A successful SAP go-live is important, but the bigger question is what happens after the project ends. Many organizations build detailed requirements, test cases, documentation, and workflows during implementation, only to lose that structure once they move into operations. By integrating Jira with SAP Cloud ALM, SAP teams can keep…

Non-SAP applications can move quickly through automated Azure DevOps pipelines. SAP is different. SAP changes depend on transports, and those transports are often managed outside Azure DevOps through manual steps or separate tools. That means SAP changes can arrive late to QA, even when every related work item appears complete.…

Modern SAP landscapes extend beyond core systems into BTP, integrations, and cloud services. Azure DevOps gives teams visibility into user stories, tasks, sprint progress, and testing plans. But for SAP, that visibility often stops before delivery is real. A work item may look complete in Azure DevOps, while the related…

Modern SAP landscapes extend beyond core systems into BTP, integrations, and cloud services. Yet governance still relies on static CAB meetings and manual approvals. This creates a mismatch where decisions lack real-time data and cross-system dependencies remain unclear. Modern SAP delivery requires governance embedded directly into workflows, where validation is…

Most SAP governance models rely on CAB meetings, complex approval chains, and manual evidence collection. These controls were designed to reduce risk, but they often delay releases without improving quality or audit confidence. Approvals happen without full context, risks are discovered late, and evidence is assembled after deployment. As a…

Many organizations track SAP development work in Agile platforms like Jira or Azure DevOps. But when transports move toward production, governance shifts to separate tools or manual coordination. This creates a break in the Agile pipeline. By integrating SAP transport management directly into Jira, Azure DevOps, or ServiceNow, governance steps…

Many SAP organizations still rely on ChaRM workflows originally designed for large, sequential project releases. These workflows assume rigid approval chains, manual transport sequencing, and long release cycles. In Agile environments with frequent sprint releases, these steps quickly become bottlenecks. Modern SAP teams address this by integrating transport governance directly…

In SAP landscapes, configuration or code changes can ripple across multiple business processes. Integrating SAP Cloud ALM with tools like Tricentis LiveCompare and Tosca Cloud allows DevOps pipelines to automatically identify impacted processes and trigger targeted regression testing before deployment. Read more: Why Your ADO Pipeline Needs SAP Cloud ALM…

Azure DevOps effectively tracks user stories and tasks, but SAP programs operate across interconnected business processes. By integrating Azure DevOps with SAP Cloud ALM and Signavio, organizations gain a process-aware delivery model that connects work items to a business process hierarchy and improves visibility across the project lifecycle. Read more:…

Automating SAP transport management inside Azure DevOps pipelines ensures sequencing, dependency validation, and conflict detection happen automatically. This shifts governance from reactive cutover checks to preventive controls embedded in the development lifecycle. The result is faster release velocity with stronger compliance and a fully auditable enterprise change process. Read more:…

Many organizations manage SAP work items in Azure DevOps, but transport operations still happen outside the pipeline. Manual sequencing and dependency validation create delays that impact enterprise releases. Integrating SAP transport management into Azure DevOps closes this gap, enabling synchronized QA deployments and coordinated production releases. Read more: Azure DevOps…

Automated SAP release governance does not remove controls — it strengthens them. By validating dependencies, detecting conflicts, managing retrofits, and coordinating multi-platform releases, automation ensures SAP and BTP changes move safely and predictably. Integrated transport management enables continuous validation, stronger audit trails, and faster release cycles without sacrificing control. Read…

Many SAP organizations still validate transport sequencing manually before production deployment. Missing dependencies, late-stage conflicts, and uniform approval workflows create unnecessary bottlenecks. As release cycles accelerate, manual governance introduces delays and operational risk. Automated transport validation moves quality checks earlier in the lifecycle, reducing deployment stress and improving release reliability.…

Most organizations govern SAP transports and BTP deployments separately. SAP often follows one approval path, while BTP extensions and integrations move through enterprise tools like ServiceNow, Jira, or Azure DevOps. Dependencies are coordinated manually and surface too late. Unified governance ensures SAP transports and BTP deployments follow the same workflow,…

