Be Prepared – Business Rule Framework

BRF+ requires creative problem solving

December 6, 2019
by Isard Haasakker

Applying the Business Rule Framework to solve complex problems are not easy to achieve. The tool allows rapid application development, turning configuration into code by the press of a single button. Setting up the data objects, functions, rulesets, rules and expressions can be a frustrating process. Therefore you need to imagine that several iterations are required before you have a working prototype. Often we have to start over and avoid mistakes in previous versions that lead to a dead end. Eventually, you will conquer the challenge. Just takes persistence and a good dose of creativity.

You might convince yourself that you are not creative. Seeing complicated BRF+ functions for the first time could be daunting. You probably believe you never can master that level in BRF+. However, practice is what you need. Add the hours trying to get to a working prototype. It is like any new skill where theory can be tested using multiple-choice examination, but practice makes perfect.

Creative problem solving is essential, and you can teach yourself this skill. All famous inventors like Da Vinci and Edison mastered this skill. If they can, you can as well. They focused on the problem and found all the ways possible to solve it.

The process starts by asking “the five whys”, ideal for verifying the business requirement. You need to discover the REAL problem, often not the one initially identified.

Continue with asking challenging questions with each question highlighting a single issue. Try to solve each problem one-by-one. You discover each item refers to a BRF+ object, like an expression or rule. Make sure you try to address each issue in various ways, as there always are multiple ways to reach the end goal.

Link all questions and see how they fit to answer all of them at the same time. You understand that this will become a set of BRF+ functions that are related.

Continue with the simulation of the functions and verify if all scenarios pass the tests. Organise a meeting to let everyone challenge your solution to see if it requires fine-tuning.

Forget about “first time right”. Keep an eye on making progress and eventually delivery a solution that handles all complex decision making. It often requires several cycles of trial and error. Stay on the journey and take any criticisms as input to make the final deliverable foolproof. As soon as you reach that point, deploying this solution will be fast from then on.

Want to read more about creative problem-solving? Then read this articles:

Problem Solving Process: https://innovationmanagement.se/imtool-articles/the-basics-of-creative-problem-solving-cps/.
The five whys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_whys.

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Simulating BRF+ function with key users

December 4, 2019
by Isard Haasakker

The Business Rule Framework has a fantastic simulation capability, but it can become quite overwhelming for those not familiar with the tool. When you want to test BRF+ functions with users, then your audience is not interested in the functionality you are using to solve complex decision making. Showing this tool to business users can distract from the objective to verify whether you understand their business requirements correctly.

Your objective is to have sessions with users where they provide the input for decision making and validate the result. This simulation process must be as straightforward as possible.

You can prototype the business requirements for preliminary acceptance testing. There is no need to take action on the returned result. You can develop an ABAP program that is a wrapper around the BRF+ function with the input parameters as selection criteria and a simple output to show the result.

When you have this program, then use variants to save all identified test scenarios and keep track on which passed or failed the criteria. Your prototype is then fit for purpose when all tests are successful.

If new test scenarios arise, then merely add new variants to the program and check if the prototype requires updates to pass the tests.

Creating these wrapper programs will be quick and easy. You can deploy them to the productive system because the database is never updated. These programs can even be useful to assist the support team to test specific scenarios.

You can always resort to the in-depth simulation tool output within the Business Rule Framework to look step-by-step what happens while making complex decisions.

Wrapper programs can have their dedicated transaction codes and listed in a specific custom menu. The IT support team can get the authorisation to execute these transactions in every environment.

Applying all these suggestion will make acceptance testing ahead of development a time-saving activity, pushing higher efficiency and productivity.

At the same time, you can demonstrate all tests performed to get the preliminary acceptance from the key users by listing all variants and recording which have passed the test. You can make this a prerequisite for documenting the final solution before a single line of code is written to execute BRF+ functions.

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BRF+ requires progress, not perfection

December 2, 2019
by Isard Haasakker

Quite often, the IT department delays the usage of Business Rule Framework. There is this perception that the first deployment needs to consist of a wide range of rules that will have a significant positive impact on the system. Then the temptation arises to make this a full-blown project with many functional areas involved to gather rules for functions and prepare a big-bang implementation.

However, the Business Rule Framework supports rapid application development. You do not need to have all the answers before you can begin to build something small with the notion it will cover a wide range of rules soon.

It is a far better strategy to start with something small and slowly build the Application Program Interface that communicates between the SAP database and the BRF+ functions. Try to find some simple but important set of controls in a specific functional area. For example, start with defining rules to validate the completeness of the material master general data. Or replace some hard-coding in a custom-built function module.

