transaction of the type WebClient Application and select a configured logical component.

Next, the object should be maintained like saprole=Z_BO_OIMKLIC&crm-logical-link=IC_BPIDENT. Notice that it has both the user role (1) as the default screen after login (2).

Both can be determined by the following:

1 how to determine user role

a) within webUI click on the link on the lower right corner for system details. You will find the role.

b) tcode SU01, enter user name, F7, Check Parameter CRM_UI_PROFILE. the value is your user name. If it´s `*´, it means you´ll get all roles and after login you have to choose a role

c) check your org.model object and it´s configuration for the assigned user role.

2 how to determine default screen after login

a) after logon, use F2 to determine the component object name

b) check customizing-tables based on the profile name of the user role

    tcode SE16, table CRMC_UI_PROFILE, enter profile name, F8

    determine the CRMUI_NAVBAR value. This is your navigation bar profile.

     tcode SE16, tableCRMC_UI_NB_A_WC.

     enter profile ID, F8. note that these are the technical names. For the description, check the SPRO customizing of the navigation bar profiles.

     Note down the linkID field.

First time blogger, any feedback is welcome.

Thanks and with kind regards,

Yee-Tee

Earlier version of the Solution manger used to maintain SLD through SMSY transaction code. Since Solution Manger 7.1 on-wards SAP replaced SMSY with LMDB. As of now CR version of SLD should be at least 9.1 to configure LMDB.

I would like to explain you the step by step of solution manager SLD upgrade.

Pre-requisites:

• Check the table space size of PSAPSR3DB ,Please keep at least 10 GB free size if you are upgrade version 4. to 9.1
• Check the SLD service status( service should be in green status)
• Take the backup SLD version before Upgrade.
• Take the backup of the system.

Don'ts

• Don't stop the database or SLD service durning the upgrade.
• Don't closed the web browser during the upgrade.

Minimum  30 minutes to complete the upgrade.

Read the SAPNote: 669669 - Update of SAP System Component Repository in SLD

Download the CR content according to your request.

Note: You cannot Upgrade from version4.0 to 9.1  You have to upgrade one by as per the order.

From 1.x to 2.0:

Support portal entry point: SAP MASTER DATA FOR SLD 1.0

End of maintenance reached; no longer available.

From 2.x to 3.0

Support portal entry point: SAP MASTER DATA FOR SLD 2.0

File name: CRDelta1418_0-10003379.ZIP

Comment: See below. Switch from 2.0 to 3.0

From 3.x to 4.0

Support portal entry point: SAP CR CONTENT UP TO 2007

File name: CRDelta1511_0-10004549.ZIP

From 4.x to 5.0

Support portal entry point: SAP CR CONTENT UP TO 2008

File name: CRDelta41514_0-10006428.ZIP

From 5.x to 6.0

Support portal entry point: SAP CR CONTENT UP TO 2009

File name: CRDelta51509_1-20005942.ZIP

From 6.x to 7.0

Support portal entry point: SAP CR CONTENT UP TO 2010

File name: CRDelta61610_0-20006535.ZIP

From 7.x to 8.0

Support portal entry point: SAP CR CONTENT UP TO 2011

File name: CRDelta71611_0-20008269.ZIP

From 8.x to 9.0

Support portal entry point: SAP CR CONTENT UP TO 2012

File name: CRDelta81612_0-20009730.ZIP

From 9.x to 10.0

Support portal entry point: SAP CR CONTENT UP TO 2013

File name: CRDelta91615_0-20010858.ZIP

From 10.x to 11.0

Support portal entry point: SAP CR CONTENT UP TO 2014

File name: CRDelta101613_0-20012029.ZIP

From 11.x to 11.y (latest version)

Support portal entry point: SAP CR CONTENT UP TO 2015

File name: CRDelta1116*.ZIP

Comment: Use the latest file.

Example: You are using the current CR Content 9.5. Download the latest data model cimsap....zip and the following files:

CRDelta91615_0-20010858.ZIP

CRDelta101613_0-20012029.ZIP

Also download the latest CRDelta1116*.ZIP file.