Clean core reduces custom ABAP inside SAP, but increases complexity across BTP and integrations. When business logic shifts to side-by-side extensions, APIs, and cloud services, releases no longer depend on a single transport. They require coordinated changes across SAP, BTP, and enterprise applications. Without unified governance, complexity doesn’t disappear it…

Did you know SAP programs rarely start with a small MVP? Unlike typical agile projects, SAP implementations activate end-to-end processes from the start. This concentrates complexity early and floods agile backlogs with interdependent requirements. Without a process hierarchy, teams lose visibility into scope and readiness. SAP Cloud ALM restores clarity…

Did you know that agile delivery often fails in SAP programs not because teams lack speed, but because they lack structure? SAP processes are deeply interconnected, and without a process-based backbone, agile backlogs grow fast, dependencies multiply, and progress becomes difficult to measure. SAP Cloud ALM addresses this by anchoring…

Sprints finish on time. Stories are closed. Backlogs move forward. Yet SAP releases still stall. Because transport coordination, testing readiness, and deployment approvals usually happen outside enterprise planning tools, delivery decisions are made without real SAP execution visibility. The result: delayed testing, rushed cutovers, and last-minute release changes. Read more:…

In many SAP programs, delivery progress is tracked in Jira or Azure DevOps. Stories move to Done, sprint goals are met, and plans move forward. But SAP readiness doesn’t end with task completion. Transports still need sequencing. Testing still needs validation. Approvals still need to happen. When those steps live…

Many organizations replacing Solution Manager focus on adopting new tools rather than redesigning governance. While SAP Cloud ALM modernizes visibility and usability, it does not automatically replace ChaRM-style transport controls. Without integrating SAP transports into enterprise delivery platforms like Jira, Azure DevOps, or ServiceNow, teams often lose approval consistency, audit…

SAP Solution Manager didn’t just document SAP changes it actively enforced governance. Through ChaRM, it controlled transport sequencing, approvals, and release integrity by design, not by manual discipline. When Solution Manager retires, those safeguards don’t fade gradually. They disappear immediately unless they are intentionally rebuilt into the next governance model.…

Most teams approach SolMan’s retirement as a migration problem. It isn’t. The real question is whether SAP changes should continue to be governed differently than the rest of the enterprise. As SAP landscapes expand to include BTP extensions and integrated applications, fragmented governance creates friction and blind spots. SolMan enforced…

SAP Solution Manager is often remembered as restrictive, complex, and difficult to configure. But those same characteristics are exactly why it survived for so long. SolMan embedded safeguards at every stage of the SAP change lifecycle transport sequencing, approvals, audit trails, and release coordination. That’s why there is no one-to-one…

Most SAP delivery delays don’t come from development effort. They come from hand-offs. When Jira planning lives in one system and SAP transport logistics live in another, SAP teams are forced into constant context switching. Status lives in Jira, evidence lives in SAP, and governance lives in spreadsheets. That fragmentation…

Most Agile leaders trust Jira to tell them the truth about delivery progress. But in SAP landscapes, that trust is often misplaced. A user story can be marked “Done” in Jira while the related SAP transport is still unreleased, waiting in a manual queue, or blocked by sequencing issues. On…

Introduction

Upgrades aren’t slowed by the number of transports — they’re slowed by the validation load behind them. Most teams don’t have a testing problem. They have a testing debt problem. When regression testing is treated as a one-time “phase,” the debt compounds every release. The same business processes get retested…

Most SAP upgrade delays don’t come from the upgrade itself — they come from everything that happens around it. The real slowdown is “drift”: Every time a production fix goes live, your upgrade environment becomes outdated. Teams still managing retrofits in spreadsheets don’t see the gap widen until it’s too…

Introduction

Most companies treat S/4HANA upgrades as one-off events — but the truth is different: Your future upgrade speed depends on the decisions you make right now. Every custom enhancement, undocumented process, manual integration, and unaligned requirement adds weight to the next upgrade cycle. Organizations that keep requirements synchronized across SAP…

