Sap Solution Manager 7.2 Customer Value Report

What's Next for SAP Solution Manager?

Published: 09 December 2016 ID: G00319534

Analyst(s):

Duy D Nguyen

Summary

In November 2015, SAP announced the release of Solution Manager 7.2. Application leaders responsible for SAP ERP who are planning a transformation to postmodern ERP should evaluate and exploit the compelling new value that it will bring to business users.

Overview

Impacts

• Solution Manager 7.2 will enable ERP leaders to graphically visualize existing ERP business processes and to measure direct improvements in them.
• Solution Manager 7.2 will allow ERP leaders to see an increase in the effectiveness of SAP customer Competency Centers to support existing solutions.
• Solution Manager 7.2 will permit ERP leaders to use their SAP customer Competency Centers to support new SAP Hana-based solutions.
• Solution Manager 7.2 will let ERP leaders use their SAP customer Competency Centers to support hybrid scenarios, which include new SAP cloud solutions.
• Solution Manager 7.2 offers new ready-to-run extensions that will benefit new types of user.

Recommendations

Application leaders responsible for SAP ERP who plan a transformation to postmodern ERP should:

• Work directly with business users to review how ERP business processes are managed to exploit Solution Manager 7.2's new business process modelling and monitoring tools.
• Review existing application life cycle management software tools that provide similar capability to Solution Manager 7.2, which is included as part of their SAP maintenance contract. They should also develop a roadmap to adopt Solution Manager 7.2 modules that meet their SAP-related application life cycle management requirements.
• Evaluate the ability of Solution Manager 7.2 to run on Hana as a way of gradually learning the new skills needed to support Hana in-memory computing technology — assuming they have not already deployed Hana.
• Set up an SAP Cloud Appliance Library Solution Manager 7.2 trial system, using low-cost public cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS), to evaluate new Solution Manager 7.2 functionality.
• Evaluate the functionality and usability of each Solution Manager 7.2 Focused Solution by using the 30-day trial facility on low-cost public cloud IaaS.

Analysis

SAP Solution Manager is an application life cycle management (ALM) set of software tools that is provided free to large and midsize enterprise customers with a valid SAP support and maintenance contract. Most of these tools or modules are free to customers on SAP Enterprise Support (or Product Support for Large Enterprises [PSLE]) maintenance agreements. SAP customers on the lowest level of support contract, SAP Standard Support, have the usage rights for a "baseline" subset of Solution Manager modules.

The current version of the product used by SAP customers is Solution Manager 7.1, which was released for general availability in August 2011. End of support for this version is planned for December 2017. A new release, Solution Manager 7.2, is currently being tested by about 100 "Ramp Up" customers, and general availability is planned for 3Q16. In summary, the major benefits claimed by SAP for this new release are:

• Overall usability improvement
• New functional modules for business-type users
• Expanded support for SAP Hana-based solutions
• Extended support for SAP Cloud services
• Enhancements to existing modules

A full list of the Solution Manager modules in these two product releases is provided in the Appendix, including the usage rights for the two main types of SAP maintenance agreement.

Figure 1. Impacts and Top Recommendations for SAP ERP Application Leaders

Source: Gartner (December 2016)

Impacts and Recommendations

Solution Manager 7.2 will enable ERP leaders to graphically visualize existing ERP business processes and to measure direct improvements in them

In addition to the two main types of maintenance agreements, SAP also offers a range of premium support services for customers with high risk or innovation type projects. These are called Next Generation MaxAttention and ActiveEmbedded (see "Evaluate SAP MaxAttention Premium Support Services to Mitigate Risk in Complex or Custom Projects" ). About 900 of SAP's customers worldwide currently pay the higher cost for these services. SAP uses Solution Manager as a set of standard tools in all of these premium engagements, so many of the Solution Manager modules are used by these customers. However, Gartner research confirms that Solution Manager remains highly underutilized by all other SAP customers. This is due to a lack of endorsement by most SAP partners, as well as a continuing lack of Solution Manager proactive assistance in each country from SAP's Global Service and Support field organization. Put simply, SAP does not see Solution Manager as being a source of revenue. Although Solution Manager is a standard software product, it is "free" and developed by SAP's support organization, not its huge product development organization.

