Transport Requests for Customizing

Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
  • Create transport requests for Customizing
  • Explain the use of CTS projects
  • Describe the content of a transport request for Customizing changes

Tools for Managing Transport Requests

SAP provides implementation tools for customizing.

  • Implementation Guide (IMG)
  • Transport Organizer

The Implementation Guide (IMG) is the main customizing tool. It represents the central entry point for all project members for carrying out the customizing activities. Customizing takes place out of the created IMG project, which contains all the customizing activities for a specific project scope in a hierarchical list. If the customizing is changed, these changes must be recorded. The Transport Organizer (transaction SE09/SE10) records the customizing changes in transport requests.

The transport request is an information source in the Transport Organizer that records all changes and modifications made to repository objects and customizing settings during a development project. A transport request is used for transferring objects together into another SAP system.

If the customizing is finished, the transport request can be released to the Transport Management System (TMS) for transferring the changes to other SAP systems in the SAP system landscape.

The function for recording the changes made during customizing is integrated in the customizing and table maintenance transactions. The Transport Organizer is called from within these customizing transactions for recording the changes into transport requests. The Transport Organizer is fully integrated in the TMS.

The Transport Organizer is used to create, manage, release, and analyze transport requests that record customizing or repository objects. To access the Transport Organizer, you can use the transaction code SE09 or SE10, which both lead to the same screen.

All customizing requests that belong to a specific user are displayed according to a set of standard selection criteria in the Transport Organizer. The selection options include user, transport request type, transport request status, and date. An example of these selection criteria is shown in the figure above. In the Transport Organizer, the screen area Global Information is displayed. In this area, you can get a quick cross-system overview of the status of transported transport requests.

Creating Transport Requests and Tasks

Customizing mainly consists of client-specific table entries which in turn are saved to transport requests of type Customizing. A transport request belongs only to one user who owns the transport request. It is possible that other users are also storing their objects in the same transport request. The owner of a transport request can administer and release the transport request. For example, the owner can assign other users to the transport requests, can release the transport request, and so on.

The Transport Organizer allows you to work with a team on a development or customizing project, and allows the changes made to the SAP system to be recorded.

A transport request is used for transferring objects that belong together into another SAP system simultaneously. As long as it hasn't been released, you can compare a transport request with a folder in the File Explorer, which contains and subfolders (the tasks), which in turn contain (references to) different documents (the customizing objects) . A transport request initially contains one task per member assigned to the transport request.

Tasks are smaller units that are used by team members or customizers for recording the objects they want to transport. Tasks are organizational part of a transport request. The changes a project member has made are stored in the tasks that the project member owns.

In general, a customizing object can be listed in several tasks belonging to the same transport request. Likewise, a team member can own several tasks belonging to a transport request.

The recorded objects are only transported in the context of the entire transport request. This function is used to manage and control the distribution of changes within an SAP system landscape.

SAP recommends the following use of the transport function:

  • The project manager or responsible person creates a transport request.
  • By creating a task inside the transport request for each of the project members, the project members are assigned to the transport request.
  • The project members record changes to their objects to their tasks.

This leads to the following advantages for the management of transport requests:

  • The project managers have control of all changes that are recorded in their transport requests.
  • Objects in tasks can't be transported individually. They are only transported with the whole transport request.
  • With the release of the transport request, the project leader is able to control when the objects are to be transferred to the other SAP systems in the SAP system landscape.

Hint

Create as few transport requests as possible by grouping the developers and customizers. Try to avoid creating a new transport request for each little change. It is much easier to handle transport requests if there are only a few hundred per year, instead of several thousand per year.

Managing Transport Requests in Projects

In this lesson, you have seen how customizing changes are recorded to tasks and transport requests and how this is done technically. You also now have an idea of which organizational procedures during the creation and recording of transport request can help you to get an overview of when the changes are transported.

First, let's introduce the team. There is the project leader, the developer, the tester, and the transport administrator. All of these are roles. They may be combined in fewer people, based on security and necessary knowledge.

Project IMGs may be linked to the Change and Transport System (CTS). The transport requests created and assigned by the project leader contain smaller units called tasks that have been allocated to the project team members. In these tasks, the changes made by the team members are recorded. A team member can also own several tasks belonging to a transport request.

With the CTS functionality in the IMG projects, it is possible to link the transport projects (CTS projects) to the Project IMG in which the changes are done.

If you want to use the CTS functionality in IMG projects, you have to activate the functionality in the IMG project first. IMG projects are cross-client. As a result, the CTS function may be separately enabled in different clients for the same IMG project. The following figure shows how to activate the CTS project functions for an IMG project. This activation can be done by changing the IMG project in transaction SPRO_ADMIN. CTS Project Customizing should be organized in projects. The project then contains all the customizing activities, modifications, and development. A project should be used for grouping transport requests.

Call transaction SPRO_ADMIN.

When you activate the CTS project functions for an IMG project, you change the way the SAP system reacts as follows:

  • The SAP system creates a CTS project and relates it to the IMG project.
  • You then can assign transport requests to the CTS project.

    Note

    You can see this assignment in the Transport Organizer as well.
  • When you perform customizing in the Project IMG, you can record the changes only in transport requests that are assigned to the assigned CTS project.

