ActiveControl is used to manage and control S/4HANA transports. This guide provides step-by-step instructions for executing key transport processes through the ActiveControl user interface.

For comprehensive information on the overall transport design and process, please refer to DD-TEC-170 Transport Management for Release 4.

Overview

All users will get access to the following tiles.

Transport Request (TR) Creation and Management

Creating Business Tasks (BT)

Business tasks will be created to logically group related TRs.

• Workbench - One BT per Custom Development ID.
• Customizing - One BT per functionality, business process or logical grouping of related functionality. 

This section outlines the steps for creating a Business Task in ActiveControl.                                               

1. Click on the "Business Tasks" tile. 

      3. Click the “+” button to create a new Business Task.

    4.  Populate the Business Task form with the following fields and click “Save” to create the Business Task.

• Subject: Enter the Business Task name.

• Project: R4G1 Release 4 – Group 1

• Type: Normal

• Workstream: Select the relevant POD name

• Description: Provide the Business Task details

• Jira #: For custom development, please state the development card Jira ID. This must use the pattern of ERP-#, where '#' is a number.
  

Creating Transport Requests

1. Select the newly created Business Task and click “Edit”
   
   
   
2. In the Task Details screen, navigate to the Transport tab and click “Create Transport” to generate a new Transport Request (TR) linked to the Business Task. 
   
   
   
3. In the Create Transport form, maintain the following details:
   • Description: Enter a meaningful Transport description
   • Target: Select ERD – S/4HANA and GTS Development
   • Client:

     • 100 – S/4HANA Configuration and Development for both S/4HANA & GTS

     • 500 – GTS Configuration

   • Transport Type: Choose either Customizing Request or Workbench Request

   • Transport Target: Select VRT
     
     
     

4. Click “Add SAP Task (Any SAP User)” to assign the SAP development or configuration task to the relevant SAP user (Any SAP User)"
    

   • Select the appropriate SAP User ID:

     • Choose your own User ID if you will be recording the changes.

     • Alternatively, select another user’s ID if the changes need to be recorded under the same Transport Request.

   • After assigning the SAP User ID, click “Save” to finalize and create the Transport Request (TR).
     
     

5. When the dialog “create a transport form?” appears, confirm the action by clicking “Yes”
   
   

6. In the Transport Form, provide the following details:

   • Type: Select Normal.

   • Group: Choose the appropriate type of change from the drop-down list.
     
     
     

7. After completing the Transport Form, click “Save” to finalize and store the details. After this, you can see that your Transport Request & Task were generated. 

   • Please note that the TR description will follow the predefined convention: <Release>_<POD>_<Short description provided by the user>
     
     

Maintaining Business Tasks and Transport Forms

Adding new Transport Request to an existing Business Task 

1. Search for the Business Tasks. This can be done from "My Testing", "My Changes" tiles which will list the Business Tasks related to the users or by searching for using "Business Tasks", "Explorer" tiles.
   
   
2. Click on the Business Task where the new transport needs to be added.
   
   
   
3.  Follow steps 2 to 7 from the earlier section "Creating Transport Requests".

 Adding New Transport Tasks to an existing Transport Request

1. Search for the Transport Request using the Business Task or searching for the TR in "Transport Forms" tile. 
2. Click on edit, scroll to Transport details and click "Create SAP Task"
    
3. Fill up the details of the tasks as mentioned in step 4 of "Creating Transport Requests"

Reassign a Transport Request to another Business Tasks 

1. Open the Transport Request form and click on edit.
2. Scroll to Business Tasks and click on "Add Existing Tasks"
3. Search and add the new BT to be assigned to.
4. Remove the old BT assignment. Please note that a TR can be assigned to one BT at a time.
5. Save the TR form. 
   

Configuring Dependency and Manual Configurations

Configuring dependent Business Tasks

This configuration will not allow the current BT to be imported until all the TRs in the dependent BT are imported. 

1. Open the business task and go to edit mode.
2. Scroll to Dependencies and click on "Add Dependencies"
3. Search and select the dependent business tasks.
4. Save Business Task.

Configuring dependent Transport Request

This configuration will not allow the TR to be imported until all dependent TRs are imported. 

1. Open the transport form and go to edit mode.
2. Scroll to Advance Options → Dependencies.
3. Click on "Add Existing Transport"
4. Search and add the dependent TRs.

Configuring dependent Manual Configurations

This configuration will notify users to perform their manual configurations before or after TR import.

1. Open the transport form and go to edit mode.
2. Scroll to Manual Steps and click "Add step".
3. Under step details, update the following:
   • Title - Short description of the manual configuration
   • Description - Manual configuration steps. For complex configuration, please create a separate document and add the URL under attachments (see below). 
   • Run Manual Steps - choose before or after import
   • Other fields can be left as default. 
      
     
     
4. Under Systems:
   • Choose all the systems the manual config is applicable for.
   • Choose the PIC for the manual config based on each system or use "Select Users" to mass assign user.
     
     
     
5. Under Attachments, use "Add URL" to provide the link to documents detailing the steps of the manual config.
   

Collaborating on the same Business Tasks

There may be scenarios where multiple users will be working on the same functionality or custom development. To allow other users to work on a business tasks, they need to be assigned as a tester. 

