SAP-Automate product compatibility - Automate_Evolve - Automate_Studio - Latest

Precisely tracks SAP Graphical User Interface (GUI) and SAP S/4HANA releases according to the publicly available SAP roadmaps.

Precisely Engineering performs Interoperability Testing on our latest product releases as soon as SAP releases its products. As SAP does not make its latest releases available to Precisely ahead of the release date, Precisely starts rigorous testing only when the new SAP product is released in the market.

Precisely considers SAP Interoperability Testing a high-priority, ongoing-maintenance activity, which is performed in parallel with the new product version releases. This is analogous to how we consider Automate product hotfixes a maintenance activity that occurs in parallel with new product version releases.

Precisely does not perform Interoperability Testing on the SAP hotfixes usually and reserves the right to determine on a case-by-case basis when SAP patches or hotfixes warrant Interoperability Testing before being considered as supported by Precisely.

SAP S/4HANA Release Support Policy

When SAP releases a new version of S/4HANA (the on-premises version, not the cloud product), Precisely tests the new S/4HANA release for compatibility with only the latest version of the Automate Function Module (AFM) and Studio at the time of the SAP release. Certification from SAP is sought for the Automate Function Module and Studio product because the certification covers the usage of Studio with Connect, Studio with Evolve, or Studio with Studio Manager. Since no new versions of Foundation and User Governance will be developed, these products won’t have a future version that can be used with newer versions of SAP S/4HANA or the SAP GUI. Service pack and hotfixes for SAP S/4HANA are never certified by Precisely and customers haven’t historically had compatibility issues with our products and such releases by SAP.

Usually, a minor product version or a hotfix is released by Precisely (for Automate Function Module, and occasionally for Studio, Evolve, or Studio Manager) to support a new SAP S/4HANA release. The expected time frame for the posting of the SAP certification letter - for a version of Studio for beta software or lab testing, or as General Availability (GA) software - depends on the extent of the changes in the new SAP product release. The time frame will vary according to Table 1, below.

Table 1 – Time frame for SAP Certification

* Classifying an SAP release as Major or Minor for Automate products is at the sole discretion of Precisely.

Table 2 - Example: Time frame for SAP Certification, with an SAP S/4HANA release date of October 25, 2018

* Classifying an SAP release as Major or Minor for Automate products is at the sole discretion of Precisely.

Precisely​​​​​​​ does not certify or provide customer support for a new SAP S/4HANA release against the older supported versions of Foundation, Evolve, Studio, or AFM. Additionally, customers who use a later certified version of the AFM with the new version of SAP S/4HANA are expected to plan to upgrade their Studio with Connect, Studio with Studio Manager, and Evolve products to be at the same or later version of the deployed AFM, to ensure they are in a standard supported configuration. Customers using a fully supported version of Foundation or User Governance need to plan to migrate to the appropriate version of Evolve or Studio Manager in order to have a supported Automate product that can interoperate with a newer SAP product version.

As a best practice, Precisely ​​​​​​​ recommends that all customers should plan to install the latest AFM while they are planning to deploy the new SAP server release (e.g. S/4HANA or ECC) to ensure interoperability with the new SAP server release.Subsequently, they should prepare for a Studio, Evolve/Studio Manager upgrade that will provide additional features and/or performance improvements that are tied to the AFM. Customers using Foundation or User Governance will need to migrate to Evolve or Studio Manager.

Customers using version 11 or later of User Governance or Foundation will migrate to Studio Manager or Evolve to gain access to a version of the AFM that is certified with the newly available SAP S/4HANA release. Evolve customers can simply upgrade to the later version of Evolve and its AFM that has been certified with the latest version of SAP S/4HANA. If customers run into issues with the mixed version configuration and would like to receive Precisely customer support, they need to upgrade their version of Studio to the same version as their AFM. For very complex scripts, customers may also need to update their scripts for them to work seamlessly with the newer versions of Studio, the AFM, and the new SAP S/4HANA release.

SAP GUI Client Release Support Policy

When SAP releases a new version of the SAP Graphical User Interface (GUI), Precisely assesses the new SAP GUI release for compatibility only with the latest released version of the Automate Function Module (AFM) and Studio. Historically, Precisely does not seek an official certification for SAP GUI releases as Precisely performs an extensive and robust Regression Testing, above and beyond what is required for SAP’s certification program. Precisely’s testing of the SAP GUI with the latest released version of Studio covers its usage with Connect, User Governance, Foundation, Studio with Evolve, and Studio with Studio Manager. Customers can expect a minor product version or a hotfix to be released by Precisely to support a new SAP GUI version. The expected time frame for the availability of a supported version of Studio depends on the changes in the newly released SAP product. The time frame will vary according to Table 3, below.

Table 3 – Time frame for support of a new SAP GUI version

*Classifying an SAP release as Major or Minor for Automate products is at the sole discretion of Precisely.

Precisely performs compatibility testing to support the most recent patch (not hotfixes) available for the latest SAP GUI version with a recent release (GA: General Availability).

Example : SAP releases SAP GUI 770 patch 5 in January 2022 and SAP GUI 770 patch 6 in March 2022. Precisely releases Evolve, Studio Manager, and Studio 20.2 in March 2022. In this case, because the patch 6 was released too close to the release of 20.2, so we will not include the support of SAP GUI patch 6 in version 20.2. Whereas the patch 5 support will be added to the 20.2 because our engineering team has enough time to test and fix issues related to that SAP GUI patch release.

Now if a customer wants to install SAP GUI 770 patch 6 before Precisely releases another version of the software to support this patch, then customer should first install the SAP GUI patch 6 in their Dev/QA environment to test it with the latest Automate product. If customer finds any issues, they can reach out to the support team and we can provide a fix based on the nature of the issue. These fixes will be included in the next planned maintenance or major release.

Note: The latest patches of older SAP GUI releases are excluded from this.

Recommended Deployment

Customers are highly recommended to follow a standard, application-deployment best practice of using a four-system SAP landscape for the deployment of their Automate products:

1. Sandbox – Get an initial impression and perform a check
2. Development – Develop scripts and/or solutions
3. QA/Sign off – Perform a final verification
4. Production – Deploy in this environment as a final step

REPAIR Key Policy

Precisely does not recommend customers to use REPAIR keys for the AFM since it can cause extra support work for a customer. If a customer chooses to do so, then Precisely won’t support troubleshooting or patching of a AFM version that has REPAIR changes made to it by a customer. In order to receive support, the following approach will be used:

• The customer is responsible for reproducing any reported operational issues using the unmodified AFM from Precisely in order to receive troubleshooting assistance from Precisely.
• Any patch provided to resolve a reported issue will be done on the Precisely provided AFM and it is the responsibility of the customer to confirm that any REPAIR key changes that they make don’t interfere with the patch provided by Precisely. Precisely won’t troubleshoot a AFM that has REPAIR changes to it.
• Precisely will only provide upgrades between the Precisely provided AFM versions and the customer is responsible for confirming any REPAIR changes they make between the versions of the AFM that Precisely provides.