Sap Release Management Implementation Guide
In the context of previous three blogs -Release Management in SAP –A structured Approach -Part1 -Release Management in SAP –A structured Approach -Part2 -Release Management in SAP –A structured Approach -Part3,this is a conclusive blog focussed on Governance,Roles and Responsibility as well Communication Governance The following are the Release Management governance principles. Release Scope will be confirmed and frozen at the start of each Release cycle. All key stakeholders involved in a Release will be communicated the detailed Release Plan, appropriate checkpoints, and sign-off points at the beginning of a Release lifecycle.
The IMG (Implementation Management Guide) is a toolset that helps a project team with the. 10.4 There are two customizing groups relevant to SAP release.
(Timing of Release phases may vary depending on the contents of the Release.). Arduino which programmer. All Release approvers are required to provide signoff within the appropriate timescales.
Failure to so do will move the relevant object to the next available scheduled Release. Failure to pass a checkpoint in the Release Lifecycle will automatically move the relevant object to a future Release. Where appropriate, business sign-off of EUT will be required prior to the migration into Pre-production. Where appropriate, business sign-off of Regression testing will be required before the migration to Production. The Release Manager will be responsible to approve the movement of transports into Pre-Production and Production for all Releases – Major, Minor, and Emergency. The Release Manager will have the final approval prior to any migration to Production.
Sap Implementation Consultant
The following chart provides an overview of the different release management governance forums. Governance Group Purpose Who Frequency Change Approval Board To approve change requests into a Release. As defined Release Manager As defined Architecture Board Meeting To confirm:. Monthly maintenance windows and any expected impact on Project. Review of any other upcoming activities which may impact Global Template. Release Manager AMS SDM Lead Architect Weekly initially moving to Monthly Release Planning To confirm the scope of each Release before it is initiated and to conduct Release forward planning.
Release Manager AMS SDM Project SDM Manager Operations Monthly Release Status Meeting To manage the Release through the various phases, checkpoints, environments, and to confirm that all required sign offs are in place. Release Manager AMS SDM Project SDM Others stakeholders as required (e.g. 3rd parties, Operations, Process Owners, etc.) Weekly Governance Meeting To communicate. The upcoming release schedule. The planned content of the releases. Country required actions (e.g. Regression sign off).
To allow countries to communicate any local plans which could impact the releases. Release Manager Super Users Super Users Global Template Super Users Global Operations Reps / Process Owners Monthly Approvals Below is a high level overview of the approval inputs into the Release Process.
Approver Area Responsibility Change Approval Board (CAB) Country Go-lives, Major new functionality, System enhancements, Support Packs Responsible to approve and priorities across Releases. AMS Incidents Responsible to priorities incidents into Releases. Release Manager Release Scope Responsible to finalize the combined Release list. Where conflicts arise, the Release manager is responsible to escalate to the CAB for resolution. Once a Release is frozen and in progress, the Release Manager will be responsible to ensure that the checkpoint criteria is met prior to releasing transports for Minor and Emergency Releases into the next environment. For Major Releases, the current project managers will be responsible for approving the release into the next environment, up to Pre-Production.
The Release Manager will be responsible to approve the movement of transports into Pre-Production and Production for all Releases – Major, Minor, and Emergency. Major and Minor Releases must pass the Release checkpoint criteria before they will be accepted for migration into the pre-production and production environments. The Pre-Production environment is owned by AMS and will be used for regression testing. The pre-production environment will be refreshed from the Production environment prior to every full regression run. Stakeholder Relationship with Release Manager Change Approval Board To provide the approved, planned enhancements, country go-lives, and major functionality into the release schedule Release Manager to provide input into decision making and prioritization process including estimates, capacity, cross-country considerations, etc.
Project Operations To work with Release Manager through the release lifecycle providing updates and the relevant checkpoints. To be responsible for managing the contents of the Major Releases through the lifecycle and ensuring that the checkpoint criteria is met prior to the handover into the regression environment. 3 rd Parties To provide input in the Release schedules and considerations and constraints into the Release Plan. To work within the Release timeframes and provide updates and issues to the release manager.
AMS Service Delivery Manager (SDM) To provide input into the Release scope (e.g. Incidents) To develop the incident fixes and minor enhancements. To work with the Release Manager to manage the Releases through the release lifecycle To provide updates into the weekly Release Status Meeting. Operations Release Manager / Process Owners To ensure that all appropriate training, portal content, process updates, work instruction updates, etc. Are complete within the communicated Release timescales. To provide status updates into the weekly Release Status meetings.
Communications Communication of release contents to the team, wider stakeholders, and the business end users will be essential. The contents of a release may differ from the point at which the release scope is frozen to the point at which the release is transported into production. Therefore the final communication of the contents of the release will be critical to business operations. Principles The following general Release communication principles will apply.
The Release Schedule will be published to the business in order that the business many plan for complete system outages during the release windows. The business will be given as much advance warning of any unplanned system outages as possible. The final scope of all Releases transported into the Production environment will be published to an agreed central point.
Operations will be responsible to translate the Release scope into business language and to communicate to all Global Template users as appropriate. Emergency Release notifications will be communicated to users as appropriate by Service operations. Operations will be responsible to ensure that all appropriate training, portal content, process updates, work instruction updates, etc. Are complete within the communicated Release Plan timescales as defined by the Release Manager. Releases will be communicated to the countries as part of the current monthly governance process via a monthly Governance Meeting.
Each Release must be carefully planned and the key dates communicated to all relevant stakeholders. Each release requires a detailed timetable of the checkpoints and cut-offs leading up to the transport into production. A detailed Release plan must be communicated to all relevant stakeholders as far in advance as possible in order that the appropriate activities may be planned and the appropriate updates and signoffs may be gathered. Stakeholders involved in each release will be expected to provide the relevant updates to the Release Manager at a weekly Release Status meeting. Hope this series of blogs will give some insight to release management process as this approach yielded great benefits to us in couple of projects spanning multiple geography as well multi country roll out.
The Timken Company is currently looking into implementing a Release Management Process for all application software supported by our Corporate Information Systems department. The objective of this program is to establish a process/program where small enhancement efforts as well as significant projects would be grouped into a software upgrade ‘release’.
These releases would be implemented into production environment on a predetermined schedule (schedule likely would be different based on application software ‘groupings’). Each release would have project lifecycle steps, including but not limited to: o Design o Development o Testing (including ‘regression’ testing) o Training o Application and user documentation o Deployment/cutover To emphasize, although Timken utilizes SAP’s ERP software globally for its bearing business, upon completion, the release management process would encompass all application systems (Engineering systems,.net, etc.) We would like to know if any other companies have implemented a similar software release program (for SAP only or for multiple applications). If so, how has implementing a release management program helped your company? What problems issues are associated with implementing this? Any feedback or thoughts would be very helpful and appreciated. Additionally, we’d like to know if you’d be willing to talk with us via teleconference regarding implementation of your release program. Tags:.
releasemanagement. patchmanagement. erp.
Sap Implementation Checklist
releaseprocedure. transport.