We estimate that the overall number of Solution Manager 7.1 direct users breaks down by user type as follows.

Table 1. Solution Manager 7.1 Direct User Breakdown by User Type

User Type	Percent of Total Users
Basis technical operations and maintenance	50%
Change control and testing	20%
Support services	10%
Project implementation	10%
Business process operations	10%

Source: Gartner (December 2016)

The last type (business process operations) shows that business users today have very little interest in Solution Manager 7.1. But business users are the core audience for SAP business applications. To tackle this dilemma, Solution Manager 7.2 will offer an extensive range of new functionality that is designed to directly appeal to business process owners, business super users and business end users. This functionality will integrate business process visualization, graphical modelling, analysis and monitoring. For the first time, all business users will be able to "see" their core SAP business processes, without having to invest in additional business process management (BPM)-type software tools. Solution Manager 7.2 will offer simple and effective Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) 2.0 business model development and editing, which will form the new heart of the Solution Manager 7.2 documentation. The multilevel models will use "drag and drop" interaction, be role-based, and include libraries of reusable steps. The models can be designed and adjusted across the design, implementation and operation ERP life cycle phases by business process analysts.

The new "solution" concept within Solution Manager 7.2 combines business process application configuration information, as well as technical system information. This will enable more complete "solution documentation" information within Solution Manager 7.2, with explicit versions for each system in the landscape. Change and release management information will also be integrated into this new solution documentation, which can also be retrofitted to existing SAP system landscapes more easily than with Solution Manager 7.1.

The most powerful parts of Solution Manager 7.1 were the Business Process Monitoring and Business Process Analytics functions, which offer literally thousands of completely standard business process key performance indicators (KPIs) for SAP Business Suite application functions and business processes (see "Have You Discovered the SAP Solution Manager 'Crown Jewels'?" ). But most SAP customers are unaware of this powerful, free capability for SAP Enterprise Support (and PSLE) customers. Solution Manager 7.2 will take this to the next level by embedding the live Business Process Monitoring KPIs into the new business process graphical models. The overall BPM-type of capability planned with Solution Manager 7.2 will allow SAP business process owners to refocus on their business processes and potentially generate measurable improvement in them through the live KPIs. This could help remove blockages, improve cycle times and enhance efficiencies in SAP core business processes. If the overall capability proves both easy to use and reliable, it should be welcomed by all large and midsize SAP enterprise customers, as it could help them to directly measure and increase the return on their previous (very large) investment in SAP Business Suite applications.

Recommendations:

ERP leaders should:

• Work directly with business users to review the way that ERP business processes are managed to exploit Solution Manager 7.2 new business process modelling and monitoring tools.
• Work with business process analysts to evaluate the ease of use of Solution Manager 7.2 business process modelling tools and standard content provided by SAP. Consider a proof-of-concept-type initial project if these techniques are new to your organization.
• Work with business process owners to evaluate Solution Manager 7.2 business process analytics standard KPIs to determine their applicability to their existing Business Suite business processes.
• Assess the potential value of new business process improvement initiatives to reinforce the exploitation of their ERP Strategy.

Solution Manager 7.2 will allow ERP leaders to see an increase in the effectiveness of SAP customer Competency Centers to support existing solutions

Client feedback about the previous Solution Manager 7.0 and 7.1 releases consistently revealed that their two biggest challenges were poor usability and an ongoing lack of product expertise in each country to help configure and set it up. Solution Manager 7.2 will directly address the first challenge through new user interfaces that will be much simpler and more modern. SAP Fiori Launchpad will be used for role-based access to all Solution Manager 7.2 modules. Easier-to-use SAPUI5 and Fiori technologies, plus mobile applications, will be used for key business users. These user interfaces are planned to be incrementally improved, based on customer feedback. But SAP will be under real pressure from customers to address the second, larger challenge of the Solution Manager skills shortage within SAP's service organization in each country.