Many SAP teams rush into S/4HANA upgrades assuming the technical work is the hardest part. But the real challenge appears earlier: missing, outdated, or scattered business process documentation. Without clear documentation in Signavio or SAP Cloud ALM, teams cannot identify which processes use standard SAP functionality, which rely on custom…

Introduction

Introduction

Introduction

Introduction: From Silos to Value Streams

A clean core SAP landscape does not begin in the system; it starts with how you design your processes. Many organizations chase clean core by removing custom code, but the real fix lies in SAP business process optimization. By modeling business flows in SAP Signavio and connecting them through SAP…

Introduction: The Cost of Manual Testing

Introduction

Introduction

Introduction

Introduction

Introduction

Introduction

Why the future of ALM is bigger than SAP

In this edition we look at why the retirement of SAP Solution Manager (SolMan) is not a catastrophe—it’s a chance to rethink and retool your entire change management process.

When Delivery Stalls at the Finish Line

DevOps Isn’t Just for Digital Projects Anymore

Introduction

Introduction: Reinventing Change for a RISE-Driven World

Introduction

Introduction

DevOps has revolutionized enterprise software delivery, but SAP tends to involve manual process steps that create bottlenecks, frustrating business stakeholders who want faster delivery cycles.

Introduction In today's enterprise landscape, Agile methodologies have transformed how organizations deliver software, with frameworks like SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) becoming the standard for accelerating digital initiatives. This evolution has created a distinct divide in many organizations: while digital teams embrace Jira and Agile practices to deliver in short, iterative…

Introduction SAP has launched Cloud ALM as the strategic successor to Solution Manager. As the name implies, Cloud ALM is built in the cloud and for the cloud. This represents a significant shift away from the deeply rooted on-premises nature of Solution Manager. Cloud ALM provides an opportunity to modernize…

Introduction As SAP Solution Manager approaches its end-of-life milestone, organizations face a critical inflection point in their SAP Application Lifecycle Management strategy. SAP has established a clear retirement timeline, with Solution Manager 7.2 reaching end of mainstream maintenance in 2027. This timeline creates urgency for organizations heavily invested in Solution…

Welcome to The SAP ALM Navigator This is the first weekly newsletter for The SAP ALM Navigator. As business time pressures continuously increase, so does the importance of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) topics. All businesses are looking to drive increased efficiency from their existing platforms, and no one can afford…

LIMITED ATTENDANCE

Clearwater, FL – CoreALM, a premier provider of SAP application lifecycle management (ALM) solutions, is pleased to announce its partnership with Tricentis, a global leader in continuous testing and quality engineering. CoreALM is recognized as a leader in delivering services and products that extend the capabilities of SAP’s ALM tools,…

In the fast-paced world of SAP implementations, efficiency and agility are critical. At CoreALM, we specialize in providing Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools that, when combined with SAP Cloud ALM and Tricentis, can transform your SAP implementation projects from cumbersome to cutting-edge. Here, we delve into how you can leverage our expertise and these tools…

CoreALM President, Steve Okun, interviewed SAP Application Lifecycle Management Expert, Donik Mullaademi. Donik described a new product recently launched by CoreALM, the ServiceNow Connector for SAP Transports. This integration is a game-changer, and our recent webinar dives deep into how this innovative connector can increase the speed of innovation without…

Doug Kreinheder, Client Partner at CoreALM interviewed CoreALM President, Steve Okun on SAP Business Transformations. Having led some of the biggest SAP Business Transformations in North America, Steve offered advice on how to avoid the most common problems.

