Basic Procedure for Change Management (ChaRM)

 Change Request Management (ChaRM)

What is Change Request Management? –

  1. A. SAP ChaRM is tool delivered with SAP Solution manager that manages activities performed during a change from design to testing to final promotion to production system. It allows you to track change requests, transport requests in change management system in the entire business solution.
  2. B. SAP ChaRM uses a workflow based approval for Transport management, audit proof documentation of the functional changes in solution landscape.
  3. C. with the help of ChaRM by using project we can extend the TMS functionality by ensuring all transports are moved together into QA, integration/regression tested as a whole, and imported into Production collectively.
  4. D. Spreadsheets are no longer needed as the SAP Solution Manager Project will keep track of which transport requests are associated to which project and the order they need to be imported.

Pre-requisite for Charm –

  1. 1.      Proper configuration of system in landscape using proper configuration path.
  2. 2.      See the RFC communication between solution manager and satellite system established.
  3. 3.      STMS configuration.
  4. 4.      Define transport routes between the systems in system landscape.
  5. 5.      Activate extended transport control in TMS
  6. 6.      Deactivate the quality assurance approval procedure and activate the single Transports strategy.

Process Steps –

ChaRM involve many agencies which are given below

  1. Requester – Person who think that the problem is because of configuration change or ABAP change. Requester will raise change request in Solution manager.
  2. Change Manager – It is advisory board which decide and Approves change Request.
  3. Developer – These person will make changes as per Change Request. These may functional consultant and Technical Consultant.
  4. Tester – Testing team (including functional consultant or Users)
  5. IT Operator – in SAP Basic consultant will be as IT operator.

The steps are explained In below Flow chart.

Flow chart for ChaRM.JPG

Actual steps in Solution Manager CRM are given below –

We got Change request in “SM_CRM” in the work list which will be for configuration changes in SAP. This is incident which we get from service Desk about some changes in Configuration.

1.JPG

When any incident created, we need to change the status to “Change Request or Changes required as per configuration of status.

Now this required for configuration change. Change the status to “Suspended” or Change Request as per Status configuration. As example we will show the cycle with status “Suspended”.

2.JPG

Take a list of all suspended issues and create Request for change.

Go to “SM_CRM” T-code from Solution Manager.  To create Change Request click on “Request for change” tab as shown below

3.JPG

When you click on “Request to change” this, system will give below screen

4.JPG

In this screen, enter

  1. Description
  2. Sold to Party – select person name who is asking for change.
  3. Requester – Name will come automatic. This is the person who is creating the change request.
  4. Change Manager – Person who is going to approve this change Request, anybody from approver team.
  5. Approval Procedure – select “Change Request Approval Procedure” from the drop down list.
  6. Priority – Set the priority for this Change Request.
  7. Project – enter project name.

System status will come automatically. We can’t change the status manually.

At the bottom screen write the Description in Detail.

5.JPG

2367245 - Troubleshooting performance issues with SAP BPA by Redwood

2367245 - Troubleshooting performance issues with SAP BPA


It was interesting to find out that there was a SAP note related to trouble shooting BPA performance which is quite generic and many SAP environment when there are no proper scheduling management done, hence causing performance issues such as job not scheduling, workprocess are not assessed accordingly, buffer load tuning not monitored and etc. I hope the below note would be helpful on resolving SAP scheduling performance issue related to BPA. 

2367245 - Troubleshooting performance issues with SAP BPA by Redwood


This article is intended to assist you in debugging a performance issue in a SAP CPS/BPA job scheduling scenario. You may see one or more of the following performance signs in your workplace, but it's critical that you articulate what you're seeing:

a)      Are you seeing high CPU usage on the BPA server?

b)      Are you experiencing high memory usage or outofmemory errors on the BPA server?

c)       Are you seeing slow response in the BPA UI? E.g. Slow logon after entering user/password or slow response displaying the process monitor or searching for jobs in the UI?

d)      Are you seeing delays updating job status or delays with jobs starting?


SAP Areas where the environment related

The solution to from this note are applicable for the below SAP scheduling such as CPS, BPA versions. 

  • SAP CPS by Redwood version 8 (M33.x)
  • SAP BPA by Redwood version 9 (9.0.x.x)
  • Running on SAP Netweaver Java 7.x and higher

SAP BI Support Data Load Errors and Solutions

 SAP BI/BW Data Load Errors and Solutions for a support Project:

1) BW Error: Failure occurred when delta Update is going on from one data target to another data target.

Possible Causes:

  1. 1. TRFC error
  2. 2. Data is incorrect-error records.
  3. 3. Locked by ALEREMOTE or user.

Solution: In Monitor check the technical status of the request for red status and then, delete the request from the data target.

