Smart Form Impact Analysis

This workflow is provided with one or more of the following on the system to be analyzed:

  • A set of transports.

  • A set of objects.

  • A set of ChaRM change requests.

It identifies an optimal (most-at-risk) set of Smart Forms, which when tested will execute each of the changing objects obtained from the specified transports, object list, and transport objects associated with the specified ChaRM change requests. The analysis is driven by a set of custom Smart Form objects obtained from the Analysis system. If required, the most-at-risk Smart Forms may be compared on the Analysis system and a Comparison system.

The workflow produces a Dashboard report and an associated Excel report.

The Smart Form Impact Analysis workflow calls:

  • The Get Changing Objects workflow to retrieve the transport objects to analyze.

  • The Analyze Impact workflow to find a set of most-at-risk executables

  • The Summarize Smart Form Results workflow to prepare the Dashboard and Excel reports.

  • The Get System Info template workflow to retrieve system information for each of the analyzed SAP systems.

This workflow should be used to perform an impact analysis for a set of transports, a set of standard and custom objects obtained from transports, or a set of standard and custom objects obtained from one or more ChaRM change requests. To analyze the impact of a set of custom objects extracted from transports, use the Object Change Impact Analysis workflow in the Impact Analysis hierarchy folder.

Before You Begin

Before running the Smart Form Impact Analysis workflow, please note the following:

If a support pack or transport has not been applied to the Analysis system. It must be disassembled before it can be analyzed by the Smart Form Impact Analysis workflow. This can be done in SAP by running the SAINT transaction and selecting ‘Disassemble OCS Package’ from the Utilities menu. Alternatively, the support pack or transport may be disassembled using the Package Disassembler App.

The Smart Form Impact Analysis workflow requires that SAP’s Where Used indexes are up to date on the Analysis system. For further details, see the Step 1 (As-Is) - Checking the Integrity of the Where Used Indexes help topic.

The Create Object Links Cache workflow from the Prerequisites templates folder should be run for the Analysis system to create a cache of object links. See the workflow’s associated help file for details.

If required, the Business Critical Objects External Data Source should be populated with a set of Smart Forms that are always included in the set of most-at-risk objects. The External Data source is populated from a .CSV file with TYPE and NAME columns. Use the External Data Source’s ‘Replace Data File’ option to upload your own .CSV file.

Creating RFC Destinations

Before you begin, you will need to create RFC Destinations for the Analysis, and Comparison systems.

Preparing the Workflow

To prepare the Smart Form Impact Analysis workflow, drag its workflow template from the Templates folder into your own workspace, and modify the workflow as follows:

To specify the system to analyze:

  1. Select the Analysis System parameter and choose ‘Edit RFC Destination’ from its context menu to display the RFC Destination dialog.

  2. Select the RFC Destination for the system to analyze, then click ‘Save’.

To specify the Comparison system, on which to compare the most-at-risk executables (the name of this system is also used in the workflow’s summary results):

  1. Select the Comparison System parameter and choose ‘Edit RFC Destination’ from its context menu to display the RFC Destination dialog.

  2. Select the RFC Destination for the system to analyze, then click ‘Save’.

To specify the SAP Solution Manager system, from which to obtain transport objects associated with each ChaRM change request:

  1. Select the SAP Solution Manager System parameter and choose ‘Edit RFC Destination’ from its context menu to display the RFC Destination dialog.

  2. Select the RFC Destination for the system to analyze, then click ‘Save’.

To specify which transports to analyze:

  1. Select the Transport List parameter and choose ‘Edit Table’ from its context menu to display the Table Editor dialog.

  2. Enter one or more transport names from the Source system, or paste in a selection of transport names from an Excel spreadsheet, then click ‘Save’.

To specify a set of objects to analyze:

  1. Select the Objects parameter and choose ‘Edit Table’ from its context menu to display the Table Editor dialog.

  2. Enter one or more object names from the Analysis system, completing the NAME and TYPE columns, or paste in a selection of objects from an Excel spreadsheet, then click ‘Save’.

To specify one or more ChaRM change requests to analyze:

  1. Select the ChaRM Change Requests parameter and choose ‘Edit String List’ from the context menu to display the String List Editor dialog.

  2. Click 'Insert Row' to enter the names of each ChaRM change request, then click ‘Save’. Each ChaRM change request should be added as a separate string entry.

