SAP Release Coordinator

Technical Context (= Operation of the Development Team)

The SAP Release Coordinator will work in time & means mode and join the AMMO team. The AMMO team consists of project managers, functional analysts, and a technical team supporting both corrective and evolutionary maintenance of existing applications in its portfolio. It also handles various new projects in the SAP IS-U for Utilities domain. The Release Coordinator SAP, part of the technical team, is responsible for coordinating all SAP change and release activities, including maintenance, small evolutionary requests, and projects. A specific project will occupy the SAP Release Coordinator in 2024 and 2025; it involves the conversion of the current SAP ERP/IS-U platform from ECC6.0 EHP7 to the latest available S/4Hana 2023 version.

Unlike developers, the Release Coordinator role is cross-functional, serving multiple teams: SAP-BC team, ERP team (Finance and Logistics), AMMO team, and the two teams related to works. The SAP Release Coordinator is not limited to the operational execution of deployments in a given environment but covers the entire change lifecycle (from creating change requests to deploying them in releases) across transport routes. The role includes managing all activities, including non-transportable aspects, as well as administrative but equally important aspects.

The SAP Release Coordinator must delve into the content of changes prepared and performed by different application teams, making daily and supported exchanges with functional analysts and SAP developers from application teams. Therefore, the SAP Release Coordinator has been integrated into one of the application teams rather than the SAP-BC team, with which they also maintain a privileged relationship. In addition to these relationships, they collaborate with project managers, application team leaders, the Corporate Release Manager, and Deployment Coordinators.

While there is only one main SAP Release Coordinator, there are two backups to bridge any absences.

This is the team's operational mode in which we aim to integrate the SAP Release Coordinator, in time & means and full-time.

Mission Description:

The SAP Release Coordinator (REC) is responsible for coordinating all change and release management tasks related to all SAP systems, both technical systems (e.g., Solution Manager) and business systems (e.g., SAP-ERP/IS-U), excluding SAP-HR systems. These activities fall within a broader Corporate IT governance framework of Change and Release Management, covering all changes, whether deployed urgently, in bi-monthly releases for maintenance and small changes, or in specific release windows for application or infrastructure projects, usually scheduled on weekends.

Responsibilities:

The SAP Release Coordinator (REC) performs the following activities:

1. Based on Corporate IT governance, the SAP REC drafts and implements general Change & Release procedures applicable to SAP, considering specificities applicable to particular domains (e.g., authorization management). These procedures are regularly reviewed to account for technological advancements, available tools, lessons learned from each deployment, and any project-specific specifics.

2. The SAP REC is responsible for onboarding new functional and technical resources regarding procedures used in SAP Change & Release Management. They then ensure the proper application of Change and Release procedures by all relevant resources.

3. The SAP REC is a permanent member of the Change Advisory Board (CAB) and approves each stage of SAP Change Requests (or related to SAP) on behalf of the Corporate Release Manager: "Approval for build," "Approval for acceptance," "Approval for deployment." In some application teams, they participate in incident and problem follow-up meetings and decide on go-no-go for development.

4. The SAP REC develops Implementation Plans (IMP) covering all tasks (SAP-BC, functional analysts, communication, preparation, possible rollback, sanity checks, etc.) during SAP deployments in each environment. These IMPs include Release Notes listing the sequence of SAP transports to be deployed in different environments and work instructions described with sufficient quality for any manual activities (e.g., creating master data or data migration). In collaboration with other release coordinators of other technologies and in consultation with the Deployment Coordinator mobilized for significant releases, they ensure that SAP IMPs seamlessly integrate with others. They check constraints necessary for the smooth progress of deployments (system availability for users, whether to stop jobs or not, communications to plan, constraints related to other functional or infrastructure deployments, etc.).

5. The SAP REC manages and performs all administrative follow-up of changes in the Omnitracker reference tool. They particularly ensure that change statuses align with reality and that the necessary deliverables (Functional design, Technical design, test evidence, etc.) are present and of sufficient quality at each stage of the change lifecycle. They verify all deployment activities traced in Omnitracker for each change and ensure that the requested dates align with the deployment windows defined in the company's Release Calendar.

6. The SAP REC ensures that the Changes recorded in Omnitracker match those recorded in SAP Solution Manager's "Quality Gate Management" to ensure perfect traceability. In the SAP tool, their role is to release the transport headers, analyze impacts between changes, and document solutions in case of adherence.

7. The SAP REC manages deployments in Test, Acceptance, and Production, and leads SAP-BC team activities for transport imports and application and technical teams for manual activities. In the event of a deployment error, they conduct analyses and, with the various teams, define correction solutions to implement.

8. In the case of upgrades or conversion (i.e., ECC to S/4Hana), the SAP REC plays a crucial role in inventorying and centralizing all necessary changes and executing these changes through defined transport routes. They also play an essential role in defining the upgrade strategy.

9. The SAP REC performs administrative monitoring of all double developments, in case significant projects are developed in parallel with the main transport route. They are ultimately responsible for identifying adherences. In consultation with application teams, they define solutions to avoid regressions and ensure compliance with decided deployment sequences. They are responsible for the progress of double development (or retrofit) through different transport routes to keep different chains aligned.

10. In their area of expertise (CTS/CTS+/cCTS/TMS, Solman QGM, Solman retrofit, specific tools, etc.), the SAP REC configures/maintains and evolves the necessary tools based on needs and successive SAP upgrades.

11. The SAP REC maintains an archive of all deployments and activities to identify any problems caused by past deployments. In case of a problem during a deployment, they write a detailed Post Implementation Review (PIR), with a particular focus on "lessons learned." In the PIR or in a continuous improvement process whenever deemed necessary, they formulate proposals for permanent improvement and ensure that actions are implemented.

12. In the case of regularly performed SAP environment refreshes, the SAP REC is responsible for the integrity of the customizing and workbench level of environments after refresh. To this end, they are responsible for modifications to "import queues," recovery of assigned users & authorizations, settings specific to each system, etc. If needed, they are responsible for re-importing necessary changes into systems after refresh.

Profile Description:

• Holds a Master's degree in computer science, economics, industrial, or scientific field.
• Proficient in Dutch and/or French, with good technical English knowledge.
• Minimum of 10 years of experience in SAP Change and Release Management; while having mastered this role, the candidate wishes to continue in this function for a minimum of 5 years.
• Comprehensive knowledge of SAP-ERP and SAP IS-U for Utilities in terms of application content.
• General knowledge of SAP development, ability to read code (Classic