The assignment of transport requests to a CTS project can be done in two different ways:

  • The first way is to assign the transport requests created from the project administration (in transaction SPRO_ADMIN). This is shown in the figure "Assignment of Transports to CTS Projects".
  • The second way is to assign a transport request to a CTS project and to use the Transport Organizer (transaction SE09 or SE10) and to put the CTS project into the properties of the transport request. This can be done in one of two ways:
    • By displaying the transport requests in the Transport Organizer, double-clicking the modifiable transport request and then switching to tab Properties.
    • By filling out the Project field when creating transport requests in the Transport Organizer.

Call transaction SPRO_ADMIN

In the Import Queue screen of the TMS for the system in question (transaction STMS, area Import Overview), you can filter requests according to their assignment to CTS projects, and import them. Using this function it is possible to transport CTS projects individually as a unit containing several transport requests.

Caution

In general, customizing projects should not overlap. During the release of transport requests, dependencies of requests belonging to different projects should be recorded, and projects should be checked for overlapping.

Create Transport Requests for Customizing With the Help of the Project IMG

Business Example

Customizing should be organized within projects. For each group, an IMG project named PROJECT_## is already defined. However, to use the Change and Transport System (CTS), the project leader must activate the CTS functions within the IMG project first.

Note

## represents the group number the instructor has assigned to you.

Steps

  1. Log on to the development system S4D, development client 100, and review your project PROJECT_## that was created in the SAP system. Check the scope of your project.

    1. Log on to the development client using the credentials that are provided by your instructor.

    2. To review the definition of your project PROJECT_##, start transaction SPRO_ADMIN.

    3. Mark the line with your project PROJECT_## and choose the menu path Project → Display.

    4. To check the scope of the project, choose the (Display) Project IMG. button.

  2. Assign your user to your project PROJECT_##.

    1. Following the previous step, choose Back to switch back to the Display: Project <project ID>: <project name> screen.

    2. Switch to change mode.

    3. Choose Assign User.... Enter your user ID – and all other users that should work with this project – in the column R/3 user.

    4. Choose Continue (Enter).

    5. Choose Save.

  3. Activate the CTS functions for your project. Assign three transport requests of type customizing to your project.

    1. In the Change: Project <project ID>: <project name> screen, in change mode: Select the Transp. Requests tab (at the right) and choose Activate CTS Functions. Confirm the information dialog box related to CTS activation with Continue (Enter).

      Hint

      This creates a CTS project (<SID>_P<number>) that is related to your IMG project (PROJECT_##).

    2. To assign transport requests of type customizing, choose Assigned CTS requests.

    3. On the next screen, choose Create Request.... In the selection dialog box, select Customizing request and choose Copy. To create the customizing request, enter a short description and notice that the (CTS) project is already filled in. Enter all project members that should work on this transport request.

    4. Save your work.

      Notice that the SAP system generates a transport request name and task names in the format of <SID>K9<5 digit number>.

    5. Check that a new transport request has been created with one task for each transport request member (by expanding the folder structure of the transport request).

    6. Choose Continue.

    7. Repeat these steps for creating the transport requests twice. Create three customizing requests in total for your project.

  4. Are the project status switches for your CTS project maintained correctly so that the CTS project can be transported into the quality assurance and into the production system?

    1. Following the previous step, on the Change: Project <project ID>:<project title> screen, from the Transp. Requests tab, choose CTS project status switch and select All configured transport targets. Choose Continue.

    2. Make sure that your CTS project is configured in a way that:

      • Transport requests can be created and released on SAP system S4D in client 100 (for this, you may need to expand the tree structure accordingly).

      • Transport requests can be imported into SAP system S4Q client 100 and into SAP system S4P, client 100 (for this, again you may need to expand the tree structure accordingly).

      Note

      You should not need to change the status switches, because they should already be set correctly.

Transporting Customizing Changes

Customizing transport requests usually contain changes to customizing. At the time the change is made in the SAP system, the keys that are identifying the table entry are stored in the transport request's task. At the time when the transport request is exported, this transport request will extract the relevant table entries from the database of the SAP system and copies them to the transport directory.

Note

The contents of the transport request always represents the customizing entries at the time when the transport request was released.

Because of the dynamic access to table entries during customizing, both client-specific and cross-client customizing are not protected from being overwritten. Table entries are locked while the customizing transaction is being used (by the enqueue service), but they are unlocked as soon as the changes are completed and saved to a transport request.

Customizing changes can be logged. This is often used for documentation, such as who has changed a certain customizing setting. Transport requests only record the table keys at the time when a customizing entry is changed. From a transport request, you can only obtain information on who has made the changes but no information about the state before and after the change. This information can be stored by activating the logging of customizing tables.

To analyze the logging of changes to customizing tables, use IMG logging through transaction SCU3. The prerequisites for IMG Logging are:

  • In the Technical settings in ABAP Dictionary maintenance (transaction SE11), the flag Log Changes has been selected for the respective customizing table or view.
  • The profile parameter rec/client is set for the appropriate clients.

Note

For additional information, see SAP Note 1916 – Logging table changes in R/3 and SAP Note 2490201 –  R3trans default setting for table logging.

Generally, all objects are transported to the target system in the state in which they exist in the source system. Objects transported from the source system overwrite objects in the target system that have the same names. Objects are deleted in the target system if they do not exist in the source system.

For productive systems, there are also legal requirements in some countries that make it necessary to activate customizing table logging. Some legal requirements for activating the table logging can be found in SAP Note 112388 – SAP system audit | Tables requiring logging.

If not otherwise specified in the TMS configuration, the customizing settings are transported using the standard transport layer.

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