Lesson 2 of 5
Usage inventory
9 min
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Solution Manager is a large product, and no customer uses all of it. Some functions are central to daily work, some were set up once and abandoned, and some are used by one team in a way nobody else knows about. A transition plan that starts from the product's feature list wastes effort on things nobody uses and misses the one report a controller depends on. Start from actual usage.
The Readiness Check for SAP Cloud ALM
SAP provides a self-service tool for exactly this. The SAP Readiness Check for SAP Cloud ALM analyzes how you use Solution Manager and shows which capabilities have an equivalent in Cloud ALM or another SAP product, with guidance and potential roadblocks. SAP's page names two roadblock areas it looks at: preparation for Selective Data Transfer and the use of Change Request Management.
- Implement the noteApply SAP Note 3236443 in Solution Manager
- Run the collectorPreferably on the productive Solution Manager, for representative results
- Create the analysisIn the SAP Readiness Check app in SAP for Me, or directly in Cloud ALM
- Review the dashboardsUsage per capability, availability in Cloud ALM, roadblocks
- Create tasksWhen created in Cloud ALM, findings can become tasks in a transition project
- RefreshCapability availability updates quarterly; rerun the collector to update the same analysis
Two details matter for planning. Running the collector in a non-productive Solution Manager is possible, but SAP points out that the productive system gives more representative results. And because Cloud ALM's capabilities change every quarter, SAP updates the availability side of an analysis automatically and lets you rerun the collector to refresh usage. Treat the result as a living document, not a one-off report.
Beyond the tool: an inventory by capability
The Readiness Check tells you what the system records. It does not tell you who depends on what, or what must be kept for audit. Priya and Sam built Contoso's inventory as a table, one row per capability, with the tool's findings as the starting point and interviews to fill the gaps.
| Capability | Contoso usage | Owner | Keep for audit? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solution documentation | ECC process hierarchy, 1,100 documents; last major update three years ago | Process owners | Yes, current versions |
| Test Suite | ECC regression: 420 test cases in test packages; run before each ECC support pack | Priya | Run history for two years |
| Change Request Management | All ECC changes: normal, urgent and standard; approvals and transport control | ECC change manager | Yes, change records |
| IT service management | Not used; incidents are in the corporate service desk | None | No |
| Technical monitoring | System and job monitoring for ED1, EQ1, EP1 | Sam | No |
| Business process monitoring | Set up in a past project, no longer used | None | No |
| Custom code management | Usage statistics used in the conversion's custom code analysis | Kenji | Results, yes |
| System Landscape Directory and License Administration Workbench | Used by Basis for landscape data and license measurement | Sam | Relocate, not migrate |
Contoso's Solution Manager usage inventory (abridged).
Questions for each row
- Is it used, and how often? Daily use needs a target before go-live; a dormant function can simply be retired.
- Who depends on it? Name the person who will notice when it is gone.
- What does the data mean for audit? Change records and test evidence often have retention rules; monitoring history rarely does.
- Which estate does it serve? ECC-only usage ends when ECC retires; usage that will continue on S/4HANA needs a Cloud ALM home.
- Is it customized? Custom ChaRM workflows, document types and reports need explicit decisions.
What would you do?
Contoso's Readiness Check shows heavy use of Change Request Management and almost no use of business process monitoring. Sam proposes migrating business process monitoring first because "it is the easiest". What should Grace say?
- Start from actual usage, not the product's feature list.
- The Readiness Check for SAP Cloud ALM (SAP Note 3236443) analyzes usage, maps it to Cloud ALM and flags roadblocks such as ChaRM use.
- Run the collector on the productive Solution Manager and refresh the analysis as Cloud ALM evolves.
- Complete the inventory with owners, audit needs and which estate each capability serves.
Check your understanding · not graded
Lesson check
1. Which SAP Note is implemented to run the Readiness Check for SAP Cloud ALM?
2. Why inventory Solution Manager usage before mapping capabilities?
3. Where should the Readiness Check collector ideally run?
4. A capability is heavily used today but only for ECC, which retires at go-live. What fits?