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Feature Delivery

The feature serves the purpose to establish the cloud mindset by making the move to the continuous feature delivery. Continuous feature delivery shifts the focus on delivering new functionality incrementally.

Feature workflow updated with status In Testing

A Feature follows an easy workflow with the following statuses:

  • Not Planned: To indicate that a Feature is postponed.
  • In Specification: Technical specification of a Feature to be done.
  • In Implementation: Implementing the Feature covers recording of changes (assign transports) and deploying changes to the test stage.    
  • In Testing: Feature is ready to be tested.
  • Ready for Production: Indicates that the changes were successfully tested and are ready for production deployment.
  • Deployed: Confirming the deployment of the changes to production.
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The following table shows you which activities related to the transport section are available in the respective feature statuses:

StatusAssignReleaseDeployUnassign
Not PlannedNoNoNoYes
In SpecificationYesNoNoYes
In ImplementationYesYesYesYes
In TestingYesYesYesYes
Ready for ProductionYesYesYesYes
DeployedNoNoNoNo

The following table shows you which activities related to the user stories section are available in the respective feature statuses:

StatusAssignUnassign
Not PlannedNoYes
In SpecificationYesYes
In ImplementationYesYes
In TestingYesYes
Ready for ProductionYesYes
DeployedNoNo

The available project roles enable different actions with respect to features. The following table provides an overview of the most important actions possible:

Deploying features to test systems ensures that new features as well as needed changes can be tested properly before the changes are propagated to the production systems. Eventually features are deployed to the production systems based on the feature status "Ready for Production".
 
The following activities can be performed to prepare yourself for the feature delivery:
  • Assign modifiable or released transports to a feature once
  • Un-assign and re-assign transports
  • Release modifiable transport (CTS only)
  • Refresh the transport list to get the current status
  • Deploy the transports in the release order of the subset assigned to the Feature

Note: It is always ensured that transports are deployed to the test system before all transports assigned to a feature can be deployed to the production system. Prior to the deployment of a Feature to production the approval for deployment needs to be given by the change & release manager (at the moment project lead or project admin).

Release of modifiable transports

  • Modifiable transports assigned to a feature can be released from within the feature directly
  • The "Release" button schedules the release of all modifiable CTS transports assigned to the feature
  • To utilize the release functionality the client dependent use cases must be configured in all export clients

Note: All transport tasks must be released by the developer(s) in the source system before releasing the transports.            

Deployment of features

Features can serve hybrid use cases, e.g. to deploy changes for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition and SAP Integration Suite - Cloud Integration in an orchestrated way. Simply assign transports from both export sources to one feature and deploy the feature to the corresponding systems defined in the the transport track.

In our example we have a 2-tier landscape for Cloud Integration and a 3-tier landscape for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition.

  • Deployment of features can be triggered via the "Deploy" button in the transport section.
  • In the transport section you can easily scan for the transports to be deployed within the feature. Target tenants to be delivered next are shown in dark grey color. 

  • By clicking the "Deploy" button all transports assigned to the feature will be checked for their status. After confirming the upcoming pop-up via "Deploy" the appropriate transports will be scheduled for deployment.

In this example only transport O11K904513 will be deployed to the target tenant, since the transport for Cloud Integration is ready for production due to the 2-tier landscape and deployment to production is synchronized by SAP Cloud ALM.

Handling of complex landscapes with multiple deployment targets is easy. TMS transport target groups and Cloud TMS transport routes with multiple targets are resolved to make the flow of transports through your landscape transparent.

  • In this example a TMS target group with 6 target clients for the consolidation route was created.

Alle target clients were supplied with the changes and now the production clients are flagged as target tenants.

  • Complex Cloud Transport Management landscapes are treated in the same way.

SAP Cloud ALM is aware of the transport tracks since the information is pushed to SAP Cloud ALM from the connected systems. Hence the production system (last system of the transport track) is known, and it is ensured that the deployment of a feature to production can only be executed in status "Ready for Production".

  • Feature deployment to production in status "In Implementation" or "In Testing" is not possible. The error pop-up states that you must approve the feature for production first.

  • After switching the feature to status "Ready for Production" the deployment to production can be triggered.

Based on the releases defined in the deployment plan several features can be bundled for a release delivery. In the feature overview this bundle of features can be deployed to production. Prerequisite is that the features are in status “Ready for Production” and the assigned transports are ready for the import into the production systems.

Nice to know: As you can see in this screenshot the release is already closed and the scope of the release cannot be changed anymore.

All ABAP based transports assigned to the selected features are imported as a subset. So, there is no need to worry about the transport sequence.