Involve only a small group of people, teach them how to build BRF+ functions using simple decision making. Gradually step of the complexity and guide how to apply modular system design within the Business Rule Framework applications.

The key to long term success is to focus on progress instead of perfection. Start small while thinking big. Make sure that the Application Program Interface supplies all relevant data to the BRF+ functions in such a way that the signature should not need any updates after the initial deployment.

You will be surprised how much functionality is controlled by the Business Rule Framework in a matter of months. The initial BRF+ functions might have had several iterations since the first deployment, but that is normal.

The real success is when the usage of the BRF+ functionality stays under the radar of the user community. The key users notice the shorter lead time to get changes available for acceptance testing, and that less rework is needed to get the changes moved into the production system.

Your IT support team will adopt the new way of working, where decision making becomes configuration. Developers will receive a code template to execute BRF+ functions, shifting their attention to building and extending the API instead.

When everyone plays their part, then gradually a significant change management process unfolds with the Business Rule Framework tool at the centre.

Nobody cares that you started with a small team with simple rules for decision making. After several months everyone will appreciate a stable API and fast process to handle complex decision making. Onwards and upwards.

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Mindfulness and BRF+

November 27, 2019
by Isard Haasakker

The past decade much attention is given to mindfulness. It emphasises that it is healthy for your brain to be “in the moment” and suggests meditation to control the stress you encounter at work.

The reason for the increased popularity of mindfulness is linked to the impact of the 2008 recession. Many jobs were lost and many employers kept the boat afloat by managing the same workload using fewer people. Obviously, that triggered longer working hours.

At the same time, the success of the iPhone resulted in employees being available 24/7, which made it even less likely to switch off work.

All these years later we can conclude that the shock of the economic downturn is still prevalent today. Who knows what will happen we a new recession kicks off, as we haven’t really recovered from the previous one.

Being mindful to manage your daily stress levels is important, but what can be done to relieve the tension and get breathing space?

Business Rule Framework can provide an almost instant positive effect and reduce stress. This tool converts complex decision making from code into configuration, triggering many advantages and time-saving opportunities.

We can start with a very obvious BRF+ advantage. The main purpose of this tool is to handle complex decision making, which is the most complex part of any development. Put a developer and a business analyst next to each other to implement the same complicated instruction, and in all cases, the business analyst will deliver a correct result much faster via BRF+. The BRF+ configuration generates all the code by pressing a single button. An additional benefit is that these instructions do not require a technical specification, making the time saving even bigger.

You might argue that the workload of the business analyst will increase because the task to implement complex decision making is taken away from the developer. However, you will discover that the simulation capabilities within BRF+ will save you time. Instead of various test cycles triggering numerous code changes, simulated BRF+ expressions and functions do not need further adjustments (unless the business requirements change). Each BRF+ object is a building block that can be tested. As soon as it passes the test then you do not need to retest this again, as you are assured it will remain stable.

You can conclude that Business Rule Framework allows you to become much more efficient and much more productive. You can use that to your advantage to eliminate the need for structural overtime. You can reduce the stress levels of your IT department while you increase the quality of the deliverables.

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How BRF+ impacts the need for documentation

November 22, 2019
by Isard Haasakker

It is not a secret that many consultants detest writing documentation, often seen as the least enjoyable activity of their daily job. Completely understandable, as writing top quality documentation is a skill. Not everyone feels confident in writing functional and technical specifications.

For many the perception exists that the time spent on configuring or coding compared to testing and documenting is 1-to-2-to-3. For every hour playing, you need spend 2 hours testing and 3 hours writing.

Business Rule Framework can change this pay-test-write ratio from 1-2-3 to 2-1-1.

That is quite a drastic shift in making your daily job more exciting.

It all starts with the realisation that BRF+ is a tool that converts complex decision making from code into configuration, impacting the daily work for both business analysts and developers significantly.

Business analysist use BRF+ to convert business requirements into a working prototype and challenge the key users to discover the true needs. Building the prototype is often challenging, but that is inspirational and a lot of fun. You have full control in building something from nothing without needing a developer. Also the powerful simulation capabilities within Business Rule Framework allows you to input data in a system that does not contain any data. Just import excel worksheets into BRF+ with your test data and you can check if your prototype offers the results expected. And when the protype is approved by the key user, ensuring all known business cases are tested, then you write the functional specification. This document will only change when the key user supplies new test scenarios.

