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Use SAP Solution Manager Change Request Management (ChaRM) to Support Your Implementation Project

by John Osburn, Principal Technical Consultant, SAP Consulting Services – Midwest, SAP America, Inc. (November 2008)

Learn how to deploy and manage change requests within an implementation project by using Change Request Management.

Key Concept

Change Request Management (ChaRM) helps support your implementation project by managing your changes within your SAP Landscape. It integrates with Service Desk for change requests and cProjects for project planning.

Many users know that they can use the Change Request Management (ChaRM) functionality for tighter control of their change management processes, more accurate reporting, and less risk during the life cycle of maintenance projects. What users might not know is that they can use ChaRM to manage changes for an implementation project from the planning phases to the physical deployment of those changes within your landscape.

Based on my experience, I’ll describe all the phases of a ChaRM implementation project cycle, including the actions that can be performed during each phase. I discuss the four relevant SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) Service transaction types that are major parts of any ChaRM implementation. Particularly, I analyze the role that a normal correction, an SAP CRM Service transaction type, plays in a ChaRM implementation and the challenges it poses for every member of an implementation team. I finish with some ideas about how to support complex landscapes within ChaRM and the pitfalls that could arise during an implementation.

Even with the additional effort involved with the setup and maintenance of ChaRM, there are many benefits for using it to support your implementation projects. Using ChaRM, a developer or configurator can perform a test transport and then migrate this new transport to the test environment without releasing the original transport. In this case, the original transport has not been released. Therefore, it maintains the lock so that cross-project changes need to be coordinated.

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