You must first download the current CIM model. find these under SAP CR Content.....

Go to the service marketplace  download software >>Support Package and Stacks>>> A -to Z index>> select C>>>

Check your CR version And download it...

Example: Your version is 2008.. and required version is 2014.. You need to download all version in between this.

Login to the SLD

http://<hostname.hostname>:<port>/sld

Administration>>> Details> Data  there you can seen the current version of CR content..

Note: Download the cimsapxxxx and correspond crdelta xxxx

Import first Latest cimsapxxxx then crdelta one by one...

Update:

Login to the SLD: Administration >>> content Import:::

Select the proper version of the cissapxxx and import

brows the file and  select the file and import: if the file is not compatible throw an error message (Import anyway) (Cancel the Import..)

cancel the import and select the proper version of CR, otherwise your SLD database is inconsistent mode.

Click the import::; import will start.............

If the below error occur increase the table space of  PSAPSR3DB  and continue the import from the beginning, the same file...

Finished You can see the CR version on  Administration >>> details >> Data..

Thanks

Yoonus

It's the middle of summer and I have to deliver a new solution manager for a customer.

Of course I need to install the latest version (7.1 SP13)... but SAP only provide an export of an SP04 system.

So the process is a little bit slow...

You go through your installation (8 hours)... and then you have the pleasure to process arround 13 Gb of patches with SUM (28 hours of processing).

Then I made a mistake, I did upgrade the SLD CR content to the latest version... 5 hours of processing for loading around 70 Mb of CIM data.

I then start the system preparation roadmap and reach that horrible 6.2 step where SLD and LMDB are synchronized... 8 hours after reaching that point the synchro is not half way yet!

Note 1555955 - SAP Solution Manager 7.1 - Performance Checks for LMDB give some tips that are quite useless, Abap shared memory is big enough, no swap on my system.

As advised I did update statistics on LMDB_P* tables, I have a script running every hour for that

select  'exec DBMS_STATS.GATHER_TABLE_STATS (''SAPSR3'', ''' || table_name || ''', cascade=>TRUE, degree=>8);'

from dba_tables where table_name like 'LMDB_P_%';

I did even create an index for the poor sql request that has already run 1.4 millions of times...

CREATE INDEX "SAPSR3"."LMDB_P_INSTANCE~Z0" ON "SAPSR3"."LMDB_P_INSTANCE" ("DOMAIN_ID", "NAMESPACE_ID", "INST_HASH", "COUNTER") TABLESPACE "PSAPSR3" online parallel (degree 8) nologging;

Thank you SAP for making basis consultant life so funny, and do no try to make your code better.

Real programmers don't eat quiche and are not coding on solman either !

This blog will focus on content customization concept of Technical Monitoring which is not mandatory element but can simplify life for support teams or enhance the usage of Technical Monitoring and Alerting framework in an efficient manner.

The days for choosing the product for SAP Monitoring are almost gone now. The time we are gifted with Solution Manager 7.1 everything is changed and all the credit goes to SAP Development team for making these huge changes in the 7.1 version(of course 7.2 is coming) but yet a year to go for it.

In short, no need to go for procurement of a new monitoring tool as good practice is in place, forget comparing or asking question whether this will work or not. It has brought all the best metrics provided by SAP for almost all well known OS, DB and Applications simplifying the life of implementation experts. I know many people will say its not that easy to implement but yes as compared to CCMS or old concept things are much stable.

At least I have seen all our customer's enjoying this from past several years with continuous support from SAP and part of RUNSAP Implementation Partner's family we are a bit lucky to know things first as well to make things crispy.

In this blog, I will provide the steps to customize the Alert Subject in Technical Monitoring Alert Notifications which are received via Email. e.g. in MS Outlook

The reason for this is that today for large customer/bigger landscape, we always have a big group of system and post enabling the monitoring capability of Solution Manager 7.1 along with Notification setup creates a huge impact over email group/support group ID's.

