Posts

Figaf Automatic Migration Demo

/0 Comments/in , /by

Over the last 2 months, we have been working on making full automation of the migration tool. It is probably the longest we have worked on a release. I had expected it would be a lot faster but once we got into the different areas we could see there process we could improve.

There are still a large number of customers how are still not on 7.5 for all their integrations. They will need to be using a lot of effort in migrating. We want to be able to save them time.

The migration is handled in waves/releases that each can contain a number of interfaces/ICOs. Once you have assigned an ICO to a migration task then it will guide you through the process. There is two processes and you will get tickets to handle them both in the Figaf Tool.

  1. Migrate the content from old Dev system to new Dev system
  2. Development to move from new Dev system to production.

What is the goal with the tool

The Figaf tool will handle all transports, testing, and configuration from an easy to use approach. Check the video below to see how smooth it works for the process of migrating 3 interfaces at once time.

There are still some gaps that we need to solve for the process to be maximumly automated, but we are moving towards it. It is a great leap compared to what existed earlier. It also gives a much better view of what you have migrated for each process.

Signup now to get access to the first release once we are ready.

Get Figaf IRT

Join webinar

We have a webinar on the October 24 to share and show more of what the tool can do. We hope that you will join us to learn more.

Sign up here.

Change Management can be simple

/0 Comments/in /by

In the old-time, you had the SAP R3 ABAP system. There it was a pretty good tool to do change management. There was a limited number of objects that you could change and they could all be managed by one way of handling transports. In the new world, it is a lot more complicated.

Now the landscape is completely different. You have many different services that you need to find a way to manage. And if you start using SAP cloud solutions many of them have their own way of handling transports.

I have created a video to show, how I see the concept in some more details.

You have two options for Change Management: A generic approach or a specialized approach for your most important systems.

Generic Change management

No matter what you need to develop change, everything is handled in the same way. Then all developers know how to do change management for everything. It will speed up making it possible for other developers to handle the tooling.

The downside is that you will need to make a process that can encompass all systems. You will, therefore, get to little information or spend to much time creating the documents that you need for your project.

You may also miss an important part, and that is the ability to like changes both ways

Tool specific change management

If you have a lot of development or highly critical tools. It does make sense to have a better way to handle it.

When we are working on our Java application for the Figaf tool. We use Jira to create tickets in, Developers will then use this ticket number for all commits to a given ticket. Changes to our unit tests are also linked with the ticket. That is allowing us to trace all changes back to a ticket. That is a hyper-specialized tool to make change management for just one case. It can then be bundled with Jenkins to make build and test automation.

This type of specialization of your change management saves you time for your development. Because developers don’t need to note all the different places they are making modifications. It is handled automatically by the tool and captured as a part of the change.

Sure it will cost you more to buy or create an environment. It will cost both money, time and effort to get it working. Hopefully, this investment will be returned with better documentation, easier change management and faster delivery of code.

If you are using SAP Integrations products like SAP PI/PO, CPI or API mgt then we have a tool that will allow you to optimize your delivery process. Check the tools at https://figaf.com/IRT there are even free versions that allow you to get started.

With our approach we will handle all the tool-specific requirements in our application and then let your original system containing all organizational data.

Download Figaf IRT

If you want to see how our tool works to make DevOps possible check this video

Automatic Migration of SAP PI/PO

/0 Comments/in , /by

SAP PI migrations are important if you are not on 7.5, you have 16 months to complete it.
For the last year, we have been building components that could help in the process. Now we are taking steps to bundle it all together so you as a user will get full support of the process.

Today I held a webinar to show what we have been working on, and get feedback if it was the correct direction. We did not get to show the full process, but it is not long before we can show it.

The goal is to be able to handle the processing of the full migration process automatically. There will be areas where you need to take and handle the processes your self.