Welcome to a new era of SAP DevOps. As organizations race to accelerate their innovation and agility, embracing best practices in DevOps has become paramount. Traditional approaches to software development and operations are no longer sufficient. The need for a flexible, responsive, and efficient pipeline is essential to meet the…

Introduction Embarking on the journey of digital transformation with SAP requires a robust project management approach, blended with Agile continuous improvement practices. As the workforce shifts to becoming more Agile and collaborative, tools and processes that empower this transition are increasingly vital. SAP has invested in Cloud ALM as their…

We are excited to announce that we will be presenting at this year's annual ASUG & SAP Solution Manager Summit happening during November 5 - 7, 2019 at SAP Headquarters in Newtown, PA! The only event in North America that provides complete, robust training on the latest advancements with SAP…

Let’s try and understand the SAP Support Backbone- what it does and realize how important it is for organizations. The SAP support Backbone is the central infrastructure located at SAP to provide the Tech support to customers. Whether you go to different areas like opening support messages, getting certain data…

What is SAP Activate? SAP Activate methodology is a modular and agile framework for implementing SAP S/4HANA. It drives full support for initial implementation and on-going business innovation as well as delivering customer value and lower TCO. SAP Focused Build facilitates the use of SAP Activate for S/4HANA implementations.

How does your business run? Is your current business running as successfully as it should? How would you know if it wasn’t? Are there areas for improvement and optimization? Any ERP system is a collection of business processes. SAP is unique in not only its ability to support many different…

SAP Application Monitoring (a.k.a. SAP Technical Monitoring or TechMon) is a group of high value and robust monitoring applications within SAP Solution Manager. SAP Solution Manager is included with your company’s SAP Enterprise Support contract. Since companies don’t have to write a separate PO/check for SAP Solution Manager functionality, we…

Is your company interested in moving away from your “expensive” HP ALM or Quality Center (QC) to “free” SAP Solution Manager Test Suite? SAP’s historic testing strategy recommended that SAP customers use HP ALM / QC as their testing platform, which required complicated integration to earlier versions of Solution Manager.

Testing in Focused Build uses the Requirements-based test approach. Work Packages are created from functional specifications and followed adding work items using a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) representation of the scope for a Work Package. Unit, Single Functional Tests, Functional Integration, and Regression Tests are completed followed by Acceptance Testing…

With the release of Solution Manager 7.2, SAP announced that “Test Suite of SAP Solution Manager 7.2 provides all required applications for the functional testing of business processes enabled by SAP and non-SAP software. It is included in the maintenance contract.” Test Suite capabilities include manual and automated functional testing,…

The Solution Readiness Dashboard allows users to quickly gain insight to their overall SAP project status. If you are not familiar with the full powers of Solution Manager, then you would be glad to know that the Application Lifecycle Management platform from SAP comes free, as there is no additional…

New functionalities are being featured in SAP Solution Manager 7.2 FPS08 and Focused Build ST-OST 200 SP03. The new functionalities will be included in: Project Management, Process Management, Requirement Management, Work Package/ Work Item, Defect Correction, Scrum Board API, Test Suite, Solution Readiness Dashboard, Release Dashboard and Standalone Features. Project…

SAP Focused Build’s Support Pack 03 was just released on Feb 21. SAP has added new functionality features to its industry leading delivery platform Focused Build. This delivery platform works as a layer on-top of Solution Manager, leveraging all the capabilities with the Application Lifecycle Management tool and employing many…

SAP released SP03 for Focused Build addon for SAP Solution Manager with many new features to improve project execution. Focused Build is a turnkey solution with accelerators such as S4HANA best practices content to jump start your implementation and complete validation workshops based on out of the box pre-activated S4HANA…

We recently had a workshop on Jira and got a lot of questions about it. What you may not know about Jira is that it can integrate with any SAP ERP module, from Production Planning to Human Capital Management and more. With the connection between SAP Solution Manager and your…

Automated testing is an interesting animal. Many people believe it is an all or nothing deal or that it can work for every company and team. The reality is that these are both not true. Automated testing can be combined with manual testing. We have helped several clients to find…

Recently, a lot of our customers are asking why they should move to SAP Solution Manager 7.2 Test Suite and what are the benefits of adopting Test Suite instead of their existing solutions. In this blog entry, we will explain the whys and the benefits of using SAP Solution Manager…

