An Integrated Test Automation Solution for Global SAP Implementation

Nov 13, 2023

In typical Large SAP Implementations like HP, huge number of Custom developments will be involved and the implementation will goes for multiple years. The Challenges would be, how to manage the documentation for entire custom developments, configurations and business process involved in multiple SAP instances, how to manage the entire Testing lifecycle of SAP implementation with the best combination of tools. This Paper describes a Document Management System as well as and how to manage the entire Testing lifecycle of SAP implementation through the Combination of SAP Solution Manager, eCATT (In built Testing Tool) and with the Mercury tools (HP Quality Center and Quick Test Professional).

Problem Statement

In a Complex or Large SAP Implementations like HP, HP Is implementing SAP in all the three regions (Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific), HP has 250 SAP instances and thousands of Consultants will be working on different kinds of Custom developments as well as Configurations across the globe and the implementation goes for many years. The Challenges in the large SAP implementations like HP as follows.

In the Current HP Scenario, HP is doing the SAP Implementation since 20 Years and the documentation is maintained in the share point portals, in some cases documentation is not available, in some cases documentation is maintained partially, in Some cases documentation is maintained and don’t know where it is located. For current Projects also the documentation is maintaining at the Share point portals, it will be the same case after 2 or 3 years it repeats the cycle. I have taken 4 projects and evaluated how much time is taking for completing the one design document (ADD), in this Case it is taking 1 or 2 weeks to trace or finding the documentation and one week for design document. Almost 40 to 60% of the time we are spending only to finding the documentation not for designing.

How to integrate and Manage the documentation which has been done for entire implementation includes Custom developments, Business Process, Configurations, Test documentation, Training documentation etc., in one system for Multi SAP System environment is a problem that we need to find a solution.

In a large SAP Implementation like HP, if you want to access the documentation which has been done 4 or 5 years back, how much time it will take to the consultant or to the Manager, it will take minimum 1 or 2 Weeks for tracing or finding all the documentation for particular business process. This will increase the Implementation time or delay and intern it will hit the Project deadlines, especially in upgrade projects. All the factors leads to performance degradation and increases overall project duration or the consultants should work on the extra hours to meet the deadlines that will increase the cost of the project...

Problem Statement

In a Complex or Large SAP Implementations like HP, HP Is implementing SAP in all the three regions (Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific), HP has 250 SAP instances and thousands of Consultants will be working on different kinds of Custom developments as well as Configurations across the globe and the implementation goes for many years. The Challenges in the large SAP implementations like HP as follows.

In the Current HP Scenario, HP is doing the SAP Implementation since 20 Years and the documentation is maintained in the share point portals, in some cases documentation is not available, in some cases documentation is maintained partially, in Some cases documentation is maintained and don’t know where it is located. For current Projects also the documentation is maintaining at the Share point portals, it will be the same case after 2 or 3 years it repeats the cycle. I have taken 4 projects and evaluated how much time is taking for completing the one design document (ADD), in this Case it is taking 1 or 2 weeks to trace or finding the documentation and one week for design document. Almost 40 to 60% of the time we are spending only to finding the documentation not for designing.

How to integrate and Manage the documentation which has been done for entire implementation includes Custom developments, Business Process, Configurations, Test documentation, Training documentation etc., in one system for Multi SAP System environment is a problem that we need to find a solution.

In a large SAP Implementation like HP, if you want to access the documentation which has been done 4 or 5 years back, how much time it will take to the consultant or to the Manager, it will take minimum 1 or 2 Weeks for tracing or finding all the documentation for particular business process. This will increase the Implementation time or delay and intern it will hit the Project deadlines, especially in upgrade projects. All the factors leads to performance degradation and increases overall project duration or the consultants should work on the extra hours to meet the deadlines that will increase the cost of the project...

