References for Brightwork Custom Development Articles

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Executive Summary

These are the references that were used for our Custom Development articles.

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Introduction

This is the reference list for the custom development articles, as well as interesting quotes from these references at Brightwork Research & Analysis.

Reference #1: Article Titled:

ABAP Development Time

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABAP

The Basics of ABAP

All ABAP programs reside inside the SAP database. They are not stored in separate external files like Java or C++ programs. In the database all ABAP code exists in two forms: source code, which can be viewed and edited with the ABAP Workbench tools; and generated code, a binary representation somewhat comparable with Java bytecode. ABAP programs execute under the control of the runtime system, which is part of the SAP kernel.

ABAP distinguishes two types of executable programs:

Reports
Module pools
Reports follow a relatively simple programming model whereby a user optionally enters a set of parameters (e.g., a selection over a subSET of data) and the program then uses the input parameters to produce a report in the form of an interactive list. The term “report” can be somewhat misleading in that reports can also be designed to modify data; the reason why these programs are called reports is the “list-oriented” nature of the output they produce.

Module pools define more complex patterns of user interaction using a collection of screens. The term “screen” refers to the actual, physical image that the user sees. Each screen also has a “flow logic”, which refers to the ABAP code implicitly invoked by the screens, which is divided into a “PBO” (Process Before Output) and “PAI” (Process After Input) section. In SAP documentation the term “dynpro” (dynamic program) refers to the combination of the screen and its flow logic.

How to Access ABAP in SAP

ABAP Workbench
The ABAP Workbench is part of the ABAP system and is accessed via SAP GUI. It contains different tools for editing programs. The most important of these are (transaction codes are shown in parentheses):

ABAP Editor for writing and editing reports, module pools, includes and subroutine pools (SE38)

ABAP Dictionary for processing database table definitions and retrieving global types (SE11)

Menu Painter for designing the user interface (menu bar, standard toolbar, application toolbar, function key assignment) (SE41)
Screen Painter for designing screens and flow logic (SE51)
Function Builder for function modules (SE37)

Class Builder for ABAP Objects classes and interfaces (SE24)

The ABAP Dictionary

The ABAP Dictionary contains all metadata about the data in the SAP system. It is closely linked with the ABAP Workbench in that any reference to data (e.g., a table, a view, or a data type) will be obtained from the dictionary. Developers use the ABAP Dictionary transactions (directly or through the SE80 Object Navigator inside the ABAP Workbench) to display and maintain this metadata.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/283973/time-estimate-for-abap-development

Question on ABAP Estimation

I’m looking for a table or list of standard time estimations for developments in ABAP, something customizable in some variables according to the development team, complexity of project, etc…

Something similar to:

Simple Module Pool -> 10 hours
Complex Module Pool -> 30 hours
Definition of Dictionary -> (0,4 * number_of_tables * average_fields ) hours
ALV Report -> (2 * number_of_parameters) hours

What I’m looking for is a bunch of formulas, any metric system that can be applicable to (or even created for) time estimations on SAP development.

I’m looking for a technic/tool/method to estimate SAP work, duration, cost, something similar to COCOMO II, FP, ESTIMACS or SLIM for SAP development.

Answer #1

If I am reading this right, you are looking for a something to estimate how long it would take someone to program an application. I would doubt an official table actually exists.

Development time is highly variable. Programmer experience, complexity of requirements, clarity of requirements, and dozens of other factors affect how much time development takes. So even if an official table exists, it may not be accurate.

Answer #2

the formulas you made up for illustration purposes in your question are as good as any others – in other words, you are asking for something that is pointless.

the reason is that no formula can account for the truly important variables:

your team
your customer
your environment
your standards and best practices
all of which will have a much larger drag coefficient than any other terms

if you want accurate estimates, ask your developers, and track their accuracy

Answer #3

You can use Excel, Numbers, Gant charts, to do it manualy but you won’t be able to find ANY automated thing for that, you’ll have to do it yourself!

Answer #4

Let me guess… you’re a project manager?

There is no “one way” in programming, especially not in the highly specialized world of ABAP.

https://blogs.sap.com/2013/11/11/estimation-abap/

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1753412/what-are-abap-and-sap

The ABAP stack is traditionally navigated via Transaction Codes (T-Codes) to take you to different screens within the SAP Environment.

https://thesai.org/Downloads/Volume4No11/Paper_27-Software_Effort_Estimation_Inspired_by_COCOMO.pdf

The Difficulty in Estimating Development

According to Dr. Patricia Sanders, Director of Test Systems Engineering and Evaluation at OUSD, in her 1998 Software Technology Conference keynote address, 40% of the DoD’s software development costs are spent on reworking the software, which on the year 2000 equal to an annual loss of $18 billion. Furthermore, Sanders stated that only 16% of software development would finish on time and on budget.

We developed a fuzzy model based COCOMO for the effort taking in consideration one attribute which is the SLOC. We used the FMID MATLAB Toolbox [42] to develop our experimental results. The set of rules which describe the effort as a function of SLOC is given in Table V. In Table VI, we show the values of each evaluation criteria adopted in this study. In Figure 3, we show the membership function for the SLOC based model. Three membership functions are shown which reflect the relationship between the SLOC and the Effort on three sub-models. Figure 4 show the actual and estimated effort using fuzzy logic. The values of the actual and computed effort based fuzzy model is presented in Table VII. The characteristics between the two curves look very similar with high VAF criteria.

*https://itpfed.com/abap-dynamic-programming-part-2/