Developers do not have to worry about coding the complex decision making, as BRF+ generates the code by the press of a button. That might take away the enjoyment of coding complex solutions. On the other hand, you do not have to write technical specifications for them either. Luckily they can shift their focus on building an API between the SAP database and BRF+ functions. This Application Programming Interface to support Business Rule Framework can become quite a challenging task upon itself, triggering the same fun endorphins. Achieving a stable and comprehensive API is very rewarding. Side effect is that a top quality API could be reused at other clients running SAP. Even more interesting is an API that would work on both ECC and S/4 HANA platforms.

Converting complex decision making from code into configuration has benefits regarding testing. You already know that BRF+ functions can be simulated and therefore proven fit for purpose before a single line of code is written by the developer. Business Rule Framework supplies code templates for the developer to call the BRF+ functions in the ABAP code. So inserting BRF+ solutions should be a quick and flawless activity. The attention then goes to the supply of data to the BRF+ function and the correct action based on the returned result. Normally these tasks should not be the most complex parts to test by the developer and business analyst. The only potential hurdle is the data quality in the development system.

Where you save time in documentation and testing, it makes sense to invest time in adding quality data in all test environments with the goal to reduce the time spent on testing in the future.

You can conclude that the introduction of Business Rule Framework can directly influence your desire to wake up, get dressed and get into the office to have fun.

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How BRF+ enhances collaboration

November 21, 2019
by Isard Haasakker

The first project manager I ever worked for as an IT consultant had the routine to randomly walk through the various open plan offices to observe which colleagues were sitting behind their computer and work in isolation. He made a mental note of those people who always work as a recluse. Those team members are likely not sharing information, and that would worry him. On the other side of the spectrum, those always in discussion with others would be praised as team players.

It is very common that people work in silo’s and only get encouraged when using the traditional waterfall approach for deploying new functionality. The key user writes the business requirements and hands it over to the consultant, normally with a quick hand over session. Then the consultant writes the functional specification and hands that over to the developer, who will write the technical specification. The consultant only gets the change to test against his functional specification when the developer finished the unit testing. Often the expectations will not reflect the deliverable, starting a lot of ping-pong interactions making it less likely to deploy the solution on time and within budget. Delay in deployment becomes even more likely when the key user finally gets the change to do the acceptance testing. You can expect new ping-pong debates between the key user and the consultant, triggering renewed chats between the consultant and developer.

You will realise that the missing collaboration between the key user, consultant and developer will cost the business a lot of money due to lost efficiency and productivity. Still, this waterfall approach is considered the best practice. No wonder why so many IT projects fail.

Business Rule Framework can introduce an agile rapid application development approach that can be used within a waterfall driven project. You just need to enforce dialog between the key user and the consultant. At the same time the consultant will use BRF+ to configure complex decision making instead of having that cumbersome logic coded by a developer.

When you have a powerful change manager in your organisation and the willingness to adopt best practice to good practice, then BRF+ allows you to get more done by the same group of people against higher standards. So greater quantity and quality.

Probably the biggest change in attitude is to use the powerful Business Rule Framework simulation capabilities to prototype the business requirements and make this part of the sign off for the documented business requirements. As complex decision making is the core deliverable for any business requirement, the key user and consultant can check whether the prototype returns the expected results in every known business case. If so, then it becomes very likely that the deliverable will pass acceptance testing without needing any further changes. This way the desired first time right objective is a realistic expectation.

As the decision making becomes configuration when using BRF+, the developer does not need to write a technical specification for that complex part of the overall deliverable. Instead, the consultant will inform the developer what input is required for BRF+ functions and what action is needed after returning the result. Collecting data for decision making and handling the result are relatively easy tasks for a developer to code, reducing the chance of mistakes. Also, the consultant and developer can work in parallel to configure and code the solution. Then they can sit together and unit test together before handing it over to the key user for acceptance testing.

Using BRF+ to become agile within a waterfall project can reduce the lead time for deployment with at least 40%, while the chance of fixing problems after deployment will be reduced dramatically.

Conclusion is that Business Rule Framework is not just a tool, it can be a game changer in delivering SAP projects in time, on budget and fit for purpose.

That makes BRF+ a vital ingredient of the Fast Implementation Track, as explained in my book “Make F.I.T. Your Purpose”.

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How to create time to learn BRF+

November 19, 2019November 19, 2019
by Isard Haasakker

The most common feedback that I receive when offering my free BRF+ training relates to the lack of time. Something I can fully understand. People tend to be very busy every day and eventually, years later, they wonder what new skills they have learnt. Often a shocking realisation that their skill set has not been widened of deepened, triggering a worry that they become less attractive in the market place.

