Lesson 1 of 5
The public edition landscape for change
9 min
Contoso Motor Co. runs SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, where Basis imports transports through STMS. But Contoso's PMO lead, Grace, has asked Luis, the release manager, to work out how change would flow if the planned Mexican acquisition were run on SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition in a two-tier model. That decision has not been made; this course uses it as a working example. The good news for Luis is that the principle he knows still holds: build in development, prove in test, then move to production. The tools, the tenants and who controls the calendar are what change.
| System | Tenant(s) | What happens there | Who works there |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter system | Preconfigured tenant with standard scope | Fit-to-Standard workshops early in the project | Project team and key users |
| Development system | Customizing tenant | Business configuration deployed from SAP Central Business Configuration, fine-tuning, key-user extensions | Configuration experts, key users |
| Development system | Development tenant | Developer extensions in ABAP Cloud, built with ABAP Development Tools | ABAP developers |
| Test system | Test tenant | Imports from development, integration, acceptance and upgrade regression testing | Administrators, testers, key users |
| Production system | Production tenant | Imports forwarded from test; live business | Administrators, end users |
Tenants and systems
In the public edition you log on to a tenant, which is technically a client in an SAP-operated system. A three-system landscape gives you a development system with two tenants (customizing and development), a test system and a production system, plus a starter system used early for Fit-to-Standard. Developer extensibility, meaning custom ABAP Cloud code, needs the three-system landscape; a two-system landscape supports key-user and side-by-side extensibility only. The development tenant is client 080 in SAP's documentation, and the customizing tenant is where key users and configuration experts work.
Business configuration starts in SAP Central Business Configuration (CBC), which is connected to the development system, not to test or production. CBC deploys configuration into the customizing tenant, where it is recorded in customizing transport requests. Fine-tuning made in the customizing tenant is recorded too, in separate requests. As a rule you cannot make extensibility or business configuration changes directly in the test or production tenants. The exceptions are system-specific settings, such as number ranges, which configuration experts maintain in each system.
- BuildConfiguration and key-user extensions in the customizing tenant; ABAP Cloud code in the development tenant
- Release or exportCustomizing requests released, software collections exported, workbench requests released
- Import into testAn administrator imports everything with the Import Collection app
- TestTesters and key users prove the change in the test tenant
- ForwardFrom the test tenant, the same items are forwarded to production in Import Collection
- Import into productionImported into the production tenant with Import Collection
Four kinds of change, three vehicles
Luis's first job is to sort change by type, because each type has its own vehicle and its own export app. Business configuration travels in customizing transport requests, released with the Export Customizing Transports app. Key-user extensions travel in software collections, exported with the Export Software Collection app. Developer extensions travel in workbench transport requests, released from the Transport Organizer in ABAP Development Tools. All three arrive in test and production through one app: Import Collection. Side-by-side extensions on SAP BTP are a fourth kind, moved outside the ERP landscape, typically with SAP Cloud Transport Management (covered in course sap-rel-203).
| Topic | Private edition (Contoso today) | Public edition (working example) |
|---|---|---|
| Who operates the systems | SAP under RISE, with customer-controlled transports | SAP; the customer uses apps, not system administration |
| Import tool | STMS import queues | Import Collection app |
| Upgrade timing | Planned by the customer | Set by SAP's schedule, twice a year |
| Code | Classic ABAP and ABAP Cloud | ABAP Cloud only, released APIs only |
What changes for a release manager moving from private to public edition.
What would you do?
During a demo of the working example, a key user in Mexico asks to add a custom field directly in the production tenant because "it is only one field". What should Luis say?
- Three-system landscape: development (customizing and development tenants), test and production, plus a starter system early on.
- Developer extensibility needs the three-system landscape.
- SAP Central Business Configuration deploys to the customizing tenant only; test and production receive imports.
- Configuration and extensions are not changed directly in test or production, except system-specific settings such as number ranges.
- Three vehicles (customizing requests, software collections, workbench requests) all arrive through Import Collection.
Check your understanding · not graded
Lesson check
1. In the public edition three-system landscape, where are key-user extensions built?
2. Which app imports customizing transports, software collections and workbench transports into test and production?
3. SAP Central Business Configuration deploys configuration into:
4. Which kind of extension requires a three-system landscape?