Technical Monitoring is an integral part of your business. It has also always been a focus of SAP Solution Manager. However, with Solution Manager 7.2, SAP designed technical monitoring with SAP HANA single-stack deployment in mind. By allowing the technical monitoring to benefit HANA customers, they are able to simplify…

Technical Monitoringexists to best monitor and report on the successful (running) and unsuccessful (down) systems in your SAP environment. At CoreALM, we consider this to be an incredible asset to your organization, especially considering large projects, like S/4 HANA, that are approaching. In this blog, we will briefly explore Technical…

SAP Solution Manager 7.2 has a lot of upgrade from 7.1. In all honesty, it should have been named 8.0. There is an extreme difference in that 7.2 is a completely integrated platform. Main Features in SAP Solution Manager 7.2 (Click on the titles to read more in depth about…

Agile is nothing more than breaking up your big releases and making them into short cycles. A cycle, aka a sprint, is essentially a mini implementation project that focuses on your new incremental functionality, and will be your next go-live release.

Comparing and contrasting when to use out-of-the-box standard SAP Solution Manager with what is available in Focused Build when considering Testing capabilities. In general, Test Suite in Solution Manager and Focused Build is basically the same. Below is the process flow which demonstrates Test Suite. At the top, we have…

Test Suite is SAP’s automated and manual testing platform in Solution Manager- the top ALM platform on the market. The testing platform has enabled teams within a variety of industries to further organize their (hundreds upon hundreds) of test cases, which saves them incredible amounts of time. From a Functional…

The SAP HANA Database is a full-fledged, in-memory, relational database which is optimized for transactional (OLTP) and analytical (OLAP) processing. With that said, it is very versatile. It will end up adding value to a wide range of business scenarios, and it can be deployed in many ways, from on premise, in…

SAP rebuilt their ERP (SAP ECC) solution from scratch in order to take advantage of the performance and innovative data models from HANA. Utilizing SAP S/4 HANA means that there will be lower IT costs, better stability and less disruptions from future upgrades. Click here to see how you can successfully…

We have heard a lot about SAP Focused Build in the recent few weeks and written several articles like how it can help your project management or how it can help with your SAP S/4HANA implementations. However, is SAP Focused Build right for you? Here’s a list of statements and if…

Project Management is arguably the most critical role to conduct when delivering a SAP project- large or small. The Project Manager (PM) is responsible for gluing all the roles together and foreseeing a delivery that is certainly on time and on budget. So what value lies before Project Managers who…

SAP Solution Manager Focused Build is a delivery platform that offers an integrated SAP Application Lifecycle Management solution to build and manage SAP projects. Utilizing SAP Focused Build, there is an integration between the Project Manager and the project at hand. Allowing for the project to become Agile. Focused Build…

In this blog, we will do a quick overview of what is the Solution Readiness Dashboard in SAP Focused Build and the features that it provides. The Solution Readiness Dashboard is part of SAP Focused Build and is an agile tool used by project managers to monitor project issues, milestones,…

S/4 HANA is the project on everyone’s mind. With the push to S/4 HANA, SAP is set to replace their current SAP ERP software by 2025. There are many reasons an S/4 Project may fail; that could range from not doing the pre-configuration correctly to not properly training your employees.…

We’ll be at the annual SAP TechEd 2018 conference and hope to meet up with you there! We think this year’s event is going to be fantastic given the recent announcements from SAP and cannot wait to discuss how it affects your SAP roadmap. SAP Focused Build usage cost Last…

----- “Worst case scenario for testing is when changes move to production that haven’t been tested and result in downtime for employees and lost business from customers.” ----- Larry Wilson is CoreALM’s Practice Lead in Testing. He shares his insight on the importance of Testing SAP operations. The worst case…

As you may have heard, SAP just released Focused Build SP02 with new, great functionalities.. If you already use Focused Build and would like to upgrade to SP02, you will need SAP Solution Manager 7.2 SP7 running on your system as a prerequisite. Focused Build SP02 packs a punch with…

