How do you onboard SAP CPI developers or consultants to your project? And is it important?
I had a conversation about whether it was important to have a good onboarding procedure for your SAP CPI or SAP PI/PO developers. And if it was worth spending some time training them in your release process. Consultants are normally paid per hour/day so each time you have some required training it adds to the cost of onboarding.
Most places just hand over access to their CPI/PI landscape and then you need to figure out how to handle the processes. Then you learn the different parts you need as you go along in the development. I do think it makes sense to spend 1-2 hours before they get their hands on the landscape to figure out how to handle the different procedures in the landscape. In most cases they are going to work on your project for 100 hours, so spending 2% on training makes sense.
More detailed
After creating this post initially, I have expanded upon it and created a live video on the topic. It is an area that deserves much more attention.
Watch on YouTube How to onboard SAP CPI Developers
If you do not give them this kind of access they will figure out something themselves. But it becomes a nightmare to support in the long run. So the more you can prep them with your way of working the better. It will also take them a much longer time to understand your processes for development and they will need to ask a lot of questions along the way.
Here is an example of an onboarding video using the Figaf DevOps Suite to make it easier for your users to deliver integration. You can have this as a recording or give them presentations to the new developers.
Watch on YouTube How to onboard SAP CPI Developers
If you want to get the presentation you can use to adopt you can find my template on-boarding presentation here.
I recommend that you spend some time on it, but you will need to improve the presentation along the way.
The parts that should be included are:
- What your company does and why governance/Integration is important
- Introduction to your team and who is in charge
- Development conventions
- Naming convention
- Patterns for development
- Error handling processes
- Accelerators and shared objects
- Change process
- Handling changes
- Time registration
- Transport
- Test procedures
- Who to contact
- Users and systems
Get the slides
You can get the slides that I used in the presentation here, so you can get some inspiration to how you can get people on boarded.
Try the Figaf DevOps Suite
We recommend using the Figaf DevOps Suite to manage your SAP CPI landscape. In the onboarding video above you can see a little demonstration of what the tool can do.
You can start a free trial and get started right away.