  • Create test cases on your old landscape
  • Migrate Repository and Directory to the new landscape
  • Configure channels and ICOs in full landscape
  • Run testing in the new landscape
  • Manage the process

You can watch the replay of the presentation webinar

Want to try it

If you think this is interesting then your first step is to try out the Figaf IRT testing part of the application. You can try it for free on https://figaf.com/IRT. You will anyway need to create test cases on your old SAP PI system.
We currently support 7.31-7.5 and have a number of different ways to create and run tests. All are pretty easy to setup.
Download it for free now.
Then in a few weeks, we will show the first version of the tool.

Download and try Figaf for free now

Here are the slides

Test EDIFACT/X12 on SAP PI/PO

/0 Comments/in , /by

Yesterday I had a demostration with a client of the Seeburger Migration tool, that was doing a migration of their EDIFACT/X12 from Message mappings from Seeburger to B2B Add-on on the format. I wanted to show how it was possible to make it possible to test that the mappings were correctly migrated and converted.

I do think that this also could be useful for other SAP PI/PO customers, that are either considering a migration project or just want better control of what is happening to their EDI messages.

It is crucial to test all your EDI documents because of the volume of the business going that way. Some of the customers I have worked the EDI part was 20-50% of their turnover, so it is the part that is too big to fail. It is pretty difficult to test it normally because you need to have a good understanding of what can change in your mappings. Both when it comes to upgrades and also when it comes to changes done by developers.

As you can see of the video it is pretty simple to setup a test case based on data from your productive system. Because it is where you have the most reliable amount of data and variance. It is just to complex to test everything based manual test case creation, that is why we believe it should be automated.

We will set up both EDI document in both directions so you can see validation of EDI document and also that it works with the EDISeperator. We only show EDIFACT but X12 and EANCOM works the same way.

We do not currently have an integration with dual stack systems. We did implement it in the old release of IRT, so it will be possible to update it to the current version. We currently do no have access to a dual stack system, so if this is something you want. We hope you will help working with us to make it possible.

How about change management

So Figaf IRT is a lot more than just a testing application. We started doing testing of SAP PI/PO but have since expanded the service to handle the full change management. Just link the CTS transport with the Business request and you are able to do document all changes. And also test the changes that you make. It reuses all your EDI test cases for the process.

Try IRT

You can try out Figaf IRT tool. It just takes 15 minutes to set up on your laptop to see how easy it is and what it can do for your SAP PI/PO and CPI development. The solution can scale to run for your full enterprise.

Try Figaf IRT now

SAP PI/PO B2B Add-on alternative

/0 Comments/in , /by

We will in the next period of time see a large number of users that will be performing migrations of their SAP PI/PO platfrom to 7.5. I have created a number of resources on SAP PI/PO Migration. One of the big thing in this migration is the migration from Seeburger to B2B Add-on. We do have a tool that allow you to automate the migration from Seeburger to B2B Add-on message mappings.

B2B Add-on from SAP does work and can give you a way to manage your EDI messages. There are still some gaps in the B2B Add-on solution that could be greatly improved and where i see that an alterntaive solution could be better. It is in the area of:

  • Logging and archiving of messages sent.
  • Partner management and settings usability
  • Configuration of partner connections via AS2, VANS or SFTP.

I had a webinar with Paw Pedersen from BizBrains that created a product called Link. Link is a tool build to manage your EDI solution. It is currently being used to manage B2B for Biztalk, but the same system can be used also for SAP PI/PO. They have been running it for a number of customers from small companies wanting to run EDI to big banks. You will learn about what the solution can help with. You can see the replay here.

They have a number of different configuration options and security settings that are required for banks. They also have large customers with many partners, so they know how to make the application scale.

One of the reasons I think it could be useful for you is that you can switch to their platform and then there is no need to upgrade to the PO license and can stay on the PI License. It can save you a great deal of money and speed up your migration process.

There is a number of different ways the Link solution can tie into your SAP PI/PO solution from

  • Just as an Archive of messages
  • Partner configuration
  • Partner configuration that updates your mappings
  • Using it also for SAP CPI.

If you find the product interesting write to psp@bizbrains.com, and get a trial of what the solution can do.

I will be a part of designing a good solution that will make your migration as simple as possible.