From the CEO

Welcome to our eighth SAP Change Control eNewsletter for 2009.
 
In this issue, we extend our discussion around the topic of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) to service desk and change and request management technology integration.

This month we have also released the great news that IntelliCorp and RSC plan to create an integration between IntellCorp's LiveCompare intelligent impact analysis solution for SAP systems and Rev-Trac. You can read about it in the article below.

The "Key Issues in Managing Change in Five System SAP Landscapes" RSC webinar is being run again on Wed 26th August at 2:00PM (US EDT). If you missed it last time, please register.
  
Once again the Rev-Trac Tips and Tricks and Q & A sections are included here, and I trust you will find them of value. Remember that if you have any of your own you would like to add, please submit them.

As always, we continue to lead innovation in SAP change control, developing software technology to help you reduce the risks and lower the costs of introducing changes into your SAP systems.

David Drake, CEO and Founder

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Integration (Part II) 

Last month we wrote about the value of integrating a range of SAP third-party ALM tools, and over the next few issues we are going to go into more detail around specific integrations and discuss how these can add value to the process and technology.

This month we will take a look at the value of service desk and change and request management integration.

Although a very early ALM integration trend, RSC do have several customers who have already begun to integrate their service desk functionality with their Rev-Trac automated change and transport management functionality as part of an overall ALM strategy.

Service desk and change request management

SAP user organisations use a service desk service system for capturing, recording and tracking IT requirements and it is often the main interface between the business user and the technical team for ITIL-based change request management process and workflow management.

Although the service desk system manages the basic higher level ITIL change request management process very well, when it comes to overall change and request management effectiveness, there are limitations, including:

• Technical change status is often out of sync with service desk records
• Lack of visibility to the business for much of the technical build, test, and deploy activities and process (black hole effect)
• Manual exchange of information between service desk tickets and change and transport management information is time consuming and error prone
• Reliance on human discipline for an effective audit trail
  

Integrated change control technology and service desk solutions
 
These major limitations are overcome by integration of the service desk and change and transport management technology and the resulting creation of a seamless change and request process.

Such an integration typically provides...

• Automated information exchange
• Automated pass-through of electronic signatures
• Process enforcement and automated workflow
• Transparency

Which results in...

• Elimination of many manual processes
• Consistent syncing of change and transport management and service desk information
• Change requestor visibility into the build test and deploy status of change
• One seamless process

Revelation Software Concepts to Integrate IntelliCorp LiveCompare Into Rev-Trac Change Control

RSC has partnered with IntelliCorp®, a worldwide provider of ALM, business process management and data management solutions for SAP customers and partners, to create an integration between RSC's Rev-Trac change control solution and IntelliCorp's LiveCompare intelligent impact analysis solution for SAP systems. The planned product integration is designed to improve SAP ALM and change management, saving customers time, money and resources.

Combining Rev-Trac with LiveCompare extends an SAP customer's ability to manage system changes, and transitions, smoothly and safely, especially changes that involve complex configurations of mixed Java, ABAP or mixed ABAP/Java-based, or other non-ABAP components.

A key Rev-Trac benefit is its ability to track change transports against their associated business issues.  Integrating LiveCompare's intelligent impact analysis functionality into the change process will reveal the system-wide effects of changes intended to resolve business issues. IT teams will be able to clarify and fully understand all impacts on affected modules and transactions, so they can identify and eliminate risks of system disruptions before importing a change into the production environment.

Read Press Release >> 

Rev-Trac Tips and Tricks

Sensitive Objects

Some objects require particularly careful approval or migration treatment.
You can define particular objects as "sensitive" in Rev-Trac, and for each such object ensure that it is managed using a particular type of request.

By defining an appropriate strategy for this Rev-Trac request type, you can ensure that changes to this object are approved and transported using a suitably customized process.

The granularity of the sensitive objects is determined by a combination of the following:
Program ID > Object > Object Name
Each entry can be assigned to a different request type if required.

For further information about sensitive objects, please consult the Rev-Trac Administrator Guide under heading: Defining objects that require sensitive approval or migration treatment. The latest version of the Guide can be downloaded from the support area of the RSC website.

[ More tips >> ]

Rev-Trac Q & A

GlobalView – What are the Health Check errors and warnings, and how can I remove these?

When a system diagnostic report is loaded into GlobalView, some key statistical and configuration information is analysed for the reports.

The Health Check displayed on the GlobalView dashboard shows the number of registered errors and warnings contained within the system diagnostic report, which represents recognisable configuration errors and known system/software issues within your Rev-Trac environment/s.

By selecting the Health Check icon, a list of the errors and warnings will be displayed with a short description.
By double clicking an error/warning message, a list of issues causing the error/warning is displayed.
By selecting the issue, a detailed solution message is displayed which will instruct you how to repair the issue.

Health Check > Error/Warning > Issue > SOLUTION

When using GlobalView it is possible for (and we encourage) our customers to attempt to self-diagnose and fix problems/errors occurring within their Rev-Trac environment/s using this mechanism.
Most of our customers currently have less than 3 errors or warnings. It is best to ensure that there are as few as possible.

For further information on Rev-Trac GlobalView or to request access for your organisation, please contact our support team at support@xrsc.com.