Managing Software Collection transports during the Upgrade Phase for tenants in different releases

[Tayane]

Dear Community, 

In each release, the software upgrade starts in the Quality System. After the Test System upgrade (release n+1), the Development and Production System are still on the old release (release n) until they are upgraded too. 

I want to bring attention to this topic because this upgrade period can cause some concerns related to Transport Requests as when the systems are in different releases there are some restrictions. 

The import behavior for transports according to the releases is described below in the following scenarios:

Scenario 1: Development, Test and Production Systems are on Release n. 

For Key User Extensibility, Customizing and Developer Extensibility transports, you can:

• Export from the development system. 
• Import into the test system. 
• Forward from the test system. 
• Import into the production system. 

Scenario 2: Development System is on Release n, Test System on n+1 and Production System on Release n.
For Key User Extensibility, you can:

• Export from the development system
• Import into the test system*
• Forward from the test system
• Import into the production system

*The capability to import into the test system depends on the content of the key user extensibility transport. Some key user items are not yet enabled to be imported into release n+1. Transport with these content types are flagged as outdated in the test system.

If the import into the test system is not possible (transport is outdated), you can forward the transport from the test system without importing it, and then import it into the productive system.

After all systems have been upgraded to the same level, you have to re-export the same content again from the development system and transport to test and production system, so as to ensure that the key user extensibility is also in the test system.

For Developer Extensibility and Customizing transports, you can:

• Export from the development system
• Import into the test and production system

Scenario 3: Transports on Release n and All Systems on Release n+1.
For Key User Extensibility, you can:

• Export from the development system
• Import into the test system*
• Forward from the test system
• Import into the production system

*The capability to import into the test system depends on the content of the key user extensibility transport. Some key user items are not yet enabled to be imported into release n+1. Transport with these content types are flagged as outdated.

If the import into the production system is not possible (transport is outdated), you can re-export the same content again.

For Developer Extensibility and Customizing Transports, you can:

• Import into the test and production system (for transports created on release n and n+1)

As mentioned above, some key user items are not yet enabled to be imported into higher releases and transport with these content types might result in issues in your system.

Therefore, it's important to know how to check which items are enabled for importing in n+1 releases. Check the step by step below:

1. In your S/4HANA Cloud System, go to Extensibility Settings app
2. In Key User Namespaces section, click on your namespace 
   
   
3. Go to "Supported Item Types" tab 
   
   
4. Check the "Import to Higher Version Supported" column. The items with "yes" can be imported to higher releases.

I want to highlight the importance of planning your transports during the Upgrade period, because the development and production system are upgraded to n+1 only after a certain period of time and at this point, you may not be able to import older key user extensibility transports that were created on release n.

Before the upgrade deployment, there's also the preprocessing phase where transports are not allowed. This is described in the maintenance schedule according to the System Landscape:

• SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition, 2-System Landscape & SAP Marketing Cloud – Upgrade & Maintenance ...
• SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition, 3-System Landscape – Upgrade & Maintenance Schedule

I hope this blog was helpful for the process of transporting releases during upgrade period. 
Below there are some references with detailed information about more specific topics related to Transport Management and Software Collections:

• SAP Help Portal - Transport Dependencies
• SAP Help Portal - Extensibility Settings
• SAP Help Portal - Export
• SAP Help Portal - Importing a Software Collection

Thank you & Best Regards,
Tayane.