In this blog, we will discuss what SAP has planned for technical monitoring and how you can leverage it to reduce downtime and monitor your applications. SAP has changed the User-Interface (UI) completely. As you are probably aware with the older releases, a lot of the 7.1 customers/users were not…

In an earlier blog we published, we touched briefly on what SAP Focused Solutions is and why you should use it. Since publishing that blog, we have had questions from our partners on how they can leverage Focused Solutions or how they can utilize Focused Solutions for upcoming projects like…

What is Focused Solutions Focused Solutions are three turnkey, ready to use solutions to help your IT team perform better at a lower cost. SAP Solution Manager has evolved to become the stable platform for Focused Solutions and includes features that are automated, highly-integrated, preconfigured to deliver agile tools with…

SAP Solution Manager and ALM In our previous blog post, we discussed why Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is an important aspect of your IT strategy and that SAP understands the benefits of a proper ALM plan. SAP has even included a tool, SAP Solution Manager, to assist with your projects…

In our previous blog, we discussed what is Quality Gate Management (QGM) and how we can use it to mitigate risks, bring transparency and enable control of your changes. QGM is one of the many tools that was improved upon with Solution Manager 7.2 but there has been many more enhancements…

Upgrading your Solution Manager system is now mandatory Upgrading your software can be tough and we understand that. However, upgrading to SAP Solution Manager 7.2 is mandatory at this time and as you may have heard, standard maintenance for SAP Solution Manager 7.1 has ended as of December 31st 2017.…

SAP Solution Manager is a central component for administrative tasks in implementing, operating and upgrading systems in your system landscape. The roles and authorization objects are to help us define what should the user be allowed to execute and see to accomplish their daily tasks. SAP delivers template roles for…

SAP introduced SAP Focused Build on top of SAP Solution Manager with pre-configured turnkey solutions, with a small implementation investment customer can take advantage of the preconfigured solution and start planning their project rollout. Focused build is based on Agile methodology making it more flexible how requirements-to-deploy turn into operations.

The annual SAP SAPPHIRE NOW + ASUG conference starts tomorrow! We hope you’ll be present at this exciting and promising event. We are at booth #1027 with ecosystem partners, Abreon, Approyo and PCM. We’re extremely excited to be attending this year’s SAPPHIRE event again. Previous years were a true success and we don’t expect this year…

The largest global business technology event, SAPPHIRE NOW, is the place where executives, business leaders, IT, and administrative professionals come together every year to celebrate innovation, meet with professionals and customers from all over the world, and most importantly, learn more about CoreALM and SAP’s new products and plans for…

Solution Manager Test Suite 7.2 – How did we get here? Sitting by the campfire last night (actually a fire pit on my patio). I reminisced about how testing tools have changed since I started on my first SAP project in 1999. At that time, Mercury Interactive and AutoTest were…

Full Traceability of Requirements SAP added Business and IT Requirements Management functionality to the CRM layer of Solution Manager 7.2. Customers now have the ability to log a business requirement, evaluate and approve it, and submit it to IT. IT then evaluates the business requirement and commits to it, creating…

COREALM SESSIONS TEST AUTOMATION WITH SAP SOLUTION MANAGER 7.1 USING COMPONENT BASED TEST AUTOMATION (CBTA) Wednesday, May 6th, 03:00 p.m. – 03:30 p.m. Location: RT 15 Session ID: RT999 Speakers: Larry Wilson- SAP Solution Manager and ALM Consultant (CoreALM)   DEMONSTRATE THE VALUE OF SAP SOLUTION MANAGER TO YOUR BUSINESS…

Not going to SAPPHIRE? Don’t worry because CoreALM has your back. We are bringing SAPPHIRE right to your office. We might not be able to allow you to network face-to-face, but we are going to give you the chance to win some really cool stuff, let’s face it that’s why we all…

WHAT’S HAPPENING AT BOOTH #713 Remember being a kid going to the park and jumping onto the wobbling, spring based motorcycle made out of wood, painted in resemblance of your ideal super bike, then propping your lips together and blowing between them to mimic the sound of your father’s motorcycle? How…