A technical upgrade can be a daunting task, but if you are armed with the Upgrade Functionality in Solution Manager including the Upgrade Roadmap, you create your project, attach the roadmap to the system you plan to upgrade, and then connect to the upgraded system with confidence. You can distribute upgrade relevant flags, which indicate the IMG objects that need to be upgraded, to ensure alignment with the over project plan. You can compare two projects against one another using the SAP_PROJECT_UPGRADE transaction to identify where changes in standard SAP Business Processes have occurred. The upgrade resources and tools provided will help you manage the overall upgrade process.

Create an SAP Solution Manager Upgrade Project

To create your upgrade project, run transaction SOLAR_PROJECT_ADMIN in SAP Solution Manager. Then either click the Create icon or press the F5 key. As shown in Figure 1, enter the name of your upgrade project, select Upgrade Project as the type of project, and then click the execute icon.

Figure 1

Specify the type of project you want to create

Next, enter a title for the project, select the project language, and add any project- specific document types in the next Create Project screen. Detailed information on creating a project is available from the SAP Help Portal at https://help.sap.com.

Once you have created the project, you need to attach a roadmap. In this case, you will attach the Upgrade Roadmap to take advantage of its upgrade functionalities.

Attach the Upgrade Roadmap

In transaction SOLAR_PROJECT_ADMIN, select your upgrade project and then click the Scope tab. Click the Roadmap Select tab, and then select the Upgrade Roadmap (V3.2) check box (Figure 2). Because the roadmaps are typically in alphabetical order, this roadmap is usually at the bottom of the list.

Figure 2

Select Upgrade Roadmap (V3.2)

Access Your Upgrade Roadmap

Once the Upgrade Roadmap is attached to your upgrade project, you can access it via transaction RMMAIN (Figure 3).

Figure 3

Typical phases of an SAP upgrade project

Figure 3 shows the Overview screen of the Upgrade Roadmap, which lists all the typical phases of an SAP upgrade project. Some of the typical deliverable groups from the Upgrade Roadmap include a description of the technical infrastructure, pre-upgrade analysis, detailed planning of the upgrade process, and a mapping of the business processes in the new release. You might notice many of the standard phases of the Upgrade Roadmap are similar to the ASAP Methodology phases (Project Preparation, Upgrade Blueprint, Upgrade Realization).

To see a detailed view of the roadmap, click one of the deliverable groups. Included in the detailed view is a standard work breakdown structure (WBS) of tasks and activities, a standard description of the task to be completed, and accelerators (Figure 4).

Figure 4

he detailed view of the deliverable group Detailed Planning for the Upgrade Process

Use the Accelerator tab of the detailed Roadmap view to access some of the most popular accelerators for an upgrade project, including a sample project plan, an SAP Solution Manager usage guide, descriptions of upgrade services, upgrade master guides, SAP release notes, and the product availability matrix. To get a list of all the accelerators from the Upgrade Roadmap, follow menu path Goto » Accelerators (Figure 5).

Figure 5

Popular accelerators on the Accelerator tab

Connect to the Technically Upgraded System

For the standard functionality of an upgrade project to work, you need to connect your technically upgraded system to your SAP Solution Manager Landscape tab. For example, if you are upgrading your system from an SAP R/3 4.7 Enterprise system to SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) 6.0, your upgrade team will typically take a copy of your SAP R/3 4.7 production (PRD) system and perform a technical upgrade to SAP ECC 6.0. It is this technically upgraded system that you want to connect to your SAP Solution Manager Landscape tab. To do this, access your upgrade project via transaction SOLAR_PROJECT_ADMIN, select the System Landscape tab, click the drop-down arrow of the Log. Component column, and then select the corresponding logical component for your upgraded system. Click the execute icon.

Create the Project IMG with a Release Customizing View

Once you have specified the appropriate system, create an IMG project along with the release customizing view of the IMG. To do this, click the IMG Projects tab of the System Landscape tab (Figure 6).

Figure 6

Create an IMG Project on the IMG Projects tab

Select the Project Name (in this case, UPGRADE) and click the create IMG project icon at the bottom of the screen. When asked if you want to create the IMG project with a transport immediately, click the Yes button.

Create an Upgrade View for Your IMG Project
If this is the first time you have created the IMG project, you might automatically be prompted to create an upgrade view. If so, provide a View Name (e.g., Upgrade View – 4.70 TO ECC 6.00) and select both Upgrade Customizing activities and Delta Customizing activities (Figure A). If you are not prompted to create a project IMG view, you need to manually create one by selecting the Create button on the IMG Projects tab.

Distribute the Upgrade Relevant Flag

Once you have created the release customizing view of the project IMG, you need to distribute the upgrade relevant flag. The distribution goes through your existing list of IMG objects in your project and flags some of them as being upgrade relevant (essentially identifying which IMG objects have changed between IMG releases). To distribute the upgrade relevant flag, select your upgrade project in transaction SOLAR_PROJECT_ADMIN on the System Landscape tab. Switch to the IMG Projects tab. On the bottom of the tab, you will see the Distribute Upgrade Flag teile button (Figure 8).

Figure 8

Distribute the upgrade relevant flag

Select your project IMG view and click the Distribute Upgrade Flag teile button. Follow the prompts on the next set of screens and select the appropriate Logical Component and View (Figure 9).

Figure 9

Select the logical component and view

Click the execute icon. A confirmation message should appear.

Once the upgrade flag has been distributed, you should be able to go to the Configuration tab of transaction SOLAR02 and see where there are certain objects flagged as Upgrade Relevant (Figure 10).

Figure 10

Upgrade Relevant flags

For a list of all the objects that are flagged as Upgrade Relevant in your project, run the configuration report via transaction SOLAR_EVAL and select Active for the upgrade flags. You should consider all of the flagged IMG objects in the list relevant to the functional upgrade project. The functional upgrade team can use the list to identify the objects that have changed between the releases of the IMG (e.g., SAP 4.7 Enterprise) and a more current release of the IMG (e.g., SAP ECC 6.0).

SAP_PROJECT_UPGRADE Transaction (Compare Projects and Adjust Changes)

The SAP_PROJECT_UPGRADE transaction allows you to compare two projects against one another to identify where changes have occurred on the General Documentation tab, the Project Documentation tab, the Structure tab, and the Configuration tab (Figure 11). This function compares the structure, and the objects assigned to your SAP Solution Manager project, with its source (e.g., another project used that was used to create your upgrade project). If the source project has changed, you can copy the changes and improve the process structure and the assigned objects.

Figure 11

Compare the structure and source of two projects

Brad P. Saxon

Brad P. Saxon has been an SAP consultant since 1996 and has spent the past eight years with SAP America. In his current role, he serves as the Managing Principal for SAP Solution Manager in the South Region. Brad has achieved a “Trusted Advisor” status with more than 35 Solution Manager customers. He is also a frequent contributor to ASUG, SAPPHIRE, and several websites, including www.SolutionManagerexpert.com.

You may contact the author at editor@SolutionManagerexpert.com.

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