Finding time to learn new skills has to come outside of normal business hours. This is a trend confirmed by many research institutes. It also becomes an expectation from your employer or client that education is a cost your have to bare yourself. Getting approval for training during working hours becomes a rare occurrence.

There are choices to make when you are convinced that new skills have to be taught in your spare time. Sacrifices need to be made. The biggest issue probably is the rule of delayed gratification. Imagine you want to learn Business Rule Framework but your client or employer is not aware this tool exists. Apart from learning the skills to demonstrate its potential, you have no assurance you will be successful to apply this new skills in your daily working life.

In fact, you probably can make a very long list why you should not dedicate your precious free time to education. The number of reasons to commit to training will be short and are easy to push aside.

But when you are convinced that Business Rule Framework could ignite your career, then creating time for education could be easier then initially thought.

First find out when you are most productive. For many this is either in the early morning or late in the evening. Identify this highly productive time and see what you can do to take full advantage to reserve just 30 minutes to focus on education. Make it a habit that you do something every day to learn something new, even when it seems insignificant.

I am very effective in the early morning, so I have to find time every morning to do something towards my education. The advantage of early birds is that you can give yourself the time off the rest of the day.

If you are also productive at dawn, then avoid reading emails or checking Facebook statuses. Do your education first and then let the chaos of the day take over.

On my blog you can find a training course that allows you to build the rock, paper, scissors game in the SAP system using BRF+. Every day you get instructions and you learn new capabilities every time. After one week you should be able to play this game and at the same time get a basic understanding what Business Rule Framework can do. You make data objects, expressions, call formulas within formulas, call functions within functions, create constants to fill decision tables and load decision table content using Excel.

If you have access to a SAP system in which BRF+ is activated, then building this BRF+ game should not be a huge sacrifice to make.

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BRF+ ignites S/4 HANA migration preparation

November 18, 2019December 9, 2019
by Isard Haasakker

It is not a secret that the deadline for SAP ECC support ends by 2025 and for the moment there is no sign that date will move. You would believe it gives businesses running SAP sufficient time to get prepared. Reality shows that many are not making much progress or just planning a technical upgrade to S/4 HANA.

The majority of SAP clients, especially those who already migrated R3 to ECC, have a lot of custom solutions on top of the standard functionality. Unfortunately most of those custom developments will lack proper documentation and those involved with the original design have left the company. This makes them vulnerable when they need to upgrade to S/4 HANA. Then they seek guidance from their service providers how to make the move to the new platform. Than a specific vision is required to make the transformation and take advantage of all the new capabilities on offer.

However, most SAP clients will get the advice from their service providers to make existing ECC code S/4 HANA compliant and move this to the new platform. In other words, no opportunity to verify if custom built developments have standard SAP solutions. Also no preparations for new technologies like machine learning, artificial intelligence, blockchain or Internet of Things. What if your competition is in limbo while you can make that leap to new techniques to improve your business processes and serve suppliers and clients?

When you believe that your migration to S/4 HANA could go hand in hand with a competitive advantage, then Business Rule Framework (BRF+) should be embraced as the tool for that transition today.

Business Rule Framework allows you to look at your custom code, find the areas where complex decisions are made and then transform them into configuration. The power of Business Rule Framework is the excellent prototyping and simulation capabilities. When the decision making has the expected results then the Business Rule Framework tool generates all the object oriented ABAP code by the press of a button.

But the real eyeopener is the ability to move the BRF+ objects from ECC to S/4 HANA. When you are a bit clever and keep the new S/4 HANA platform in mind while building solutions in ECC, then you can ensure that the converted code into configuration will work both on ECC and S/4 HANA.

So when your company runs SAP and your service provider is not proposing BRF+ as a means to handle a secure transition from ECC to S/4 HANA, then you should get a second opinion.

Find the service provider with proven BRF+ experience and let them build a few prototypes to prove the potential. It can be a game changing experience and makes you believe that moving to S/4 HANA is feasible and at the same time make steps ahead from your competition.

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Introducing BRF+ requires perseverance

November 14, 2019November 15, 2019
by Isard Haasakker

The biggest mistake is to treat Business Rule Framework as a tool. The potential to save your company money through efficiency and productivity could be enormous. Tapping into that opportunity is often not that easy.

The first hurdle is the fear of the unknown. Even though BRF+ exists as a NetWeaver component since 2006, businesses running SAP are not aware it exists. Probably the first time it gets on their radar is when they need to maintain decision tables in S/4 HANA to activate new or enhanced functionality (e.g. revenue recognition). Then the risk is that you only focus in learning the bare minimum and discard that you can build complex decision making solutions for your custom developments.