SAP Solution Manager was often criticized in the past for only providing really good support for SAP solutions. When customers looked for a tool for their complete solution, including the software of third-party providers connected with SAP components, or even the entire IT system, SAP Solution Manager had the reputation of being developed "only for SAP." As a result, customers have made the decision to purchase and implement other tools — at additional cost — abandoning further use of Solution Manager's functionalities. That is unfortunate for SAP customers, because SAP has the objective, especially in the context of its premium engagements, of offering all functions that enterprises need for universal management of their applications. With this latest version, SAP has become more open in allowing partner tools to be integrated (via an open, documented SAP interface), including the following popular ones:

• Software AG with ARIS
• Ancile for SAP Productivity Pak and Ancile
• HP Unified Test
• IBM with RequisitePro, ClearQuest and Requisite Testing

Non-SAP process steps can be integrated into the Solution Documentation and Business Process Monitoring modules. Through the Solution Manager 7.2 dashboards, customers can review SAP and non-SAP reporting data in a single centralized environment.

A combination of new user interfaces, significant module enhancements and inclusion of partner tools should greatly improve the effectiveness of SAP Competency Center (CC) support staff with Solution Manager 7.2.

Recommendations:

ERP leaders should:

• Review existing ALM software tools that provide similar capability to Solution Manager 7.2, which is free to them. They should develop a roadmap to adopt Solution Manager 7.2 modules that meet their SAP-related ALM requirements.
• Prepare their SAP CC staff to understand how to incorporate SAP Solution Manager 7.2 modules and new user interfaces within their daily activities, via SAP Learning Track.
• Review their current SAP CC development methodology and compare with the Requirements-to-Deploy solution to assess the team readiness to embrace the Agile development management with remote factory integration capability.
• Use the Solution Manager Custom Code Analysis module to run a report of all custom objects, and develop a plan to transition or migrate (where possible) to a standard business process leveraging the Solution Manager "solution" project management tracking tool.

Solution Manager 7.2 will permit ERP leaders to use their SAP customer Competency Centers to support new SAP Hana-based solutions

The customer adoption rate of many use cases of SAP's Hana in-memory computing (IMC) platform is accelerating (see "The Primary Use Cases for SAP Hana Solutions, 2015" ). But SAP customer CCs are challenged to support and exploit such new technology. With this in mind, Solution Manager 7.2 will offer three new Hana-related new capabilities.

First, Solution Manager 7.2 will offer the SAP Hana database itself as a supported infrastructure option, but traditional databases will remain supported as well. So Solution Manager 7.2 will run on Hana. This could be a very useful way for CCs to evaluate and learn much of the new Hana IMC technology. No software license is required by SAP customers for this distinct Hana use case, as it is provided with the maintenance contract. On-premises SAP customers could install a small Hana appliance within their data center to run Solution Manager 7.2, or opt to host in within an IaaS cloud provider. Solution Manager 7.2 will therefore offer very fast search and reporting-type capabilities.

Second, Solution Manager 7.2 will deliver extended support for Hana SAP platforms. SAP offers a range of life cycle management tools for the Hana platform (see "SAP Basis Operations Teams Need to Learn New Tools to Manage SAP Hana Systems" ). Solution Manager 7.2 offers a single ALM view of the entire SAP system landscape, including the Hana platform itself. For the Hana platform, it offers trace analysis, capacity analysis and a change history analysis, all of which are useful for troubleshooting Hana support problems.