Thus, if we are performing monitoring for a system and in case it has an issue then system raises an alert and also trigger an email as per configuration.

Many times, I have noticed people just activate standard templates without much of customization due to certain reason but the end result looks below for a support person email inbox.

Today almost every support team member is getting a panic situation by looking above scenario where its impossible to know which system is having issue or where is the problem.

In other words this is a much bigger problem for support people before they can actually solve the real problem.

Yes, this grows more severe with no. of system increases and therefore proper configuration should be planned well ahead as part of implementation before its getting too late.

There is a very simple way to customize the SUBJECT of these emails so that the system name can be added along with the Alert Description.

Let us begin with configuration.

Step 1 - In solman_setup transaction, choose the Technical Monitoring ->Configure Infrastructure – Configure Manually step(make sure proper ID is being used like Solman_admin etc to have necessary authorization)

Step 2– Next, choose the Content Customization and click the Web Dynpro URL link. This will trigger or open the customizing window for us.

Step 3– Now depending upon the requirement and way we would like to have the subject for the email notification. we can change here the header for automatic notification. e.g. Maintain the settings for Email and the Email Subject as below and SAVE.

Step 4– Make sure to change status to Content Customization Step to Performed. I know many people will say what is the need yes it is good way to keep track of the steps you have done or letting others to keep aware of it. further, you can also document it by making a comment of what has been done. in the Comment section.

Steps 5– Last, make sure to perform the Apply & Activate the Templates with this new changes for notification as per relevance.

Result - Yes, we will get a different and much better output in our email inbox now.

It is easier to understand which of the systems are having issue as Alert Notification are stating the names or SID's with specific issues belonging to each of them.

I hope you guys have enjoyed it as again there is no development done and our purpose is achieved.

Kindly check another one recently published in case you would like to customize the alert name in Alert Inbox as well.

How To - Change/Customize Alert Name in Technical Monitoring Workcenter

Dear All,

Here i am giving points to create project successfully for the charm with simple steps to be followed.

For this, in SOLMAN.. Basic configuration, System preparation should be green.

For satellite system Managed system configuration should be completed and READ, TMW and TRUSTED RFCs should be created.

Once this is done.. Go to SOLAR_PROJECT_ADMIN

Select create option..

Maintain a Title and choose a language

Confirm the Pop-Up asking for the document enhancement.

Navigate to the tab System Landscape and select (use value help) the logical component defined before

The logical component will be put into the project definition. Save your settings.

Navigate to the tab Change Management and activate the Change Management integration for this project. Confirm the pop-up window.

Before creating the project cycle and taks list run a check for the project definition. Press the button Check

This Check covers different aspects. Initial configuration, correct transport management setup or assigned business partner. The result list shouldn´t contain any errors. In case of check for the error message and also the application log (button right next to the Check button).

When the project check was successful you create a project cycle and a task list. To do this just press the button Create Task List.

Define a name for the Task List and confirm.

After the successful creation this pop-up will show up.

You can now navigate to the Task List directly. The initial phase value will be Development without Release and the tasks for the project track will still be locked. You can unlock the tasks either by pressing on it with the right mouse button or use the task Lock/Release Transport Tracks incl. Role Types.

Example: Open tasks with task Lock/Release Transport Tracks incl. Role Types

Select the system types for which the tasks should be released and confirm.

After leaving the task list you get directly back to the SAP Solution Manager Project definition. There you can see the successful defined SAP Solution Manager Project which can now be used with Change Request Management.

With this.. Your project creation is completed and you can go ahead with creation of Change Requests with this project.

Regards,

Karthik

Dear SAP Solution Manager customers, users and consultants: This is your call! SAP starts the next round of its Customer Connection programm for SAP CRM.

