Creating a Customer Buffer

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to create a customer buffer.

Creating a Customer Buffer

The downtime-optimized conversion approach will execute the data conversion partially already in uptime. Especially for the finance (FI) data conversion, the FI customizing for SAP S/4HANA is a prerequisite, and will have to be applied by Software Update Manager prior to the data conversion. This requires that the FI customizing was created in a separate standard conversion run on an identical system before, so that it can be provided to Software Update Manager for the downtime-optimized run.

This image pictures the process of providing a customer transport including FI Customizing to Software Update Manager for executing a downtime-optimized conversion.

The Customer Buffer must contain the FIN customizing, additionally it may contain:

Other customizing (will be applied in downtime).
SPDD and SPAU (modification adjustments) transport.
Transport for notes relevant for the target system.
Transport of accepted data conversion error.
Custom development objects.

Caution

For customer objects, follow the general guidance on "Integration of Customer Transports" in the respective sections of the Software Update Manager 2.0 guide and SAP Note 1759080. As the buffer may grow over time, it is important to adhere to the basic rules of transportation management, especially retrofit. For more information see the Community Blog

S/4 HANA Transformation with Dual Maintenance and Retrofit and refer to official guides such as https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_Solution_Manager/8b923a2175be4939816f0981b73856c7/45d56775b9324fb79f103d55e44427b2.html?locale=en-US.

The creation of a customer buffer can be achieved either with the tp option addtobuffer, or with the Customer Transport Integration Wizard tool. Note that the transaction for that tool has to be started in the correct client.

Note

For more information on integration of customer buffer see:

SAP Note 1759080 – Conditions for SUM including customer transport requests
SAP Note 2450902 - Customer Transport Integration Wizard

This screenshot shows a command line in which the tp addtobuffer command was executed.

This screenshot shows the Customer Transport Integration Wizard user interface.

The FI customizing is based on a specific status of the system. That means that any change of the customizing on the system the transport needs to be imported in, causes a mismatch of customizing in the transport and customizing in the system. As a consequence, you will need to adapt the FI customizing captured in the customer buffer. One possibility is running a new standard conversion run on a copy of production and create a new FI customizing request. Another, much more convenient option as it requires no additional conversion run, is the adaption of customizing during a downtime-optimized conversion run.

More information on adapting the customizing during a downtime-optimized conversion run follow in Unit 3.

Caution

In both cases, a customizing freeze for FI customizing on production system is required. It starts with the preparation of the last downtime-optimized conversion run before production. This last run verifies the whole procedure (including customer buffer) before the final run on production. The freeze ensures a fixed state of customizing can be validated to minimize risk for production go live.

Providing the Customer Buffer Transport Request to Software Update Manager

You select scenario strategy downtime-optimized conversion on the UI.
This will bring up the question for the buffer file location automatically.
No additional dialogs for SPDD or SPAU transport requests are shown.
No additional dialog for inclusion of customer transports is shown.
Software Update Manager will import the FI customizing part of the customer buffer transport request into the SHD system, as it has to be applied there before the uptime FI data conversion.

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