If its delta update, in the source data target reset the delta. Retrigger the Info Package to load data again.

If it’s Full update, restart job again after deleting error request from the data target.

2) BW Error: Master job abended with error code or PR1 batch job did not run or get delayed.

Possible Causes: This can be because of changes to Maestro or some changes to job.

Solution: Maestro jobs are handled by Production Services, if job is abended with an error code, BASIS team looks at Maestro problems. If Job is an issue, SAP support team investigates it.

3) BW Error: Database Errors: Enable to extend Table, enable to extend the Index.

For example.

Database error text: “ORA-01653: unable to extend table                         

SAPR3./BIC/AZUSPYDO100 by 8192 in table space PSAPODS2D”                                

Possible Causes: This is due to lack of space available to put further data.

Solution: This is Database error. Short dump message indicates this error message. Ticket is raised for DBA Elizabeth Mayfield who provides the space required. If the update mode is delta, technical status of job is changed to red and request is deleted from the data target. InfoPackage for Delta update is triggered again to get delta from R/3 back. If its full update, request is deleted from the data target and InfoPackage is triggered again to get full update.

We can navigate to relevant short dump from monitor or execute transaction ST22.

Once DBA confirms that space issue is corrected, job is rerun to get data from source again.

4) BW Error: Dead Lock:

Possible Causes: This can happen when SMON is running or any DBA

Solution: Contact the DB People Ticket is raised for DBA who can adjust the schedules for SMON process.

If the update mode is delta, technical status of job is changed to red and request is deleted from the datatarget. Infopackage for Delta update is triggered again to get delta from R/3 back. If its full update,request is deleted from the datatarget and Infopackage is triggered again to get full update.

5) BW Error: Time Stamp errors:

Possible Causes: This can happen when there is some changes done on datasource and datasource is not replicated.

Solution: Execute T code SE38 in BW give programme name as RS_Transtrucuture_activate and execute the programme. Give InfoSource and  Source System and activate. This will replicate the datasource and its status is changed to active. Once this is done, delete the request by changing technical status to red and trigger InfoPackage to get delta back from source system.

Replicate datasource as shown in the screen shot below.

Go to SE38 and execute program RS_Transtrucuture_activate ,mention source and name of the Infosource.

Delete request from the datatarget and trigger Infopackage again.to get either delta or full data.

6) BW Error: Error log in PSA- Error occurred while writing to PSA.:

Possible Causes: This is because of corrupt data or data is not in acceptable format to BW.

Solution: Check the cause of the error in Monitor in detail tabsrip.This gives the record number and Infoobject having format issue. Compare the data with correct values and determine the cause of failure. Change the QM status of request in datatarget to red and delete the request. Correct the incorrect data in PSA and then upload data into data target from PSA.

Step1:

If the request is directly into datatarget, take data in PSA also to correct this issue. Delete error request from datatarget and Go to PSA to investigate the issue.

Look for messages in Monitor, which may give name of the Info Object causing the error. Normally # character in the last is not permitted in BW.

Filter the records based on Status and start correcting the records. Once they are complete, upload data from PSA back into datatarget.

7) BW Error: Duplicate data error in Master data upload:

Short Dump message:

“SAPSQL_ARRAY_INSERT_DUPREC” CX_SY_OPEN_SQL_DBC                                

“SAPLRSDRO ” or “LRSDROF07 ”

“START_RSODSACTREQ_ACTIVATE”

Possible Causes: This can happen if there are duplicate records from the source system. BW do not allow duplicate data records.

Solution:

To check for records which are duplicate in master data characteristic, Go to RSRV transaction

Select name of the characteristic and execute, this will give first 50 records for the problem. Remove duplicates from the Master data and then upload data back by triggering Infopackage again.

8) BW Error: Error occurred in the data selection

Possible Causes: This can occur due to either bug in the infopackage or incorrect data selection In the infopackage.

Solution: Data selection checked in the infopackage and job is started again after changing the technical status to red and deleting the error request from the data target.

There was bug found in one Infopackage eg.

Value Type field was getting changed after the job runs once. Everytime this need to be corrected.

9) BW Error: Processing (data packet): No data:

Possible Causes: This can be because of some issue with source system with datasource. Delta update program can be one of the issue.

Solution: Go to R/3 source system, See how many records are there in delta in RSA7 transaction. If the records are Zero and you are sure that number of records can not be zero, then check for update Program which might not be running or stucked. Check for BD87 ,SMQ1, SM58 for solution to error. Error logs can suggest the solution to problem.

10) BW Error: Process Chain failed

Possible Causes: Errors occurred in one of the job in the process chain

Solution: Attend failure manually and go to process chain log for today and right click on the next job and select Repeat Option. This will execute all  remaining jobs in process chain.