Our Solution

The Solution is designed to integrate and manage the documentation for entire SAP implementation. Our Proposed solution, the entire documentation can be accessed by any consultant/Manager/User across the globe with no time. Management can observe the entire SAP Implementation status through this Solution. The Combination of tools used are SAP Solution Manager, eCATT, HPQC and QTP and as follows in the figure 1.1. The Solution has been tested with SAP Solution Manager and eCATT, the Integration  between Quality Center and Solution Manager could not be tested because of the unavailability of SAP QC Adaptor, But the Quality Center and QTP got Tested independently and integration between QC and QTP. The Combination of SAP Solution Manager, QC, QTP and eCATT gives the good results for all SAP Applications. The Cost of the Implementation will also comes down by 30 to 40% if Solution Manager implements for Large SAP implementation like HP, Accessing the documentation is faster and tracking or tracing the documentation for entire custom developments and business Process for any SAP instance from any where in the globe is very easy since it is maintained in the central repository.

In HPIT Scenario, In HP SAP implementation, Minimum no of projects would be more than 100 Projects will be running in each year in SAP, it will be a very difficult task if the documetnation is not maintained at the Central Repository. The documentation Would be like business Requirement documents (BRD’s) , Design documents (ADD’s), Technical design documents (TDS’s), Test documentation with the results, End User Training documentation, this would be challenging task for any implmentation like HP. Suppose 100 projects are executing a particular year, each project would be 15 Consultants would be working on it, then total consultatns would be 1500 Consultants, it means 1500 Consultants will be working on configurations, Modifications, OSS Notes, user exits (enhancments), Custtom Application developmets, Custom Programs, Routines etc., if any consutltant/Manager wants to know the existing process which has been done 2 or 3 years back,  Tracing  the documentation  and  Location will take  more  time, these are very common if it is upgrading and if it is not maintained the documentation while implementing SAP at central repository. All these issues will be overcome by implementing the Solution Manager with the combination of tools which are mentioned in figure 1.1 for the SAP implementations. 

Evidence that the Solution works

We have a developed a Prototype version of our praposed solution with the Sand box using the following technologies: SAP Solution Manager ,eCATT . Solution Manager was installed on the IA64 Server Under unix operating system. We Could not test the Integration between HP Quality Center and SAP Solution Manager in this POC, because of the unavailability of SAPQC Adaptor.. We have tested the Solution with the SAP Solution Manager and eCATT. The entire documentation for Custom developments which are mentioned in the figure 1.2 maintained in the Solution Manger and tried to access the documentation from different locations across the globe, it is faster and the documentation can be tracked very easily with no time. Testing Scenarios also developed in the Solution Manager by estabilising the connection between the Satellite systems (Target SAP Systems from SAP Solution Manager). The execution of Test Casess (Testing) in Satelite systems has been done from SAP Solution Manager, the Test Results are captured in the SAP Solution Manager. Test documentation also maintained in the Solution Manager.


The Costs and durations are compared with the Solman and without Solman by taking one design document (ADD) in each of 4 Projects in Supply Chain. The Comparison between our Solution and with the HP existing scenario is shown below in the figure 1.3. , the Cost will reduced by 64 times and the documentation access is 50 times faster than the existing scenario. An average 30 to 40% Cost will come down and it is 50 times faster than the existing scenario.

Competitive Approaches

  1. Caliber can be used for the same solution
  2. In Version Management, if you Create 5 Versions in Caliber , each version will create one new document and each version is about 1 MB document, then 5 Versions it will occupies 5MB sapce, where as In Solution Manager it occupies 1MB for all the five versions of the document. The Storage space would be very high in case of Caliber.
  3. In Caliber, we can not integrate SAP Instances directly as we do in Solution Manager.
  4. Solution Manager has Powerfull reporting tool to write custom reports.
  5. Currently in HP, Using Share point portal to maintain the project documentation, 
  6. Again organizing and Tracing the documentation is a difficult task for each SAP Instance with the multiple no of projects every year in the same SAP instance.
  7. Authorization/Security is not strong as much as SolMan.

Current Status

Prototype version of our solution is ready and working, HPIT is shown interest on this solution for SAP implementations. Currently we have evaluated with SAP Solution Manager and eCATT. Eric Harper is trying to get the licensee for SAP QC Adaptor to integrate SolMan with Quality Center.

Next Steps

·This Paper was written 10 Years Back, at that SAP Was not released the Solution. Now SAP Released the SAP Testing Automation Product with the same set of tools .