ChaRM Experts ... I am hoping you can shed some light on whether Retrofit would be better than how we're doing things now ...
Please bear with me while I explain our current landscape. I will use ECC as my example, but we are using individual projects in ChaRM for our different technologies (CRM, PI, GRC, etc).
We use two landscapes for our monthly releases. Our enhancements start in our project support landscape, which is configured like this:
DEV --> QAS --> PPD
We do development & configuration and unit testing in DEV (using ToCs) using Normal ChaRM documents, and then release the transport to QA for our UAT. Once UAT is completed and approved, we move the corresponding ChaRM & transports into PreProd. Here we do regression testing and validations. At this point, we approve our ChaRM documents to "In Cutover" status.
This is where it gets messy ... from here, we create an Urgent ChaRM document for deployment to PRD, which is in our Production Support landscape, shown here:
DEP --> QEP --> EEP
In the Urgent ChaRM document, a developer creates a workbench, customizing and a configuration transport. Then the developer "bundles" all of the workbench objects from the transports in the Normal ChaRMs from the project landscape into the workbench transport in the new Urgent ChaRM in the Production Support Landscape. The same process is done for the customizing and configuration objects, respectively.
This works most of the time, but we have run into unexpected object conflicts when doing the "bundling." This can take a long time to find the culprits, especially when there are 60 or 70 transports in the Normal ChaRM documents from the Project Support Landscape. It is a tedious task, but when it works, the best case scenario is that we have one Urgent ChaRM to move forward into PRD for the release. Sometimes we end up with more, but typically we are able to keep it under 5 Urgent ChaRM documents.
One of my concerns with this method is that we do validations in PPD, and then move the changes into PRD using a different type of ChaRM. I feel this is a risk, but this is what SAP recommended.
Another concern is the traceability of the objects back to their original transports. There are two aspects to this. First, our developers would need access to some sensitive transactions in PRD in order to verify the objects, as there would be no way to "see" their transports in PRD. Second, auditing by object may be a painful process. If we're asked about specific transports in the Project Support landscape, there is not a 1-for-1 transport relationship in PRD.
So, with that background, would retrofit be a viable method of creating 1-for-1 ChaRM documents and transports in the Production Support landscape, so we do not lose that relationship? Would it even make sense to do this? Does staying with the "bundling" process in Urgent ChaRM documents make more sense?
I do see where retrofit could be a benefit in the Production Support landscape, in that if we have any urgent break-fixes, we can manage object conflicts under development in the Project Support landscape.
I hope somebody here has dealt with this, or a similar, situation.
Any advice is much appreciated.
Cheers,
Scott