Software development lifecycle documents diagram

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Successful & Resourceful SAP ABAP Developer

I have the privilege of being a ABAP developer for past 9 years and IT industry as a programmer for 12 years and now being a ABAP technical expert and
development manager for 12 SAP implementations, I have come across different working patterns of a professional ABAP developer. During this time I
have met a few ABAP programmers that were very good with technical aspects and also some that were excellent ABAP development consultants who
could manage every aspect of a SAP development project whether undertaking a custom development, BADI implementations or enhancement project.
Remember that as a technical SAP expert you are the critical piece of a project responsible for realizing the vision of SAP customer business processes
into production. I think it is very important to know a lot of different programming aspects during an SAP implementation project and follow certain
guidelines that can make an SAP ABAP professional very successful in your career.

Steps for being an Efficient SAP ABAP Programmer or SAP Technical Team Lead
1. Review Business Requirements & Write Functional Specification

The first part of any ABAP development project begin with meeting the end users or business experts and understand the business requirements that
need to be implemented in the SAP system during the realization phase. A best approach is to conduct workshops to gather all the business
requirements. Make sure that if any SAP function consultants are involved than they are in the meetings as well. After all the business requirements are
collected, either a SAP functional consultant or business expert will write a detailed functional specification. Review the functional specification until the
document has all the details, different business scenarios and expected goals clearly defined. A well defined functional specification should contain UML
diagrams and test case scenarios. It is important to have an official signoff on the functional specification before continuing with design and development

2. Review ABAP Development Standards

In ideal case, your SAP Project Lead or ABAP Development Manager should have created a programming standards and guidelines document. Review this
document so that you follow the naming conventions for function modules, classes, dictionary objects, software components, name spaces and proxies (if
using SAP XI / PI), program input/output parameters, etc just to name a few. Following the guideline for the project helps maintain a consistent coding
approach and also helps other functional and technical analysts to read and debug your code. ABAP objects naming should begin with Z if it will be
migrated to SAP production system and Y if it will not be migrated into the production system.

3. Write and Review Test Cases

The test case documents are written by the business experts or functional SAP consultants in most SAP implementation projects. But on some SAP
implementation projects a programmer may be required to write test cases. Before writing a test case review the functional specification document
thoroughly and review the written test case with the business users or functional consultants. Get a sign-off as mentioned in most steps in this article. As
an ABAP Development Manager for a variety of SAP implementation projects, my goal has been to keep my team motivated and always cover the team
against any change of scope on the development tasks. Having a sign-off at each phase of a SAP custom development or enhancement tasks always
helps the SAP implementation team and project management team keep in sync which is a vital to complete the SAP implementation in time and budget.

4. Write and Review Technical Design Specifications

Read the functional specification and list all the development objects that would be needed to implement the required functionality in the SAP system.
First step is to draw a flowchart and review with technical and business experts. The technical design document should include a technical overview, list
of new database objects, ABAP objects that can be reused, a data model and class diagram (if using ABAP OO classes). It is highly recommended to have
a rough prototype in the sandbox system (Development system if no SAP sandbox system is available) if the development being done is complex or if the
end deliverable is not well defined. You should then review your prototype with functional experts and business users. Make sure that the ABAP
Development team lead or manager signs off on the prototype. If effort required to complete the ABAP programming task is not presented and approved
by the senior project management then this would be a good time to get the development estimate and timeline approved.

