Companies are constantly trying to understand and identify the impact of changes to their systems. The change could be a result of something a user has done or a Support Package from SAP. Trying to analyze and understand the impact of a change can cause them to end up either testing all possible scenarios (resulting in over-testing, which wastes time and money) or hesitating to apply a change or Support Package (following the N-1 rule, staying one support lower than the latest to avoid any major errors or challenges). It is important for the company to understand the impact of a change beforehand and identify the test scenarios.

Business Process Change Analyzer (BPCA) provides the specific impact of a software change on an end-to-end business process. This links the software change to the end-to-end business process and identifies the:

• Scope of change
• Process or processes affected
• Test scripts that need to be run
• Users or job roles that are affected
• Impact on training and documentation

A part of enhancement package 1 for SAP Solution Manager 7.0, and available in conjunction with SAP Enterprise Support, BPCA helps you perform an initial risk assessment on the effect of changes to a business process. Based on the analysis, you can plan the right amount of testing. BPCA uses the technical bill of material (TBOM) function to compare the list of SAP objects (including programs, function modules, includes, and other objects) that might be affected due to a change. As a result, a company’s Basis or technical team no longer has to undo a transport from the production system and the project management office can be satisfied that adequate testing has been performed for a particular change.

The two key prerequisites that are required to use the BPCA functions are:

1. The end-to-end business processes are documented in the solution with all the relevant objects including transaction codes, documentation, test cases, and custom objects, as well as IMG objects and training documentation.
2. Collection of TBOMs. You do this by generating the TBOMs for each transaction code associated with the end-to-end business process. You can generate the TBOMs dynamically or in a static nature based on your need. Using the dynamic option is recommended, as this includes the latest and greatest changes and a list of all the objects.

Now let’s discuss the three phases of using and optimizing BPCA.

Phase 1: Preparation

This is the phase in which end-to-end business processes are built with all the affected objects attached to them. This can be done in a project using the Business Process Hierarchy (BPH) or in an existing solution. You can use various tools, such as SolDocA (for reverse solution engineering), to build the solution and the complete end-to-end business processes. You need to document all the associated transactions and generate the TBOMs as part of the solution build.

Phase 2: Analysis

You perform change analysis using the function via the SAP Solution Manager Work Center in the Test Management tab in the BP Change Analyzer function (Figure 1). You can run the change analysis against an existing transport request or from a list of transports delivered by SAP as part of a Support Package. The key information is to provide the System and Client values in which the transport resides. You can execute BPCA against an existing live SAP solution or an implementation project. The results are saved and sorted by each run and provide the detail of the run. This action is typically executed by the testing team lead or a project lead.

Figure 1

BPCA access via Work Center

Each run can be saved as a separate run with details of the date and the system as shown in Figure 2. Click the Run button to see the results shown in this screen. Note that you can run multiple analyses against the same transport or list of transports and save them seperately.

Figure 2

List of existing analysis runs

Click the Display Details button to see details of the project or solution, the node type, end-to-end business processes, the logical component, and the reference object that has been affected by the change (Figure 3). This step provides all end-to-end business processes and the technical objects that have been affected by the changes.

Figure 3

Detailed end-to-end business processes for an analysis run

The analysis detail provides the information on the project or solution and the specific end-to-end scenario that is affected by the change. Note that there could be more than one end-to-end process that could have been affected due to the change.

The Display Intersection option shows the technical objects that are affected by the change and the transport. This provides the object type and object name affected by the change.

Phase 3: Create a Test Plan

Now you create a test plan out of the analysis and the end-to-end processes that are affected by the change. Click the Create Test Plan button (or the Extend Test Plan button if you have an existing test plan you want to use). Provide the information for the test plan, including values for Title, Test Set, Responsible (person responsible), and the Test Note (Figure 4).

Figure 4

Create or extend a test plan

You can extend the test plan to create a test package and execute the testing. As the test scripts are already attached to the end-to-end business scenario, creating and testing the test plan is much faster. The standard testing process can be followed to execute the testing, finalize the results, and migrate the change. The task of creating or extending the test plan is typically executed by the test manager or project manager. The execution of testing can be done via the Work Center or using the transaction code STWB_WORK.

Benefits and Value

The key benefit of BPCA is to analyze the change impact before applying it to the system. You do not need to apply the change in a sandbox and try to identify the scope for testing, as the scope of testing is generated automatically from BPCA. Figure 5 shows an example of the value of using BPCA in the SAP Solution Manager environment. This provides an example of the person days and effort required for test planning and management.

Figure 5

Value of BPCA

Benefits of using SAP Solution Manager and BPCA for the same test planning and execution efforts are reduced testing effort, testing execution effort, and end-user training documentation. Figure 6 shows a sample of these benefits in monetary value, derived from an application life cycle management (ALM) Value Calculator tool. There are a variety of such tools available.

Figure 6

Sample monetary benefits of using BPCA