Whether you know already or not, I just want to give you a quick heads-up about this:

The SAP Customer Connection program is already out there for quite some time now. It is not offered for SAP Solution Manager, but SAP CRM had already several rounds and projects - which resulted in great enhancements of the product. Actually, SAP CRM orients all of there future developments mostly only based on the Customer Connection program. This happend already quite successfully for the last three years. The main portal is http://influence.sap.com

Huh? Why should this be interesting for me, as as SAP Solution Manager customer?

There is a simple answer to that: Because SAP Solution Manager uses big parts of SAP CRM technologies and frameworks, especially in the area of IT Service Management and Change Control Management (Change Request Management).

With this blog, I want to inform you about the next upcoming Wave of this programm, which will start quite soon: Initial kick-off calls will happen next week on Tuesday and Wednesday (see links below) and the Requirements Collection phase will then last until mid of October. This is when you have the chance to submit ideas and requests.

As stated above, many features of SAP Solution Manager in the area of IT Service Management and Change Request Management are based on SAP CRM functions are re-use its framework. Use this opportunity to submit requests which have no direct relationship to SAP Solution Manager but are related to SAP CRM core functions.

I'm not a technical architect, how should I know?

Of course, it is not always easy for a customer to see what is now coming from SAP CRM and what is coming from SAP Solution Manager. Therefore, here is a short list of areas which might be relevant:

• General Features & Handling of them (General UI Usability, Checklists, Approval, …)
• Generic Functions (like Attachments, Text Management, Inbox & Search, …)
• PPF Framework (Status Management, Customizing, …)
• UI Framework
• Muli Level Categorization
• Rule Management
• Ibase, Iobject
• …

This give you the opportunity to have a real influence of SAP's development in this area - besides that you will also get something positive out of it for SAP Solution Manager and finally your own IT solution.

All enhancements are normally delivered via an SAP Note - which means you can easily select, which of them are relevant for you.

Ok - great. This sound's really interesting. What do I need to do, to take part in this project?

• Go to the website http://influence.sap.com and register yourself.
• Visit the project page "CRM 2016" and follow this page (see "important links" below)
• Participate in one of the kick-off call (see next section)
• During the "Collect" phase: Submit your ideas and requests, and participate in existing feature discussions and votings.

When are those Kick-Off Calls?

There are two general global calls plus an additional call for DSAG customer.

You can find all information via the links below:

• General Information: https://influence.sap.com/ct/ct_a_view_blog.bix?c=2A9FA46A-2F06-4E16-AB9A-44FF3A8C873D&bID=86B1475E-8207-4C30-A101-A622D3BED5F1
• ASUG Customers: https://www.asug.com/events/detail/CRM-2016-Kickoff-2016
• DSAG Customers: https://forum.dsag.de/veranstaltungen/2015-09/customer-connection-kick-call-fuer-das-fokus-topic-crm-2016

Other Important Links:

• Project Page for 2016 (Follow here!)
• Project Page from 2015 (you may check what has been done so far in former projects)

Personally, I would be very happy if many SAP Solution Manager customers from the area Change Management, Service Desk and IT Service Management will participate in this initiative, because I think it is a great offer from SAP and a great opportunity for our customers to make a difference.

Tobias Hauk
- Produkt & Solution Management

This Blog briefs 'Things to Know' about SAP Solution Manager powered by SAP HANA

Version/Release :SAP Solution Manager 7.1, powered by SAP HANA

SAP Solution Manager 7.1, powered by SAP HANA is only available to new customers of SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA. No other customer business unit is using SAP Business Suite, and no SAP Solution Manager is available.

Approach:

SolMan on HANA is going to be a new setup (install),

• Can not upgrade non HANA version to HANA
• Can not migrate traditional SolMan to SolMan on HANA.

Functional Scope:

The functional scope of SAP Solution Manager 7.1, powered by SAP HANA is identical to SAP Solution Manager 7.1 SP08. Unless otherwise specified, SAP Solution Manager 7.1 SP08 documentation is valid for SAP Solution Manager 7.1, powered by SAP HANA.

Note

The usage rights for SAP Solution Manager 7.1, powered by SAP HANA are defined in your support agreement.