Third, Solution Manager 7.2 will deliver implementation support for S/4HANA SAP applications. One of the major concerns customers have is the ability to view the detailed differences between the ECC and S/4HANA Enterprise Management applications (see "SAP S/4HANA: Six Best Practices for Planning Your Transition" ) . In the new Solution Manager 7.2 repository, SAP has included a branch feature to manage best-practice business processes for the out of the box (OOTB) ECC and S/4HANA Enterprise Management applications. Even when customers are not running on S/4HANA Enterprise Management, with Solution Manager 7.2, they can review and compare both versions of business processes at any given time. This is extremely useful for customers that are looking to transition, and need to conduct an impact assessment before making their decision to upgrade.

SAP Activate is the new methodology that is designed to replace the former ASAP implementation methodology to support the S/4HANA "Build smart, run simple" philosophy. The goal is to assist customers to explore and trial SAP OOTB functionality before any customization decisions are made. SAP is hoping that by using preconfigured ("best practices") functionality and incremental build and test, a much higher adoption of standard application functionality will occur. In return, the lower level of customization means less complexity and lower cost for production support to customers. Activate will include best practices, methodology and simplified, guided, configuration type content. It will also include full test scripts and test data management.

Recommendations:

• ERP leaders at existing SAP customers that have not yet deployed Hana should evaluate the ability of Solution Manager 7.2 to run on it as a way of gradually learning the new skills needed to support Hana IMC technology.
• ERP leaders at existing SAP Hana platform customers should evaluate the new Solution Manager 7.2 troubleshooting functions for Hana.
• ERP leaders at existing SAP ECC customers that are considering a transition to S/4HANA should conduct a fit gap analysis between their business processes on their ECC production system today and S/4HANA. Follow all best practices identified in "SAP S/4HANA: Six Best Practices for Planning Your Transition."
• ERP leaders at all SAP customers who are planning a new S/4HANA implementation should explore and evaluate the new SAP Activate methodology, which focuses on standard business process functionality.

Solution Manager 7.2 will let ERP leaders use their SAP customer Competency Centers to support hybrid scenarios, which include new SAP cloud solutions

In 1Q14, SAP launched its SAP One Support initiative to integrate support of its acquired cloud solutions into its SAP support service offerings. Until then, each cloud solution had its own approach to support services delivery. SAP One Support includes SAP One Support Launchpad, which is a new browser-based user interface for accessing support information, including SAP Notes, migration keys, software downloads and common knowledge base. SAP One Support Launchpad is built upon SAP Hana, HCP and Fiori technologies.

SAP One Support also exploits Solution Manager as an ALM tool for direct monitoring and problem resolution of either the cloud solutions themselves, or hybrid scenarios, where they are integrated with SAP on-premises business applications and analytics products. However, it takes time for SAP to gradually extend SAP One Support to all acquired cloud solutions, as well as new cloud solutions developed by SAP and partners.

The full range of Solution Manager support services that SAP could potentially offer for any individual SAP SaaS cloud solution are:

• User experience monitoring and alerting
• Email and event messages, where supported by the SaaS solution
• Problem management

For hybrid scenarios, which include a SaaS solution integrated with an SAP on-premises solution, these support services could also include:

• Hybrid integration monitoring, including interface monitoring and alerting
• Hybrid data consistency checks
• Hybrid business process monitoring

Table 2 compares the Solution Manager services offered today for all current SAP SaaS cloud solutions and SAP PaaS service offerings. Table 2 excludes discontinued solutions, e.g., SAP Cloud for Travel Expenses (replaced by SAP Concur solution). Solution Manager 7.1 already supports early SaaS solutions from Support Package (SP) 10 onwards, but Solution Manager 7.2 will include these and extend the planned support services to the growing range of SAP cloud solutions. There are no plans today for Solution Manager to include support for non-SAP SaaS cloud solutions.

