Workflow Upgrade 4.6C to ECC6 - manual settings during Cutover & Version

Tue Nov 2 12:29:01 EDT 2010

Hi Michael, Sandy,

Excellent questions, excellent points.

1)      I run SWU3 in each environment as it becomes available to schedule
the background jobs, assign the WF Admin, etc.  Takes less than 10 minutes -
should be done in Dev,QA,PRD after the upgrade, when Basis allows you in.

2)      Sure, run SWU_Obuf - or wait for the Cinderella Effect (past
midnight, everything gets refreshed)

3)      I do generate each BOR object after the upgrade as I go from Dev -
QA - PRD, after Checking them first!

4)      SWUD on each workflow - test environment - Consistency check for
components (including subworkflows) should help you sort the wheat from the
chaff as well.

5)      Agent assignments for General Tasks are transportable, I believe,
but my Basis friends let me do it 'the workflow way'.  Then they shut me
out.

Michael, I sympathize!  I had heard from another organization about WF Train
Wrecks - and in our case, we were fortunate that we were able to encourage
our users to complete almost all workitems prior to the upgrade.  Since we
had upgraded from EBP 3.5 to SRM 5.0 Extended Classic just 1.5 years prior,
our users were sympathetic to this, and weekly reports provided them with
insight as to how many outstanding workflows they had.  However, we are a
relatively small shop - although our  workflow footprint is quite large.
We have no SAP-delivered workflows running, but plenty of custom ones.  

You do need to:

1        The first bullet in the SAP document does say 'Complete all running
workflow instances'  - So really try to convince your business people of
this.  You can, if necessary, report on workflows in process at the time of
the upgrade, and perhaps kill them, and manually start new workflows after
the upgrade?  As I said, it depends on your business.

2        Check each custom workflow - you will probably need to do 'Block
Correction' on each one.  You will probably have more DDIC and binding
corrections too - which goes right back to #1.

3)      Absolutely test previously started (if you must) and
freshly-started (after  upgrade) workflows as you move thru Dev and QA.
This will help you prepare for the oncoming train J.  You will probably be
able to form a plan for addressing any workflows that look as though they
are going south - and this will almost certainly be the ones that were
running prior to upgrade.    It's also helpful to document each test -
which workflow acted flukey, what the resolution was, so you can refer back
to it, and share it with your other WF folks.

If you do read and use the document (upgrading SAP Business Workflow from
SAP 4.6c to SAP ERP 6.0) please do rate it - it is only when people see that
e-learnings are used and helpful that they are encouraged to create more.
Which is a good thing for all of us!  

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/103b1a61-
294f-2a10-6491-9827479d0bf1

----

Susan R. Keohan

SAP Workflow Specialist

Enterprise Applications

Information Services Department

MIT Lincoln Laboratory

244 Wood Street, LI-200

Lexington, MA. 02420

781-981-3561

keohan at LL.MIT.EDU

From: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu [mailto:sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu] On Behalf Of
michael.mcley at daimler.com
Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 10:20 AM
To: sap-wug at mit.edu
Subject: Re: Workflow Upgrade 4.6C to ECC6 - manual settings during Cutover
& Version

Sandy,

I'm sorry I cannot answer your specific questions below (I only have
intermediate WF skillz).  However, each of your points sounds reasonable and
shouldn't take too long to check and see if it is necessary once you have an
upgraded test system to work with.  The real experts here can probably
provide you with better feedback.

I only wanted to make the point that we upgraded to ECC 6.0 roughly 1.5
years ago, and many of our workflows were trainwrecks afterward.  In fact it
was at that point that I really learned workflow as just about every custom
workflow we use broke after the upgrade.  Granted I work in a heavily
customized environment (the land of 'Z'...) so I don't think this was so
much a problem with SAP products, but of our own making.  Incidentally, we
didn't seem to have any problems with pure out-of-the-box SAP supplied
workflows (which we mostly use in HR).

In any case, from my own experience (if I ever had to do this again), I
would:
1. Pay particular attention to agent determination, especially if you are
using custom agent determination rules and techniques
2. Seperate testing for new workflow instances versus existing instances
(those workflow instances that already are running at the time of the
upgrade).  Most of the problems we experienced were with already-running
workflows - of which there were hundreds.

The 2 areas where we experienced the most problems were with travel approval
and incoming invoice processing, which for us, are almost entirely custom
everything (objects, events, programs, you name it...).

Just a friendly FYI, nothing more.

Michael McLey
MBUSI - IT Parts & Administration 
Mercedes-Benz US International, Inc.
1 Mercedes Drive 
Vance, AL 35490 
PHONE:  (205) 462 - 5239 
EMAIL:   michael.mcley at daimler.com   

sandysydney at gmail.com
Sent by: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu

11/01/2010 07:20 PM

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Subject

Workflow Upgrade 4.6C to ECC6 - manual settings during Cutover &
Version

Hello Guys,

We are upgrading to ECC 6 from 4.6C and we are on release 701 & support pack
SAPKB70106.

I would like to know which are the "Manual activities" that needs to done
during cutover and WHEN should these should be done (eg. before ECC6 upgade,
or after ECC6 upgrade but before config/dev transports, or after config/dev
transports).

I have looked on few threads and found the following info. Please correct me
or add extra info if i have missed something:

1. Configure RFC destination & other mandatory options in Transaction SWU3.
2. Run Transaction SWU_OBUF to clear the runtime buffers before users start
Testing.

I assume rest of changes would be imported with transports, but i have read
through lot of SDN threads that all custom Workflow definitions needs to be
ACTIVATED in each system (DEV - QAS- PRD) and custom BOR objects needs be
REGENERATED in each system (DEV - QAS- PRD). Also, do I have manually set
the agent assignement for Customer Task as GENERAL TASK in each system? Are
above stated 3 steps needs to be manually done in each system or transports
take care of them ? I am bit confused. Could anybody please advise me
regarding the Manual Task/activities that needs to done in each system
during cutover during WF upgrade from 4.6 C to ECC6.

Thanks for posting excellent stuff regarding the Workflow Upgrades on this
mailing list. It really helped me in resolving most of my issues.

Thanks in advance

Kind Regards

Regards 

Sandy

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