1. Create a new TR and assign it to the users. All TR owners are in a business tasks will be treated as testers.
2. In the business tasks, scroll Testing section and add users under all system testers. Do not use "Specific Role Testers" or "Specific Target Tester".
   

Locking Transport Requests

Users must lock the TR forms when the TR is not required and should not be transported. In ActiveControl, a BT cannot progress to the next system if it contains a locked TR. Thus if a transport must not move to a subsequent system, it must both be locked and moved from its existing Business Task to a BT which is 'quarantined' and does not progress to subsequent systems.

Following are the steps to lock TR and BT. 

1. Lock TR: Open the TR form, go to edit mode, select "Lock Transport Form" in the drop down menu in the top right and save.
   
   
   
2. Reassign TR to a 'quarantined' BT: Please see Reassign a Transport Request to another Business Tasks for details

Sending TRs from ERD to ERS

The following steps describes how consultants can transport their TRs from ERD to ERS using transport of copies (ToC). This is a 3 step process:

1. TR owner will need to create a transport of copies using AC UI.
2. After ToC is create, it will be placed in ERS approval queue and an email will be sent to the POD lead for approval. The team lead is selected based on the workstream in the Business Tasks. 
3. POD lead will need to approve the ToC for import.

Creating ToC (TR Owner)

1. Open the Business Task and go to edit mode.
2. Scroll to Transports, click on the TOC icon, and choose Full or delta to create a Transport of Copies.
   1. Full - Copies all the TR content to the ToC (recommended option). 
   2. Delta - Copies the delta changes to the ToC.
      
3. Now, click OK without changing the default selection.
   
4. Wait until the confirmation window appears. This process may take some time, especially for larger Transport Requests. If an error occurs, verify that all objects have been activated.
   
   
   
5. Once complete, click Save. The generated TOC will then appear in the Business Task under the Transports tab.
   
   
   
6. Under Status & History, there will be a new row mentioning "Waiting to be approved into Sandbox (ERS)" and the approver will be mentioned under responsible. If your team lead's name is not mentioned, please contact the basis team. 
   A system generated email will be sent to all the approvers.
   

Approve ToC for import (POD Lead)

1. POD lead will receive an email notification as shown below. 
   
   
   
2. Click on Approve Tasks and user will be redirected to the "My Approval" tile in ActiveControl UI.
   
   
3. In ActiveControl Approval screen, search for the BT mentioned in the email and click on the green button.
   
   
   
4. The pop-up will show which ToC you are approving. Click Approve.
   
5. After approving the transport analysis will run to check if there is any issues to import this ToC.
   
   
   
6. If there are errors, the analysis window will pop-up. Please analyse the error and ask the transport owner to take the appropriate actions.
   • If there is difficulty understanding the error, please contact the basis team.
   • If the error can be ignored, click on "Approve Anyway" and provide a short reason for ignoring the error. 
     
     
7. Once approved, ToC will be added to ERS TR queue and will be automatically imported (import job runs every 5mins).

Check Import Status

Import status can be checked by one of these methods

• ActiveControl - Go to "Awaiting Import" tile.
  • If the import is not completed, ToC will be visible under ERS.
  • If import is complete, click on "Import History" to check the status.
• ActiveControl - Go to the corresponding Business tasks or transport form and check the status under "Status & History".
• SAPGUI - Check the status using SAP STMS t-codes. E.g., SE01.

Additional Information

Managing Configuration Transport Requests

Following describes the high-level process on how Configuration TRs will be managed. Detailed steps will be share before INT system build/prep.

1. SyWay consultants will create their own Business Tasks and create config TRs under them. 
2. As part of INT system build/prep, Basis team will create a consolidate config BT and consultants will need to move their config TRs to this BT.
3. Basis team will merge all config TRs to one TR.
4. Original TRs will be released and "Delete from Control Point" will be used to remove the TR from the ActiveControl path.
5. The merged config TR will be transported to subsequent systems.
6. Original TRs will not be transported and will be kept for reference.  

How to copy objects between Transport Requests in S/4HANA

In case it is required to include Objects from one transport request to another we must follow the Classic SAP GUI approach without Active Control. AC User Interface do not provide.

1.- Create or access to a Transport Request that will be the target of the Objects to be copied. For example from tcodes SE09, SE10 or SE80

2.- Click or select the option "Include Objects"

3.- A New pop up will open where you can select the TR or Task that will be the source of the Objects you want to copy. Usual options to choose are:

• Objects list from Request - To select a Individual TR as source
• Object list from Multiple Requests

4.- Use the selection screen to indicate required TRs:

5.- Click on Merge button

6.- Validate that objects were included into the target TR

Other Controls

Prevent direct transport creation

ActiveControl pop-up appears when users try to create new TRs from any transaction code except for SE01, SE09 and SE10 where the normal TR creation pop-up will appear. 

To prevent this, TR creation authorization object has been removed from project roles in ERD.

Creation of Z* Objects

SyWay is using /SYQ namespace for custom objects and ActiveControl is configured to not allow users to to save Z* or Y* objects to TRs. 

However there are some instances custom objects needs to be created with Z* or Y* (e.g., custom roles) and to bypass this restriction, users must be assigned y_teriskgr auth object.

See Also

• ActiveControl Product User Guide
• DD-TEC-170 Transport Management for Release 4.
• ActiveControl Transport Sequencing