To specify whether the most-at-risk Smart Forms will be compared on the Analysis and Comparison systems, set the Compare Changing Objects? parameter to either true or false.

Save the workflow using the ‘Save’ toolbar button.

Running the Workflow

To run the Smart Form Impact Analysis workflow, click the ‘Run’ toolbar button, choose ‘Run Now’ from the diagram’s context menu, or press F5. The currently running workflow action is marked with an animated display. When the workflow execution has completed, select the Report URL dataset and choose ‘View Details’ from the context menu to access the generated report.

Dashboard Report

The Smart Form Impact Analysis workflow generates a Dashboard report, which includes the following charts:

  • The All, Impacted & Most-at-Risk column chart provides a summary of the number of impacted and most-at-risk Smart Forms. Click a link in the chart's table to display the associated data. The % Saving values for Impacted and Most-at-risk objects are calculated as follows:

% Saving (Impacted) = (Total Used - Total Impacted) / Total Used * 100

% Saving (Most-at-risk) = (Total Used - Total Most-at-risk) / Total Used * 100

  • The Impactful Objects by Type bar chart summarizes the changing objects that impact a Smart Form, by object type.

The Dashboard report also includes a link to an Excel spreadsheet, which includes the following reports:

Dashboard

The dashboard spreadsheet includes the following charts

  • The All, Impacted & Most-at-risk column chart provides a summary of the number of analyzed, impacted and most-at-risk Smart Forms.

  • The Impactful Objects by Type bar chart summarizes the changing objects that impact a Smart Form, by object type.

Help

This spreadsheet provides help for each of the spreadsheet reports.

All, Impacted & Most-at-risk

This spreadsheet lists each of the impacted and most-at-risk Smart Forms. It displays a dummy usage value of 1 for each Smart Form. The STATUS column in this spreadsheet may have the following values:

  • ‘Most-at-risk’ if this Smart Form is a most-at-risk. Most at risk objects are recommended for testing.

  • ‘Impacted’ if this smart form is impacted by the changing objects but covered by a most-at-risk Smart Form.

  • ‘Used’ if this Smart Form is not affected by the changing objects.

Most-at-risk Details

This spreadsheet lists the most-at-risk Smart Forms, that are recommended for testing. If the Compare Changing Objects? parameter in the workflow is set to true, click a hyperlink in the CHILD_NAME column to display comparison details for the selected changing object on the Analysis and Comparison systems.

The spreadsheet also includes the following details for the source objects that would be exercised by testing each executable.

Column Description
DATE The source object’s last modification date.
CHANGES The number of transports on the analysis system that contain the changing object. This column is set to 0 if a child object is a table used in a view, and only the view is included in the analyzed transports.
FANIN The source object’s fan-in value. The fan-in value of an object is the number of other objects that are referencing it. Multiple references from the same object are counted as one access.
FANOUT The source object’s fan-out value. The fan-out value of an object is the number of other objects that are referenced in it. Multiple references to the same object are counted as one access.
CHANGE_ID The transport that contains the changing object.

Extra

This spreadsheet lists any testable objects from the input transports, ChaRM requests or specified objects that are not found in the set of most-at-risk Smart Forms. These objects are candidates for testing regardless of whether they are used or recommended.

Testable objects include Programs, Transactions and BSP Applications. The Extra spreadsheet includes objects found in custom transports, and custom objects found in SAP transports. Standard objects found in SAP transports are not included.

Impacted

This spreadsheet lists details for each of the impacted Smart Forms. It displays a dummy usage value of 1 for each Smart Form.

Most-at-risk

This spreadsheet lists details for each of the most-at-risk Smart Forms. It displays a dummy usage value of 1 for each Smart Form. The STATUS column in this spreadsheet may have the following values:

  • ‘Most-at-risk’ if this Smart Form is a most-at-risk. Most at risk objects are recommended for testing.

  • ‘Impacted’ if this smart form is impacted by the changing objects but covered by a most-at-risk Smart Form.

  • ‘Used’ if this Smart Form is not affected by the changing objects.

System Info

This spreadsheet lists the SAP system details for the Analysis, Comparison and SAP Solution Manager systems.

BUSINESS_CRITICAL Column

The All, Impacted & Most-at-risk, Most-at-risk Details, Impacted and Most-at-risk spreadsheets include a column named BUSINESS_CRITICAL. This column is set to ‘Y’ for Business Critical executables, and to <blank> for objects that are not identified as Business Critical.