Relevant SAP Notes

• General Information  1881765
• Release Information Note  1882217
• Release Information  1847305

More Information

You can find the Master Guide and all other relevant guides and documentation on the SolMan on HANA

FAQ :   SAP Solution Manager

How To Documents : Knowledge Transfer | SAP Solution Manager

You may like to check these:

Technical Monitoring architecture by Tom Cenens
Get Started with SAP Solution Manager

SAP Solution Manager WIKI - Solution Documentation and Implementation

Instant Access to SAP Solution Manager Expert Knowledge

This was a SAP Enterprise Support webcast from late July ( you can watch the recording here  - Service Marketplace logon is required) but I noticed today that SAP released the SAP note discussed during this webcast.

The focus of this webcast was to cover a new report, a tool in preparation to upgrade to next SolMan Release

This is a tool to prepare for Solution Manager 7.2

It is an overview report for projects & solutions – obtain a report of all solutions on SolMan

In past, there has not been one report; this report helps identify projects/solutions for content activation.  Content Activation helps for when going to next SolMan release; you need to select projects/solutions to activate in 7.2 release

Figure 1: Source: SAP

Solution Documentation in Solution Manager 7.2 is in a new area, designed completely from scratch

Select and activate projects after the upgrade

Every customer is different

Report is needed for content activation

Report to help determine scope for content activation

Download SAP Note 2161244

Run on your existing Solution Manager today – no impact on your system

This is one tool to prepare for 7.2 – more tools are coming

Report identifies projects/solutions – which are “vital and active” in use

Report reflects date of change to project, other information

For content activation need to select what you will activate – this is one step in upgrade process

If you select projects that are not relevant then you have to clean up afterwards

Figure 2: Source:SAP

Note has been in a pilot status; it is available today

Figure 3: Source: SAP

Figure 3 shows how to run the report

“With Lifecycle Information” – the report will collect more information such as source and child projects

Figure 4: Source: SAP

The recommendation from the webcast is to download to Excel to filter/sort, showing the change date, number of elements assigned to the project and a list of projects/solutions with lots of information

Figure 5: Source: SAP

Figure 5 describes the report elements

It is important to determine if the project is vital or in use to help decide if you need it for content activation

It will also help show If Change Request Management is active for the project

Figure 6: Source: SAP

Figure 6 shows some guidelines

If there have been recent changes to the project, the project should be considered for activation and review

In the pilot phase of this one customer mandated they wouldn’t active projects two years or older (as an example)

Figure 7: Source: SAP

Figure 7 shows checking projects with test plans, template projects

Customers use Solution Manager differently and Figure 7 just shows an example.

Customer Feedback

On the call, SAP had a customer share their feedback

They had a preliminary version of the note; it was easily implemented (I agree).  It was straightforward, no issues.  Nothing was broken, it went smooth.  It only took a few minutes to implement the note and test the report.

They had workshops with SAP to review the content to activate for 7.2.

This report does not tell you which projects to take to 7.2; it is not a decision-making tool

They took a look at the result list and knew important projects to take to 7.2 while others had “test” in name and others they needed to look at - # of structure elements, change date

The customer said it was a good starting point

They provided feedback to SAP about how to interpret results and suggestions for improvement.  The customer says the report will help you decide the content to activate for 7.2.

SAP did an evaluation phase with a number of customers

Figure 8: Source: SAP

Customers can start preparing the upgrade early, even if 7.2 is not available.  Planned for rampup this year or beginning of next year (subject to change).  This report can be used to prepare for 7.2 without any impact on Solution Manager system.

SAP will release more information, guidelines and tool on the Service Marketplace.  The report is easy to implement and use.

Question & Answer

Q: Projects not activated during content activated?

A: Will be in read-only – can’t change anything in SOLAR world regarding project content – and cannot re-migrate afterwards

Join ASUG at SAP TechEd next month to learn more - there is a preconference session covering Solution Manager 7.2 - see ASUG.com - SAP TechEd for more information.