topic Re: Software Configuration Management for ABAP Development ? in Application Development and Automation Discussions

Software Configuration Management for ABAP Development ?

Former Member — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:24:09 GMT

Hi,

we are a software company selling a Data Capture Solution.

For this, we are currently in the process to develop an interface for transferring the extracted data into a customer's SAP R/3 system.

Since we want to develop this interface following certain software engineering principles, we are looking for a way to solve certain simple common Software Configuration Management issues, such as:

- Object Versioning (Similar to file versioning in classic software development): That means being able to:

-- Keep track WHO changed WHAT WHEN and WHY?

-- Revert to a former version of an object (e.g. when the fix of a former defect must be revoked for some reason)

-- Keep track which changes have been made for a certain Change Request (NOT meaning SAP Change Requests, but Change Request for our interface development)

- Label a certain version state as 'released' or 'tested' or whatever

- Perform a kind of 'Branching' (Classical Software Configuration Management task), e.g. when we release a version of our interface and start the development of a new version, we must open a 'Maintenance Branch' of our released version parallel to the ongoing development of the future release.

When I say 'Objects', I mean everything being concerned when developing something within R/3; that can be ABAP programs, forms, tables (structure and content(!)), etc.

We are using an SAP System version ECC 5.0 for development; as for now, we have come to the conclusion to use the versioning that comes with the Transforms, although they do not really cover the above requirements as we would like to.

Is there anybody out there who had the same idea and solved it somehow?

My impression is that in the SAP world, classical Software Configuration Management is not a part of the way of thinking; and that development for SAP R/3 has little in common with classical software development.

But maybe there is an add-on or some hidden features of NetWeaver or anything that can solve these issues.

Hope is the last to die...

Thank you very much for any feedback,

Regards,

Jörg

Re: Software Configuration Management for ABAP Development ?

naimesh_patel — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:06:43 GMT

I think SAP has pretty good Version Management (except for some objects like Forms - Smartforms / SAPScripts ).

You can get the list of the "Objects" which are versionable in :

SE09 > Version managment

Regards,

Naimesh Patel

Re: Software Configuration Management for ABAP Development ?

Former Member — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:14:00 GMT

Hello

As per my understanding you are talking about the

Version Management / Configuration softwares in other

Software Frameworks is Possible in SAP or not?

Answer is Yes...

SAP has powerful Document management System has each

document can be checked in and checked out..

Also the powerful SAP Solution Manager uses this feature strongly

You can do thru SAP DMS and SOLMAN..

Thanks and Regards

Pushkar

Re: Software Configuration Management for ABAP Development ?

Former Member — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 08:05:48 GMT

Thank you very much for your answers!

@Pushkar:

No this is not exactly what I meant;

What we want to do is a kind of classical configuration management or at least version control of

development objects like ABAP programs, table definitions, table data etc. that are contained within our SAP development system.

It's not about version management of external documents imported into SAP.

I know that there is a kind of version control via Transports, but this does not cover all classical version control mechanisms; what we are missing there is

- the possibility of reverting to an older version of an 'object'

- Branching / Merging mechanisms

- the possibility to choose which changes I want to release with which transform and which objects

- view differences between arbitrary versions of an object

- ...

I was hoping there is maybe a kind of 'add-on' or maybe even a built-in tool that provides classical version control mechanisms or something similar.

Thank you for further help,

Regards,

Jörg

Re: Software Configuration Management for ABAP Development ?

Former Member — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:41:30 GMT

Hi Jochen,

we are facing the same problem, did you find a feasible solution? A colleague of mine suggested using two separate development systems and "branching" by transporting the Fix-release onto the second development system (deleting what might already be there before). The merge would be done by manually applying the fixes on both systems.

It doesn't seem to be very elegant though and I wonder how the guys at SAP (hello, anybody out there.. tackle this problem. Given the fact that there is quite some ABAP development going on there, I think they must have some strategy for this!

Regards,

Sebastian

Re: Software Configuration Management for ABAP Development ?

GrahamRobbo — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:57:40 GMT

Hi Jörg,

in case you are not aware of it SAP has considerable functionality and tool support in the area of Software Lifecycle Management.

Look at http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/en/f6/205b7c53754b458d5c028efdf31249/frameset.htm

There are, of course, some limitations and there are 3rd party tools that are designed to help fill-out the standard SAP offering.

One that immediately springs to mind is RevTrac. Probably because they are Australian, but they have a large number of international customers most especially in the US.

I don't know how well RevTrac will address your needs but you can investigate them at http://www.rev-trac.com

Cheers

Graham Robbo