11) BW Error: Errors occurred in (IDocs and TRFC)

Non Updated IIDOCs found in the source system.

Possible Causes: This can happen when in source system job is terminated or source system or BW is not available for whole period of data upload. This can also happen if resources are not sufficient in source system.

Solution: IIDOC’s need to be processed manually either in OLTP or in BW depending on the failure. Error message in monitor in status tabstrip will take you to either BW or OLTP wherever there is a problem. Process IDOC’s, this will start the left over packets and will finish the load.

This situation we have to check the Idocs so we have to check Idoc in WE05 and know the status these are WE51, WE52, WE53 may be and next goto WE 19 there we have to execute the exist Idoc with successfully loaded Idoc.

Go to Transaction ST22 or see relevant short dump in the monitor.

Execute transaction WE02 to see Non updated IDOC’s.

Process them if they have yellow status.

12) BW Error: Processing (data packet): Errors occurred-Update ( 0 new / 0 changed ) : Errors occurred-Error records written to application log.

Possible Causes: This can be because of data not acceptable to datatarget although data reached PSA.

Solution: Data checked in PSA for correctness and after changing the bad data data uploaded back into datatarget from PSA.

Change QM status of request to red  in datatarget and delete request from  the datatarget to edit PSA data. Go to PSA associated with this request and edit records to fix the error reported in Monitor in Details tabstrip.

Reload data from PSA back into datatarget.

13) BW Error: Process Chains: Errors occurred in Daily Master Data

Possible Causes: This occurs when Transaction data is loaded before Master data.

Solution: Ensure to load Master data before Transaction data. Reload data depending on update mode (Delta/Full Update)

14) BW Error: Errors occurred-Transfer rules ( 0 Records ) :

Possible Causes: These errors happen when the transfer rules are not active and mapping the data fields is not correct

Solution: Check for transfer rules ,make relevant changes and load data again.

15) BW Error: Missing messages -Processing end: Missing messages

Possible Causes: This can be because of incorrect PSA data, transfer structure, transfer rules, update rules and ODS. 

Solution: Check PSA data, Transfer structure, transfer rules, Update rules or datatarget definition.

16) BW Error: Other (messages): Errors occurred in data selection

Possible Causes: The ‘valid from’ date is smaller than the mimimum date, The ‘valid from’ date is smaller than the mimimum date, Error in node time interval with the ID 00000011 . Details in next message, The ‘valid from’ date is smaller than the mimimum date.

Solution: Change the selection option and reload data.

17) BW Error: Activation of ODS failed

Possible Causes: This happens when data is not acceptable to ODS  definition. Data need to be corrected in PSA

Solution: Check for Infoobject, which has caused this problem in the monitor details tabstrip. Delete request from datatarget after changing QM status to red. Correct data in PSA and update data back to datatarget from PSA.

18) BW Error: Source System not available

Possible Causes: This can happen when request IDOC is sent source system ,but the source system for some reason is not available

Solution: Ensure that source system is available. Change technical status of request to red and delete request from datatarget. Trigger Infopackage again to get data from source system.

19) BW Error: Caller 70 missing

Possible Causes: IDOC’s not processed completely.

Solution: Idoc Problem, Either wait till time out & process Idoc from detail monitor screen, or goto BD87 & process Idoc with status = YELLOW ( be careful while processing IDOCS from BD87, choose only relevent Idocs

20) BW Error: Object corrupted- Delta Management of Master data lost but allows Full update.

Update Mode R not supported. “

Possible Causes: This happened during mass failures due to database space issue.

Solution: Reinitialization or there is one program for repair of Info object. During reinitialization ensure to use option of Only PSA, avoid duplicate data and subsequently into datatargets.

Go to Transaction code RSRV to check consistency of Infoobject.

21) BW Error: Error while opening file from the source system.

Possible Causes: This happens when  either file is open  or file is not deposited on server or not available.

Solution: Arrange for file,delete error request from datatarget and trigger Infopackage to load data from file.

22) BW Error: Object locked by user

Possible Causes: This can happen when user or ALEREMOTE is accessing the same table.

SolutionChange the technical status of job to red,delete request from datatarget and trigger Infopackage again. If its delta update it will ask for repeat delta,Click on Yes button.

23) BW Error: While load is going on in R/3 table is locked

Possible Causes: This happens when some datasource is accessing R/3 transparent table and some transaction takes place in R/3

Solution: Change the technical status of job to red in the monitor and retrigger the job again from R/3.

24) BW Error: Change run already started by ALEREMOTE

Possible Causes: This can happen due to overlapping of same request to Program.

Solution: Go to Transaction Code RSATTR; see if it’s running. Once its finished, repeat the job.