The second hurdle is the people working with Business Rule Framework. Too often this tool is seen as an extension for development and therefore given to developers to learn and apply. However, BRF+ should be seen as configuration, generating the object oriented ABAP code with the press of a single button. The built in simulation capabilities are ideal to discuss and challenge business requirements, which is not a common task given to developers. Hence it makes more sense to teach business analysts how to use Business Rule Framework as an extension of their customising skills.

The third hurdle is linked to change management. BRF+ allows you to become agile within a waterfall project. Successful introduction of Business Rule Framework will trigger closer interaction with key users, business analysts and developers. The powerful simulation features allows the design of complex decision making prototypes before a functional specification is written by the business analyst. Decision making itself does not require a technical specification, as code is generated by BRF+. Of course technical specifications are needed to identify when to call BRF+ functions, how data is supplied to the function and what to do with the returned result. It might surprise you how difficult it will be to reorganise the teams to fit into this new way of working. The wish for change has to come top-down.

The fourth hurdle is resistance from the IT service supplier. Imagine the company running SAP uses external resources for development. With the arrival of Business Rule Framework, much of the needed development resources will evaporate and instead moved to business analysist. Knowing the previous hurdles, it is easy for the IT partner to discredit BRF+ and persuade to keep the status quo. Only forward thinking service providers with a rich portfolio of clients will embrace BRF+ as a method to expand their own customer base and claim market share from their competitors.

When all these hurdles are taken, then you need to be fortunate that you have employees who want to learn this new tool. They need to be given enough support and time to play with Business Rule Framework and become familiar with the core functionality. Some can build complex decision making within days, others need weeks. But eventually everyone can learn BRF+. It takes courage to make the first step. It takes dedication to get through the moments when you believe you are stuck. Gradually you get the confidence that any problem can be solved with Business Rule Framework. After a few successful implemented BRF+ functions you will be glad that the hurdles have been taken, as your company will reap the benefits and will never look back.

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Transporting BRF+ objects

October 24, 2019November 15, 2019
by Isard Haasakker

Transporting changes through the system landscape is mandatory as soon as you create Business Rule Framework application with the system or customising storage type. There are some strategic decisions you need to consider before you use BRF+.

First, identify that BRF+ is based on object oriented programming. That means that you identify objects and identify attributes and methods.

A car is the most common example used in literature to explain object related programming. Where the car is the object, its attributes are the colour, number of wheels and the type of engine. The obvious methods are accelerating, braking and turning.

Within the SAP system you have other types of objects, such as sales order, production order, purchase order, customer, vendor, material and plant. Ideally each SAP object has its own Business Rule Framework application (transaction BRF+), development class (transaction code SE24) and message class (transaction code SE91) to establish a one-to-one-to-one relationship. This increases transparency and benefits transporting changes through the system landscape.

It is good practice to place the entire BRF+ application into a transport when a change is needed in any of its objects. Even the most miniscule change should trigger the transport of the entire application, as that is the only assurance that changes are transported successfully between systems. Applying this rule has as disadvantage that the entire application is locked for any other changes. Obviously deploying changes within an application need to be done as quickly as possible to avoid locking issues. Luckily BRF+ has very powerful simulation capabilities, allowing you to test in the development environment with production data. So you can already assess the result of your changes in the production environment before you release the transport.

Ideally you also build a custom set of structures and table types and construct an API between the SAP database and BRF+ functions. That ensures that the BRF+ signature components for the function is always associated to the SAP data dictionary. When you need to add new fields to a structure, then you can easily refresh the binding. This will have as a consequence that any change in the API must be in the same transport as the applications using the updates structures and/or table types. If you do not control these BRF+ application and and development class changes in the same transport then you could trigger system dumps.

Also important to understand that an introduction of a new BRF+ function can be deployed in several transports, but then the timing is important.

Imagine you want to add a new BRF+ function to support sales order processing. Then you can split this into two transports.

The first transport contains the changes made to the BRF+ application, development class and/or message class. You can deploy this as soon as possible.

The second transport contains the change in the code that is calling the BRF+ function, by using a new method in the development class. You can deploy this days, weeks or even months after the first transport.

Applying this guideline, new BRF+ functions can be introduced in a production environment but remain dormant as long as there is no program calling this BRF+ function.

All these suggestions will ensure that the introduction of BRF+ in your organisation is gradual, easily to control and without any bumps along the way.