Quick and easy reverse business process documentation with SAP Solution Manager 7.1

[ben_schneider]

Quick and easy Reverse Business Process Documentation with SAP Solution Manager 7.1

This blog will show you how to quickly obtain a business process structure in SAP Solution Manager 7.1 as a starting point for your Solution Documentation. This is achieved by using Reverse Business Process Documentation (RBPD) with Solution Documentation Assistant in SAP Solution Manager 7.1.

The blog consists of the following five parts:

1. Download the RBPD content from SAP Service Marketplace
2. Upload the content to Solution Documentation Assistant (SDA)
3. Create and run an analysis in SDA
4. Create a new SAP Solution Manager project to work with the results
5. Add your own custom transactions to the business process structure

1. Download the RBPD content from SAP Service Marketplace

The RBPD content contains a business process structure (based on the SAP Business Process Repository) and technical checks which find out if the elements of this process structure are being used in your system.

Before you can work with the RBPD content, you have to download it first from SAP Service Marketplace. Please follow the instructions in SAP Note 1591505 how to download the content, and save the content file to your local PC.

[Legal remark: Please note that the usage of the RBPD content is allowed for SAP Enterprise Support and SAP MAxAttention customers].

2. Upload the RBPD content to Solution Documentation Assistant (SDA)

As the second step, you will now upload the content to Solution Documentation Assistant to use it.

Navigate to the Solution Documentation Assistant Work Center: Transaction SM_WORKCENTER --> Solution Documentation Assistant.

Click on “Content Interface” in the view switch panel on the left side.

Click on “Upload Content”. A new browser window will open.

Click on “Browse”.

Navigate to the folder where you downloaded the content file, select the file and click on “open”.

Click on “Start”.

In this step, you could narrow down the usage analysis to specific business scenarios by selecting the "Exclude structure objects" button. To use the full RBPD content, just click on “Next”.

Enter a name for the analysis project which will be created automatically. This will help finding your project in the list of all projects afterwards.

In column “Target Logical Component”, please delete the pre-filled text and select the appropriate logical component. You can either use the F4 help button or enter the desired logical component directly.

In the following example, the ERP system "M13" (included in the logical component Z_SAP_ERP_M13) is being analyzed. This screenshot may be different from your view when using the full RBPD content.

Click on “Import”. Now the content will be imported and an analysis project will be created automatically.

Click on “Close" to close the guided procedure.

In the Solution Documentation Assistant Work Center, click on the refresh link to see the analysis project you just created by uploading.

After the refresh, your analysis project should be visible in the list. You could now click on the name to open the analysis project and view the contents.

3. Create and run an analysis in Solution Documentation Assistant

To create a new analysis for this analysis project, please select the analysis project you just created and then click on “Create” in the analysis area . A new browser window will open.

In the new window please enter a name for the new analysis. Then click on “Next”.

In the following step (“Specify Logical Components”), please click on “Next”. This step shows all available logical components from the analysis project.

In the following step (“Specify Systems”), please click on “Next”. This step shows the systems of the logical components that can be analyzed, the status of the system and the availability of data.

In the following step (“Select Periods”), please select the periods you want to include into your analysis and click on next.

In the following step (“Schedule Systems”), please click on “Next”. Here you could change the number of work processes which are used for the analysis on the managed system.

In the following step, please make sure that the settings are exactly as on the following screenshot:

Checking the boxes on the right side ("not used customer objects" and "used objects") will make sure that your own customer objects will be analyzed as well. This can help you later on to easily include these objects into your solution documentation by directly taking them from the analysis results.

Remark: For a quick and easy reverse documentation (like it is described in this blog) it is recommended to only select transactions and reports in the sections "Not used customer objects" and "used objects". For a "full-blown" usage analysis it is recommended to select all available objects type.

After selecting all relevant items, please click on “Create”.

On the next screen, please click on “Close”. The window will be closed and you will be taken back to the SAP Solution Manager Work Center “Solution Documentation Assistant”.

In the Solution Documentation Assistant, please make sure that you are in the “Analysis Projects” view.

In the Solution Documentation Assistant Work Center, click on the refresh link in the “Analyses” area to see the Analysis you just created.

The analysis will run now for some time. You can occasionally click on “Refresh” to see if it has finished.

After the analysis has ben finished, please click on the name of the analysis to open it and see the results.

4. Create an SAP Solution Manager project from the analysis

To start, please open the analysis you have just created.

On the tab “Analysis Results”, please click on the button “Solution Manager Project”.

From the dropdown menu, please select “Create”.

Please fill in the following screen as follows:

• Enter a name for the project (1.)
• Enter a title (2.)

Click on “OK”.

Now, the SAP Solution Manager Project will be created. This will take some time. When the creation has been finished, please click on “Close”.

Please note that the business process structure from the RBPD content will be taken over completely, and the transactions will be set "in scope" or "out of scope" according to the selection you make in the dialog shown above.

After the project has been created, you can navigate to the project. Please click on the “Chain” tab.

Please click on the Solution Manager project you have just created to open it.

(If there is a “File Download” popup from Microsoft Windows, please click on “Open”.)

After the project has been opened in the Business Blueprint (transaction SOLAR01), you can now start evaluating the project. To open the created business process structure, please drill down using the arrow icon on the left.  

Note the following things:

• The business process structure has been created from the analysis

• Transactions and reports have been assigned to the corresponding business process steps.

• The “In Scope” flag has been set acording to the selection you made during the creation of the project (earlier in part 4 of this blog)

• General documentation has been added to the structure elements, where available.

This SAP Solution Manager project now can be used as a starting point for building up your Solution Documentation in SAP Solution Manager. It contains a business process structure based on standardized business processes from the Business Process Repository and on the actual usage of your SAP business system(s).

5. Add your own custom transactions to the business process structure

The structure can then be enriched further with your own custom objects, also coming from the RBPD analysis. To assign additional objects to the business process structure, please follow these steps:

1. In the Business Blueprint of the generated SAP Solution Manager project, please select a process step where you would like to add objects (or create a new process step).

2. Switch to edit mode.

3. Select the "Transactions" tab.

4. Select "Edit" --> "Assign Objects from Analysis"

5. In the following pop-up window, please select the appropriate logical component (and further filter selections, if you like to narrow down the selection) and click on "Execute".

6. Please select the object(s) you would like to assign to the business process step and click on "Assign object".

7. You can now repeat this step accordingly for all process steps where you would like to add custom objects. Please note that you can open the respective business process step and keep the pop-up seletion window open at the same time.

This described process is an easy and quick way to add SAP or custom objects to your solution documentation, based on the analysis results from Solutuion Documentation Assistant.

To keep your existing Solution Documentation up to date, it can then be continuously verified with Solution Documentation Assistant in SAP Solution Manager.

Related links:

• http://service.sap.com/rbpd - Page with presentations, demos and further useful information on Reverse Business Process Documentation