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krscheffler
Advisor
Advisor

Maybe you have already heard about the new Automated Note Search Tool (ANST). Some of our customers participated in the pilot phase two years ago and finally it has become a standard application.  As its name implies, this new application is intended to search for SAP Notes in order to solve problems, specifically those notes that have correction instructions.

Searching for correction notes:  Two different approaches.

  1. Using your own search terms.




 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


This approach may fail because it’s tricky to find appropriate search terms

  1. The technical approach:

In your system, you have managed to reproduce the issue and while debugging the process you find out that the error happens in program RPCTC0E0.
You then search for notes that modify program RPCTC0E0 and which have not been implemented yet. This kind of note search neither depends on the search terms appearing in the correction note,  nor on the search terms used by the person searching for a note. If there is a note that solves the issue, this note should modify any of the ABAP objects that are involved in the process. But, how do we collect the ABAP objects that are involved in a process?. The Answer is: an ABAP Trace.

Automated Note Search Tool [ANST].

Our proposal is based on the technical approach. ANST simply automates the task: All you have to do is replicate the issue directly in your system where
the problem is happening and you’ll get notes that may solve the issue.



So, if you have a “known issue”, ANST will help you quickly find the note that solves it, but there is more!

Customer Code Detection:

Sometimes problems turn out to lie in Customer Code [BAdi, user-exit…involved]?.  ANST uses the ABAP trace not only to look for correction notes but it checks whether there is Non Standard Code involved in the process. Figuring out that there is customer code behind a problem may be somewhat difficult and takes some time. With ANST you’ll get a list of customer code objects in seconds.

List of Customizing Tables involved:

Many times you may have encountered that an issue was neither a bug on the SAP Standard side nor was it caused by Customer Code: It was a customizing issue. ANST provides a list of the customizing tables involved in the process and it gives you direct access to them.  It’s like a tailored
IMG.

ABAP Trace as the basis of a diagnostic tool:

ANST makes the most of the ABAP trace in this process, using the trace to find out which update notes, customer exits, and customizing tables exist behind it. Moreover ANST is really useful as a debugging tool as it identifies the ABAP objects involved in the process and classifies them into their respective
components.



Availability:

ANST is delivered under BC-UPG-NA application component in SAP_BASIS .

SAP_BASIS          700         SAPKB70028

SAP_BASIS          701         SAPKB70113

SAP_BASIS          702         SAPKB70213

SAP_BASIS          731         SAPKB73106

Check the note list:

Caution: Of course, before implementing a note you have to check that the note is suitable for your system and also check if there are any side-effects.

To learn more:

SAP Knowledge Base Article:

1818192 Automated Note Search Tool

During the pilot phase, the following SCN blogs were published explaining the main features of ANST:

http://scn.sap.com/community/abap/blog/2010/12/16/automated-note-search-and-customer-code-detection

http://scn.sap.com/community/abap/blog/2011/01/24/automated-note-search-customer-code-detection-ii-r...

http://scn.sap.com/people/ivan.martinmarra/blog/2011/04/19/automated-note-search-customer-code-detec...

You can also check out this YouTube video for more information:

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