Table 2. Comparing SAP Cloud SaaS Solution Management Services, by Solution Manager Release

SAP SaaS Solution	User Experience Monitoring/ Alerting	Email/Event Message Flow	Hybrid Problem Management	Hybrid Interface Monitoring	Hybrid Data Consistency Management/ Resolution	Hybrid Business Process Monitoring
SuccessFactors	SM 7.1 SP 10	SM 7.1 SP 13	SM 7.1 SP 1	SM 7.1 SP 14	SM 7.2 SP 3	SM 7.2 SP 3
Dell Boomi	SM 7.1 SP 10	SM 7.1 SP 13	SM 7.1 SP 1	SM 7.1 SP 12	SM 7.2 SP 3	SM 7.2 SP 3
Hana Cloud Integration (HCI)	SM 7.1 SP 10		SM 7.1 SP 1	SM 7.1 SP 12	SM 7.2 SP 3	SM 7.2 SP 3
HCI Data Services	SM 7.1 SP 10		SM 7.1 SP 1	SM 7.1 SP 15	SM 7.2 SP 3	SM 7.2 SP 3
HCM Employee Data Integration	SM 7.1 SP 10		SM 7.1 SP 1	SM 7.1 SP 13	SM 7.2 SP 3	SM 7.2 SP 3
HCM Compensation Data Integration	SM 7.1 SP 10		SM 7.1 SP 1	SM 7.1 SP 13	SM 7.2 SP 3	SM 7.2 SP 3
HCM Recruiting Data Integration	SM 7.1 SP 10		SM 7.1 SP 1	SM 7.1 SP 14	SM 7.2 SP 3	SM 7.2 SP 3
HCM Onboarding Data Integration	SM 7.1 SP 10		SM 7.1 SP 1	SM 7.1 SP 15	SM 7.2 SP 3	SM 7.2 SP 3
HCM Variable Pay Data Integration	SM 7.1 SP 10		SM 7.1 SP 1	SM 7.1 SP 15	SM 7.2 SP 3	SM 7.2 SP 3
Ariba	SM 7.1 SP 10	SM 7.1 SP 14	SM 7.1 SP 1	SM 7.1 SP 12	SM 7.2 SP 3 + new content	SM 7.2 SP 3 + new content
Concur	SM 7.1 SP 10	SM 7.1 SP 14	SM 7.1 SP 1	SM 7.1 SP 15	SM 7.2 SP 3 + new content	SM 7.2 SP 3 + new content
Fieldglass	SM 7.1 SP 10	SM 7.1 SP 14	SM 7.1 SP 1		SM 7.2 SP 3 + new content	SM 7.2 SP 3 + new content
Hybris	SM 7.1 SP 10	SM 7.1 SP 14	SM 7.1 SP 1	To be announced	SM 7.2 SP 3 + new content	SM 7.2 SP 3 + new content
Cloud For Customer (C4C)	SM 7.1 SP 10		SM 7.1 SP 1	SM 7.1 SP 13	SM 7.2 SP 3 + new content	SM 7.2 SP 3 + new content
Cloud For Planning			SM 7.1 SP 1		SM 7.2 SP 3 + new content	SM 7.2 SP 3 + new content
Sales & Operations Planning			SM 7.1 SP 1	SM 7.1 SP 14	SM 7.2 SP 3 + new content	SM 7.2 SP 3 + new content
S/4HANA Cloud Editions	SM 7.1 SP 10		SM 7.1 SP 1	To be announced	SM 7.2 SP 3 + new content	SM 7.2 SP 3 + new content
Business One Cloud (SME Solution)			SM 7.1 SP 1
Business ByDesign (SME Solution)	SM 7.1 SP 10		SM 7.1 SP 1	SM 7.1 SP 15
Cloud For Analytics (C4A)			SM 7.1 SP 1
Lumira Cloud			SM 7.1 SP 1
SAP PaaS Solution
HCP: Platform			SM 7.1 SP 1	SM 7.2 SP 3
HCP: Fiori-as-a-Service			SM 7.1 SP 1	SM 7.2 SP 3
HCP: IoT Services			SM 7.1 SP 1	SM 7.2 SP 3
HCP: Mobile Services			SM 7.1 SP 1	SM 7.2 SP 3
Key: SM = Solution Manager, SP = Support Package

Source: Gartner (December 2016)

Solution Manager 7.2 general availability will include SP3. As Table 1 shows, data consistency checks and business process monitoring services for hybrid scenarios for the SuccessFactors SaaS solution will be included within this initial release. SAP plans to provide new content to support additional SaaS solution hybrid scenarios, according to customer demand. This content will be delivered in the SAP Cloud, without any additional Solution Manager SP software installation.

