This collection of frequently asked questions provides brief answers to common questions about Maintenance Planner. If you don't find answer to your questions, please add them as comments.
Accessing Maintenance Planner
How do I access Maintenance Planner?
The Maintenance Planner is a hosted application on SAP Support Portal and can be accessed with an up-to-date browser. To access the tool:
• Go to
https://apps.support.sap.com/sap/support/mp
• Login with your SAP credentials (S – user) to get access to landscape data for this user
What are the authorizations required for accessing Maintenance Planner?
You need an S-user for the SAP Service Marketplace (SMP). There is no separation of specific roles in the Maintenance Planner. For more information, refer SAP Note
http://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1822202
Prerequisites for using Maintenance Planner
What data does Maintenance Planner need?
Maintenance Planner consumes landscape data available on SAP Support Portal for all maintenance planning activities, so up-to-date data on systems of your landscape needs to be available in the Customer Profile in the SAP Support Portal. It is uploaded via LMDB of SAP Solution Manager
.
For details refer:
Topology of SLD, LMDB, and Customer Profile – How to Get Reliable Landscape Data in SAP Support Port...
Why don’t I see my systems in Maintenance Planner?
Perform following steps/checks:
- Access to system data in the Maintenance Planner is based on the customer number assigned to your user used to access the Maintenance Planner. This assignment may be missing or incomplete (your company may even have more than one customer number.)
- Your user in SAP Solution Manager must be assigned to your S-user for the SAP Service Marketplace.
- The RFC used for uploading the technical system data to SAP Support Portal should be configured to an appropriate s-user mapped to the customer number
- Check if the Landscape Fetch job is scheduled correctly. Refer SAP Note 1632036 for more information
- If a specific system is missing in Maintenance Planner, try uploading the data manually. To enable manual upload apply SAP Note 2002546.
For more information, see
Uploading, Accessing, and Trouble-Shooting System Data in the Customer Profile Used for Planning Cha...
I see outdated data in Maintenance Planner.
Perform following steps:
- Check if the Landscape Fetch job is running, however, if the data in LMDB has not changed, then the data is not updated.
- Run reports RPT_CLEAR_SL_CACHE and AI_LMDB_MIG_OSS_SYNC_CONFIG, schedule the landscape fetch job. The data will be updated during the next landscape fetch run.
- Try uploading the data manually.
For more information, see Uploading, Accessing, and Trouble-Shooting System Data in the Customer Profile Used for Planning Cha...
Maintenance Planner and Related Tools
Which versions of SAP Solution Manager are supported?
- SAP Solution Manager 7.01 SP 23 or above is supported, provided, you have installed SAP Note 1646604.
Please note that SAP Solution Manager 7.0 / 7.01 status is “In customer-specific maintenance”.
- Starting 7.1 SP5, SAP Solution Manager is supported as is.
Is SAP Solution Manager LMDB still needed?
Maintenance Planner consumes landscape data available on SAP Support Portal for all maintenance planning activities. “Technical System Editor” of the LMDB is required where system data is automatically registered and supplied to the customer profile in SAP Support Portal.
Landscape Data
Security policies in my organization prevent me from creating RFC connections to OSS. What should I do in this case?
In such a case the technical system information for ABAP systems will be uploaded by generating a system_info.xml file from Support Package Manager (SPAM).Prerequisite: This is supported on SPAM version 59 or latest. Please check and upgrade SPAM version to 59 before you proceed.Perform the following steps:
- In transaction SPAM, select Utilities -> Generate system info XML
- Save the downloaded XML on your local system
- Create an incident on the component BC-UPG-MP attaching the system info XML
What should I do if the same system appears multiple times in Maintenance Planner?
First of all, check if the error is caused earlier in the process (in SLD or LMDB):
If the problem is not solved by that, Maintenance Planner offers the functionality to delete irrelevant data. Check the replication date, and based on this, you can decide to delete systems manually.Note that the deletion of the system in LMDB does not suffice, you also have to delete it in MP separately.
What are the most important considerations in case there are multiple productive SAP Solution Manager systems in the landscape?
If you have more than one SAP Solution Manager System, you can choose from which landscape data is to be replicated on Maintenance Planner. In the system maintenance cycle, the Sync button is green if there exists only one SAP Solution Manager and the same is chosen by default. If the Sync button is yellow, it indicates that multiple Solution Managers are available. Perform the steps described in the
user guide to select SAP Solution Manager, from which landscape data is to be replicated on Maintenance Planner.
Does Maintenance Planner support value-added resellers?
Yes, Maintenance Planner handles all data available in the LMDB and uploaded to the Customer Profile – please refer to the following blog to learn how to handle landscape data of multiple customers:
How-To Handle Landscape Data as a Value-Added Reseller Using LMDB
How can I upload landscape data manually?
To manually upload the landscape data from Solution Manager to the customer profile, you can go to LMDB and click the
Upload to SAP Support Portal button. Once this is done, system data will be immediately available on Maintenance Planner.
Do I need to create product systems in LMDB?
Creation of product systems is no longer required for planning maintenance in Maintenance Planner as Maintenance Planner lets you plan maintenance on technical systems. You can create dependencies – between your SAP Business Suite backend systems and Portal front-end systems for example – directly in Maintenance Planner.
Note: However, if you are using SAP Solution Manger 7.1
Scope and Effort Analyzer to estimate the test effort caused by a change or
Change Request Management, product systems are still needed. For details, see
Product Systems and Maintenance Planner in SAP Solution Manager 7.1
Correcting Landscape Data
How can I proceed with planning if a system is marked erroneous in Maintenance Planner?
