Focused Build SP2 New Project Management UI

Test Suite Integration

Work Item Tasks

Requirements Management

Other usability improvements in the Requirement Management application includes a new rich text editor for description fields, a very useful addition as you can now use it to structure text allowing for clearer descriptions. A deep search feature has now been added to allow for filtering of all requirements of a specific category and the categories within. All these usability changes are definitely useful and we can already see how it can help save time in your  workflows.

Beyond the usability changes, the Requirements Management application includes a new status value “To Be Approved”, adjusted Requirement Status display in process diagrams and some actions between status values have been adjusted (e.g. between Status Draft and Cancelled). There are also new features in Solution Documentation to get a list of all Requirements created in the Focused Build context. This list has all standard filter on sorting options (e.g. to find Requirements related to a specific Business Process Focused Build).

SAP Test Suite

One of the coolest things about Test Suite is the dashboard in this update, a new tab is available in the dashboard: “Test Preparation”. In this tab you can view the amount of Work Packages for a given Project and Wave. It will help you to easily identify the work packages to which no test cases (of any types) are assigned. It will also highlight the Work Packages which do not have any Test Cases assigned according to their statuses. In the image below, you can see that a Work Package in the status “To Be Tested” (which does not have a test case assignment) is ranked as “Red”.

Test Suite Dashboard

Test Preparation will also present the Work Package details (ID, Name, Priority, Test Case Assignment, etc). You can jump directly to the Work Package application to update any Work Package. You can also navigate to the “Assignment Analysis” application to perform any missing assignment.

Another update to the Test Suite dashboard is the Traceability Matrix. In SP01, the Traceability Matrix provided just a table with raw (but valuable) information. In SP02 there are now tiles which highlight the important categories and their corresponding KPIs like: Requirements, Work Packages, Work Items, Test Execution Status, Defect and Defect Corrections, etc, etc. The extensive table is still available with all the information from the requirements all the way to the defect corrections.

The last addition to the dashboard is the Central Test Reporting. This gives you a detailed reporting on test execution results of manual tests. You get an immediate overview on relevant information like overall status, current step or number of defects. With the drill-down navigation you can find more details like attached results, defects or even actual results and evidence documents on step level.

Other changes to SAP Test Suite in this update are various changes to the Test Step Designer with increased performance in all areas. There are usability and interface changes like having a full-screen mode in the designer and enhanced navigation/grouping in lists. You can copy and paste executables and business partners which improves and accelerates value help for executables.

Test Case Changes

Test execution and result documentations have been simplified and you can now copy and paste steps within and between Test Cases. Process Steps and Executables are automatically transferred into your Test Case and the upload wizard has been enhanced. Test Steps now allows you to design and execute multilingual test cases. There is no need to create separate test cases per language. You directly do the translation in the same test case and Testers can execute the test in their preferred language

A significant enhancement in Test Step is that you can specify for which step a result attribute is mandatory. For Test Cases which will be executed by multiple testers/teams this is extremely important. It means that a tester will not be allowed to handover the testing to another tester/department is he/she has not filled out the necessary information. This avoids missing information, and ping-pong between teams.

The latest updates to Test Step offers more features to work with test cases that are assigned to Solution Documentation. You can directly see which Solution and Branch the test case is available in and you can navigate to the assigned node in Solution Documentation. Properties like Test Case Classification or even your custom attributes can be maintained directly in Test Steps Designer.Finally, the My Test Execution application also received an update with a UI Redesign to improve the User Friendliness and the readability of the screen. It now has a more dynamic layout, better usage of the screen for the step results. The application now has multilingual support and the ability to digitally sign test results and test notes. In SP02, My Test Execution allows you to fully record TBOMs with the MTE.

TBOMs with MTE

My Test Execution is also fully integrated with My Tester Worklist and Test Step based test cases are displayed properly in the Test Case selection from the test plan management application. When you execute a test step based test case from the tester worklist, the “My Test Execution” application. Test results from test steps will be available in the standard test result application.

Solution Readiness Dashboard and ScrumBoard API

The Solution Readiness Dashboard received a couple of small usability updates and now has the ability to customize and show only relevant tiles for your projects. The wave selector option has an added ability to see already completed waves and current waves, plus, you can check completed and current sprint progress on the Work Item level using the current wave progress option.

Updated Solution Readiness Dashboard

There is also a new Scrum Board API that allows for direct access to Work Item tasks. You can create, edit or delete capabilities for these tasks using this new API. This helps with breaking down the work to be done for Work Item tasks into smaller chunks in order to help developers with organizing their work.