In addition to its SaaS and platform as a service (PaaS) services, SAP also offers a managed private cloud hosting service for SAP on-premises business applications. This service is called SAP Hana Enterprise Cloud (HEC) and it includes an infrastructure as a service (IaaS), plus a Basis-managed service and an optional Application Managed Service (AMS) (see "Best Practices for Selecting a Managed Private Cloud Service Provider for SAP Hana Production Systems" ). All Solution Manager 7.1 and 7.2 capabilities are available for individual customer Hana systems hosted in HEC.

SAP has also adopted the cloud delivery model to make it as easy as possible for customers and partners to evaluate and become familiar with the new Solution Manager 7.2 functionality. It is possible to conduct free "test drives" (up to 90-day trials) of the new functionality by installing the first version (i.e., SP 01) of Solution Manager 7.2 from SAP's Cloud Appliance Library (CAL), which offers ready-to-run latest versions of all of its software products. This version is available to be rapidly installed (within approximately 30 minutes) on Amazon Web Services' (AWS's) public cloud IaaS.

In contrast to common perception, ERP SaaS solutions are not cheaper, easier to deploy nor easier to manage long term (see "The Top 10 SaaS ERP Myths" ). This means that customer SAP CC teams need the right software tools to help them properly support SAP SaaS cloud solutions and their hybrid scenarios (see "How to Move ERP Competence Centre Maturity From Level 1 to 2 to 3" ). Solution Manager 7.2 offers additional tools that will directly address this requirement.

Recommendations:

ERP leaders at existing SAP customers should:

• Set up an SAP Cloud Appliance Library Solution Manager 7.2 trial system, using low-cost public cloud IaaS to evaluate all new Solution Manager 7.2 functionality.
• Explore SAP cloud hybrid integration scenarios .
• Evaluate new Solution Manager 7.2 modules for supporting SAP cloud solutions and their hybrid integration scenarios. Recognize that the detailed support services for these modules vary significantly for each solution and that SAP has no plans today to include support services for non-SAP solutions.
• Review current SAP CC support processes if planning to deploy SAP cloud SaaS solutions.

Solution Manager 7.2 offers new ready-to-run extensions that will benefit new types of user

Until recently, all Solution Manager modules had to be "implemented" by SAP customers and partners before becoming "ready to run" by each user type. Implementation means configuration, documentation, testing and training before live operation. But customer feedback to SAP revealed that there are some types of Solution Manager user who have requirements for immediate consumption. Consequently, in April 2016, SAP launched an optional new Focused Solutions program to offer completely ready-to-run extensions to Solution Manager for some specific user types. The fundamental idea behind Focused Solutions is to support an "SAP best-practice" implementation for these new user types. Although Focused Solutions can be tailored with customer-specific parameters, ERP leaders should only use Focused Solutions if they want to follow the implemented best practice.

Focused Solutions utilize standard Solution Manager core modules and avoid custom code (which is always expensive over the long term). Training content, maintenance, enhancements and support are included. SAP's stated intent is for Focused Solutions to extend Solution Manager's relevance to certain user types, not to replace the functionality of its core modules (such as Change Request Management and Test Management).

Focused Solutions are sold on a yearly subscription pay per use basis and available directly at the SAP Store . SAP recommends that Focused Solutions are adopted through SAP MaxAttention engagements or selected partners that coach the customer organization to enable consistent adoption. Focused Solutions are free to MaxAttention customers for the duration of the MaxAttention engagement.