An erroneous system is indicated in red in the maintenance cycle. If system is marked erroneous you first have to verify and provide the information required to correct the installed software information/details. Once the Verify button in the maintenance cycle turns green, you can proceed with the planning activities. At the end of the planning, Maintenance planner generates a consolidated stack configuration file which can be used by Software Update Manager to correct the system description and to implement the landscape change.
What is the importance of the CISI xml file?
Once you have verified an erroneous system, a corrective xml is generated. This corrective xml can be used by Software Update Manager (SUM) to correct the information on the system.
Dependency Management
What kind of dependencies are currently handled in Maintenance Planner?
- Product maintenance dependencies: If you have installed one product version on more than one technical systems e.g. SAP ERP BE and SAP Portal, you can define such a dependency in Maintenance Planner these are known as Product maintenance dependencies.
- System tracks: A system track is a logical grouping of related systems, and contains two or more systems in your landscape on the same target software level. A system track helps you to update or upgrade all the systems at once.
Example: A system track can follow one of the following patterns of logic:
- Two or more SAP ERP systems, like Dev, QA, and Production
- Two or more SAP HCM systems connected by a transport route
How do I handle dependencies between connected systems where business processes are running across the various systems?
For such dependencies, you can use the
Upgrade Dependency Analyzer (UDA) to check the existence of upgrade dependencies between two separately installed SAP systems in your system landscape.
You can access UDA with link
http://service.sap.com/uda
What happens to the product systems already available in LMDB?
All existing Product Systems and Technical Systems declared in LMDB are synchronized to Maintenance Planner.
Miscellaneous
I see the planning cycle/screen even after I have just defined my changes and confirmed it. Why?
This is because you can plan multiple changes on Maintenance Planner in a single transaction. This feature is called Iterative Planning.During Iterative planning:
- You can install a base product version in the first iteration, for example SAP NetWeaver 7.4
- You can install additional components like add-ons, in the next iteration. This still is a part of the same transaction created above.
- You can repeat this process multiple times.
The Stack XML file generated at the end of the planning process contains the metadata of all the planned changes.
Does Maintenance Planner support planning of new system installation?
The Maintenance Planner supports planning of new installations of ABAP & JAVA systems on a chosen stack level. The Maintenance Planner significantly simplifies the process by eliminating the steps of system registration between installations and update the required SPS level and a separate system update planning during installation. To learn more, see
Up-To-Date Installation.
The new process supports following product versions for Java systems:
- SAP NETWEAVER 7.5
- SAP NETWEAVER 7.4
- EHP1 FOR SAP NETWEAVER 7.3
- SAP SOLUTION MANAGER 7.2
- SAP S/4HANA ON-PREMISE 1511
- NW 7.5 FOR SAP S/4 HANA 1511
Does Maintenance Planner support planning of new installation of dual stack systems?
The Maintenance Planner does not support planning of new installations of dual stack systems.
Does Maintenance Planner support planning of SAP BW4/HANA System systems?
Maintenance Planner now supports planning of SAP BW/4HANA systems. Maintenance Planner allows you to plan installation of a new SAP BW/4HANA system or a conversion of an existing SAP NetWeaver system to SAP BW/4HANA system.
For converting an existing system to SAP BW/4HANA system following product instances must be present:
- SAP BW/4HANA STARTER
- Application Server ABAP
Which product instances are required for installation of SAP NetWeaver Process Orchestration system?
In case of a Process Orchestration system choose the following product instances, other required instances will be calculated automatically:
- Advanced Adapter Engine Extnd
- BPM and Event Management
How can I install SAP Fiori Apps with Maintenance Planner?
There are two ways to do this:
- From within Maintenance Planner: Proceed with the usual maintenance process and select the relevant SAP Fiori add-ons
- Integrated process, starting at SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library
Seamless integration between SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library and Maintenance Planner offers integrated process to discover, explore and install SAP Fiori Apps with much greater ease and efficiency as described in blog Simplified Installation of SAP Fiori Apps with Maintenance Planner.
Note: This is the recommended process
Switch framework components are not pre-selected in Maintenance Planner. Why?
Check if SAP Note
2186164 is implemented in your SAP Solution Manager system.
How can I add HR Packages in Maintenance Planner?
You can find the option to add HR packages on the screen to
Select Stack Dependent and Independent files.
This functionality will be available, f
or ABAP systems:
1) On which one or more of the following software components
are installed: EA-HR, SAP-HR, HR-CCE.
2) RFC connection
is established between the SAP Solution Manager system and the technical system.
How can I request side-effects report?
Maintenance Planner supports generation of side-effects report, using this feature side-effects report can be generated in Maintenance Planner directly.
Alternatively you can request side-effects report with link :
http://service.sap.com/side-effects
While planning upgrade to EHP8 FOR SAP ERP 6.0, upgrade export DVD is missing from the download basket?
For planning upgrades to SAP Business Suite 2016 releases e.g. EHP8 FOR SAP ERP 6.0, EHP4 FOR SAP CRM 7.0, upgrade export DVD needs to be downloaded from Service Market Place, Delta files and OS/DB files will get calculated in Maintenance Planner, however the upgrade export DVD needs to be downloaded from Service Market Place.
Which Add-ons are supported by Maintenance Planner?
Maintenance Planner does not support installation or maintenance of Add-ons, if SAP NetWeaver version is below SAP NetWeaver 7.0 EhP2, in the current state of the system. Please refer the SAP Note
1770071 for further details.
Support Related
How do I report problems with Maintenance Planner?
Create an incident on the component BC-UPG-MP.