5. Realization of the Specification – ABAP Development

During this step you will be creating development objects and implementing the code in the SAP development system. Before you begin, if prototype was
done in the sandbox system then analyze the prototype and design specification. Remember that quality and reusability of existing ABAP objects are
more important than strictly following the design specification. Determine which existing dictionary objects can be reused for this topic. If new dictionary
objects or classes needs to be created then ensure that these objects can be extended and reused for other development tasks. It may require extra
effort to develop objects that are reusable and flexible. This one time effort for building reusable ABAP objects during the course of a development project
can potentially save a lot of work for programming similar objects that could otherwise utilize already built objects. Review your approach with an SAP
technical team lead or a development manager on your project before deviating from the technical design specification and implementing your own ideas.
If you are involved in SAP XI (now Process Integration) related tasks or creating enterprise services then this is the best area where you could reuse
existing objects. Review the message types that already exist within your SAP business unit and see if any existing messages can be extended with new
fields. Review with the team lead whether the communication should be synchronous or asynchronous before you generate proxies.
6. SAP Development Best Practices

SAP ABAP (or JAVA if working on SAP Netweaver) development best practices should be followed throughout the development lifecycle of the project.
Although this aspect depends on your project technical manager, I personally have maintained a checklist for developers in my team on all projects and it
has been a tremendous success in delivering high quality output on all development tasks. Here are a few best practices worth adapting in your project.
Check whether you adhere to all naming conventions as described in the programming standards set for your implementation project. Include comments
in your code to allow someone else to easily understand your programs. This is particularly helpful when you work in large teams and multiple people
work with same objects. Ensure that you have check for user authorization if you are building transactions or web user-interfaces that will require human
interaction. Check that you do not have ABAP code segments that could take a hit on performance like nested loops, nested select statements (use views
if desired), excess database commits (persistent objects or buffering alternatives may be a good option), etc. Field symbols are a great asset when it
comes to processing internal tables and also variables with unknown data types that are resolved at runtime. Field symbols are very similar to concept of
using pointers in OO programming landscape. Check if all exceptions are handled and error messages are communicated accurately to the end users. As
an ABAP programmer it should be well accepted by now that short dumps should not be OK to occur. All these do occur in unknown special case scenarios
the short dumps should be fixed.

7. ABAP Code Reviews and Performance

As a ABAP programmer you should test your code upon completion for all possible scenarios. Verify that end results are same as that expected in the
documented test cases. Perform ABAP runtime analysis to check for performance of your code. Seek suggestions from your technical team lead or
manager on how to improve code performance if you notice any red flags during the runtime analysis. Schedule a formal code review with your mentor or
a senior ABAP developer once the development is completed and tested by all responsible developers. Make any revisions and retest your code against
the desired output as documented in the test scripts. Remember that code reviews is not to find flaws in your programming but it will only make you a
better ABAP developer and maintain consistency.

8. Documentation

Make sure you write an end user documents with overview of the functionality or enhancement upon completion. Include screenshots where possible.
Prepare documentation keeping in mind that an end user unfamiliar with your deliverable can read the document and test the functionality. Include
contact information in this document for users to easily reach the SAP technical team for any questions.

9. User Acceptance Testing

Now that your ABAP coding is completed and reviewed by technical experts, it is time for the business users to perform a formal user acceptance testing.
UAT testers will check whether the output meets business process requirements and suggest any improvements or modifications to the delivered
functionality. After completion of these fixes or modifications you should request a formal sign-off on the functionality.

10. Migration to SAP Test System and Production System

Quality assurance engineers will test your functionality in the SAP QA environment to verify that everything is working in your delivered functionality as
tested during user acceptance testing. Also any problems in transporting your ABAP objects across SAP systems will be identified and addressed during
this step. If no problems are found then your transports will be approved to be migrated to SAP production system in the next transport cycle.
You have just learned how to be an efficient SAP ABAP Developer or per say a high quality Senior ABAP expert right from writing specifications until
realizing your implementation in production system. Use this article as a guideline as there are many more aspects to improve yourself to be a good ABAP
programmer which is not possible to cover in a brief article like this one. You can always contact me with any suggestions or ideas you may seek for your
SAP implementation.

Deepak Mandrekar is an SAP Development Manager and a Senior SAP ABAP Developer with
12 global SAP implementations experience. He has worked with SAP America and SAP AG as a
core ABAP development expert building SAP application for different industries. He is also the
President & CEO ofSAP consulting & SAP Staffing company iii Technologies serving SAP
implementations with its highly experienced SAP functional and technical consultants.