The first Focused Solution released by SAP was Focused Build, which manages delivery of innovation projects for all SAP business applications, including those on Hana Cloud Platform. Focused Build will be of greatest appeal to program and project managers, plus solution architects. It tracks all stages of project delivery, from requirements gathering through to testing and deployment. Of particular interest is its claimed support for agile innovation and DevOps-type projects, plus collaboration between remote and on-site build teams. Further details and pricing for Focused Build are available at the SAP Store .

The second Focused Solution from SAP was Focused Insights, which offers standard dashboard displays of Solution Manager KPIs for executive IT managers, customers' SAP service managers, business process owners and Basis operations teams. ERP leaders can configure each dashboard type to utilize up to 800 standard real-time or historic metrics, with no customization. Further details and pricing for Focused Insights are available at the SAP Store .

SAP plans to release additional Focused Solutions in the future, based on customer demand.

Recommendations:

ERP leaders at existing SAP customers should:

• Evaluate the functionality and usability of each Solution Manager 7.2 Focused Solution by using the 30-day trial facility on low-cost public cloud IaaS.
• Determine the degree of suitability for each potential user type.
• Work out the potential benefits for the simplification of your new ERP project and support activities from each Focused Solution.
• Consider purchasing Focused Solutions when the projected benefits outweigh their subscription costs over the long term.

Appendix

New and Enhanced Modules of SAP Solution Manager 7.2

Table 3 lists all of the major modules provided in the current release (7.1) and the new release 7.2 of SAP Solution Manager. The second column of Table 3 identifies all of the "baseline" modules which customers on SAP Standard Support maintenance agreements have usage rights for. The third column of Table 3 comprises the additional modules, which customers on SAP Enterprise Support (and PSLE) maintenance agreements have usage rights for; they are newer and targeted at a more proactive style of ALM. The fourth column in Table 3 here also identifies newer and greatly enhanced modules.

Table 3. SAP Solution Manager Modules for Standard Support and Enterprise Support Customers

Solution Manager Functional Area	SAP Solution Manager 7.1/7.2 Usage Rights: Standard Support Customers	SAP Solution Manager 7.1 Extra Usage Rights: Enterprise Support Customers	SAP Solution Manager 7.2 New Usage Rights: Enterprise Support Customers
Business Process Operations
	Integration with ARIS and Signavio partner modeling tools		Business process graphical modeling, including Business Process Monitoring integration
	SAP Solution Maps
		Business Process Analytics
	Business Process Monitoring, including interfaces		Business Process Monitoring for SAP cloud SaaS hybrid scenarios, including interfaces
Change Management		Scope and Effort Analyzer
	Release Management and Retrofit	Business Process Change Analyzer
	Test Management	Test Automation
	Enhanced Change and Transport System (CTS+)	Two free licenses of HP Quick Test Professional included by SAP
	Change Request Management	Quality Gate Management
Project Implementation		Custom Code Management
	Upgrade Management
	Solution Documentation, including landscape management
	Template Management
	Solution Implementation, including ASAP and Activate methodology support
Support Services	IT Service Management: ITIL support for SAP systems only	IT Service Management: ITIL support for all IT systems
Basis Operations		Hana Deployment Best Practices, including Root Cause Analysis and Troubleshooting	Solution Manager 7.2 runs on the Hana database; no license required for this Hana use case
		End-User Experience Monitoring
	Job Scheduling Management
	Root Cause Analysis and Exception Management
	Technical Analytics and Dashboards
	Data Volume Management
	Technical Administration: including landscape management
	System and Application Monitoring, including Early Watch Alert
Mandatory Functions (Mandatory)	Maintenance Planner
	Maintenance Optimizer
	System Recommendations
	Note Assistant
	License Management

Source: Gartner (December 2016)

Evidence

This research is based on nearly 80 client inquiries between January 2013 and December 2015, plus three vendor briefings from SAP between November 2015 and January 2016 about Solution Manager strategy and product roadmap.

Sap Solution Manager 7.2 Customer Value Report

Source: https://stratserv.co/2018/06/gartners-sap-solution-manager-7-2-analysis/

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