Practical Guide to Using Focused Build for SAP Solution Manager

2.1   High-level architecture

When working on a software implementation project, there are two important aspects that everyone is concerned with–scope and project execution.

Scope refers to the content of the project (e.g., systems, business processes). Project execution is about the delivery of a project, and one of the main aspects of this is tracking changes and tracking who is working on those changes.

The Focused Build integrated flow ensures that all processes are connected in a seamless information flow, linking together three main objects:

• Solution
• Release
• Project

The high-level architecture shown in Figure 2.1 provides context for requirements, work packages and work items for project preparation.

Figure 2.1: High-level architecture to initiate a project

How do the links and relationships between objects work?

Everything starts with one item, which holds everything together– a solution.

The solution holds information about the technical landscape, process documentation versions, and information about the business processes themselves.

Change is introduced through the change control landscape, which inherits information from the solution–a version of solution documentation and landscape information.

Once we have created the change control landscape, we can create a release cycle. This mandatory attribute is assigned to a project when we want to plan our release cycles and move changes across the technical landscape.

We then have a project, which also inherits important information: a scope from the solution (subset of the processes) and a landscape from the release cycle.

When creating a document type—requirement, change or test plan—we indicate a project to which they belong and they receive information and attributes from that project, including a process list (scope).

When we carry out progress reporting during testing, we need to know which project the testing relates to, and why it is being tested.

All of this comes together and can be viewed in a traceability matrix.

To set up Focused Build for project implementation, you need to perform the activities defined in the following sections. These activities are performed in Solution Administration, transaction SOLADM.