Release Management

There are not a lot of changes to Release Management in this update but the Release Dashboard has been updated with new features and a new status rating option:

Release Management Dashboard

1. Drill down from top level dimensions down to the transport request level.
2. Filter options for work packages, defect corrections and transport requests
3. Status ratings
4. Evaluate work Items and transport requests, which are not compliant to the Focused Build release building process.

The benefits of these new changes and the status rating option allows for effective release tracking, the ability to easily identify release issues and perform detailed analysis for your release management projects.

Standalone Features

IT Service Management

Multiple Input Channels and Standard Transactions are now supported in My Requests. The major benefit of this change is that this creates a unified UI experience with one place to track requests. Simple IT Requests can now create workflow events that can be consumed by My Inbox App which resides on a central Fiori server and act as single point of entry for managers for all approvals or updates. New Transaction Type Pair (S4AT – S4RQ) to support Service Requests needing approval and these approvals can be done via CRM or with an Integration to ‘My Inbox’ App. End users that would like to input formatted text and images together with requests or responses can now do it with the addition and support of rich text in both Simple IT Requests and My Request applications.

Rich Text Editor

Cut Over

New with Focused Build SP02 is Cut Over. Checks before Cut Over include retrofit completed, retrofit changes not in PRD or object conflicts with deployment. Automatic adoption after Cut Over makes content to MNT and QAS automatically and set originality to MNT.

Focused Build Cut Over

Cut Over in Dual System Landscapes helps with Project Landscapes that have finished the development and testing and are ready to release to PRD. There are different Cut Over Strategies (MNT, PRE, PRD) and direct imports only successful if overall landscape is in a consistent state.

Without tool support, you will need to manually validate and execute all Retrofit activities from maintenance landscape when they are finished and all parallel developments have been finished and merged into the Cut Over release. You also have to manually select the correct transports and import them to the Cut Over Target System and manually sync the Landscape with the new release transports after Cut Over.

Cross Landscape Distribution

Transports often have to be distributed to multiple landscapes when custom synchronization is required or common development objects are required in multiple landscapes (e.g. custom reports for SAP-Basis stack or user management). Global development systems might also require transports in local landscapes without transport connections. Without Cross Landscape Distribution tool support, transports are added or imported from source landscape to a queue of target landscapes on the file system and the object list must be included from source transport into ChaRM controlled transport – this is manual and distributions can be forgotten or there is no control over distributed content.

With Cross Landscape Distribution, you have a guided procedure that can distribute any ChaRM change via transport of copies to any development system. Then, it repacks the object list automatically into a target landscape change/ transport. The customizing table can control what objects should be/can be distributed and integration in the change process allows automatic checks against rules. The only limitation is that you can only synchronize identical transportable objects.

There are 3 different levels of flexibility and control with Cross Landscape Distribution:

1. Level 1: Everything can be distributed everywhere
2. Level 2: Target systems or change cycles are defined
3. Level 3: Detailed objects lists can be specified

Just note that Workbench Objects are controlled on a package level and the customizing of objects is controlled by customizing groups on transport key level.

With the automatic distribution option, transport for the target system are automatically created and automatically distributed into the target transport. The prerequisites for this function are that the source and target systems are in the same change cycle and cross landscape distribution need to run in strict mode (distribution rules need to be maintained).

ChaRM Dashboard

Change Request Management Dashboard is a standalone enhancement for change request management customers. New features include the ability to drill down from top level dimensions down to the transport request level. Breadcrumb navigation to show current context and status ratings to evaluate the completeness of change control cycles. This new dashboard effectively tracks the releases and change control cycles and easily identifies release issues.

Change Request Management Dashboard

Here’s a drill down example of the Change Request Management Dashboard:

1. Press the tile change control cycle
2. Navigate to the view request for change
3. You can see, that two transport requests are assigned to request for change 8000006888

Conclusion

This is just a list of the many great changes in Focus Build Support Pack 2. If you have any questions about upgrading or how you can leverage Focused Build to help your team with upcoming projects, you can visit our Focus Build microsite for more information.

We are also part of the Focused Solutions Circle and we help SAP users with their Focused Build implementation. Typical Circle member activities may include positioning and scoping services, overview presentations, Focused Build coaching, trainings, and initial configuration services. If you require any of these services, feel free to reach out to us today!