IT Calendar

You can use IT Calendar to review planned events for the services , systems and databases which are relevant for your daily work. From the IT Calendar you can also schedule IT events and work modes like peak business hours . The default page displays a calendar view showing the planned events for the selected systems, databases , hosts or services  in the next days.

• Work modes planned in IT Calendar
• IT events planned in IT Calendar
• Operational Tasks  defined in IT Task Management
• Contractual Maintenance Periods defined in Service Availability management
• Change Cycle Phases defined in  Change Request Management
• Change Documents defined in  Change Request Management
• Quality Gate Management Phases & Q Gates defined in Quality gate Management

You can

• See detailed information on planned events by clicking on the event.
• Switch between hours, day and months views
• Create work modes  and IT  events  for the selected systems
• Switch between a view that displays work modes on system level and work modes on instance level
• Export events to spreadsheet
• Import work modes from a spreadsheet
• Personalize your display by adding custom pages

How to open IT Calendar

1. Open the Launchpad.
2. Select Technical Administration 
3. Select IT Calendar and Work Mode Management

Scope Selector

The scope selector allows you to select the systems, databases hosts and external services that should be displayed in IT Calendar according to different criteria.  

You can define a default variant that is executed automatically the next time you open IT Calendar as follows:

1. Select "Select Variant"
2. Select "Save as" to save your search criteria in the scope selector under a name
3. Select "Set as Default" if the variant should be the default variant for the next tim you open IT Calendar
4. Select "Execute on select" if the variant should be executed autoamtically when you reopen IT Calendar

Settings

Via the settings button you can filter the event types to be displayed, choose in which time zone the events should be displayed and choose a holiday calendar to highlight the respective holidays in the IT Calendar.

System and Instance switch  

You can switch between the "Technical System" and "Technical Instance View" .

• In the "Technical System" view you can see all events scheduled for the system and you can schedule new work modes and IT events for the selected technical system.
• In the "Technical Instance" view you can see work modes and IT events for the instances of the selected systems  and  schedule new work modes and IT events for the selected instances. The "Technical Instance" shows only instances of ABAP, JAVA and HANA systems.
  
  

Time granularity switch and time naviagtion

You hhve the following options to change the time frame displayed in IT Calendar:

• The time granularity switch allows to switch between Hours, Days, Months, 1 Week, 1 Month view. The 1 Week view always renders a full week. It displays seven days on one screen. The start date is always the beginning of the week  (depending on the locale). The 1 Month view shows an entire month. On desktop, the 1 Month view always displays an interval of 31 days. When the displayed month is shorter (28, 29, 30 days), days from the following month are displayed. They have a different visual state and serve as navigation to the following month.
• Click on "Today" to go back to the current date/moment.
• Click on the  arrows  to navigate to the next or previous interval.
• Select the date to navigate to another time period.

Show event details

Click on  an event to display the event details. Depending on the event type you can open the event in the originating application, copy or delete the event.

Download and upload of events

You can download events into an excel file as follows:

1. Select File →Download Events.
2. Select the time frame and the event types.
3. Select ok.

You can upload work modes from a csv file as explained further below.

Relevant SAP notes

• SAP Note 2616516 - IT Calendar access to Non-SAP Solution Manager users

Required Roles

• Technical Administration composite roles: SAP_TECHNICAL_ADMIN_COMP , SAP_TECHNICAL_ADMIN_DISP_COMP
• IT Calendar Display Authorization: SAP_ITCALENDER

Work Mode Management

Work Mode Management allows planning and maintenance of Work Modes for Technical systems, instances, databases, hosts and external services,

You have 3 possibilities to schedule work modes:

You can either schedule them manually from IT Calendar, perform  mass upload via excel file or use the provided work mode management APIs to define your own interface  from external tools.

Work Mode Scheduling from IT Calendar

You can schedule work modes manually from IT Calendar as follows:

1. Open the IT Calendar for the selected scope.
2. Select one or multiple systems , databases or instances and select "Create work modes" to create  new work modes.

Proceed as follows to create new work modes:

1.  Enter title,  type start and end date and time. The start and end date are prefilled from the first displayed date in IT Calendar but you can overwrite it.
2. Optionally you can choose one category and maintain a description.
3. If you select the recurring flag, you can define recurrence pattern for the work mode. The following recurrence patterns are supported:

• • • Daily. These work modes are scheduled daily. Example:  every day from 08:00 am until 04:00 pm. but not on holidays maintained in Holiday calendar
    • Weekly. These work modes are scheduled weekly . Examples:
      every Monday to Friday from 08:00 am until 04:00 pm. but not on holidays maintained in Holiday calendar
      every Friday from 08:00 am until 11:00 am.
    • Weekly Multiple Patterns.
      Example:  every Monday to Friday from 08:00 am until 11:30 and from 01:00 pm until 04:00 pm  
    • Monthly. These work modes are scheduled monthly. Examples:
      every 1st Monday of every 2nd month
      On the 2nd of every month

For recurring work modes, you should enter a start date when the first occurrence starts and an end date when the last occurrence ends.
Note: After saving recurring work modes, not all constituents will be visible in IT Calendar directly, only the first 100 constituents. A periodic batch job generates the next work modes subsequently.

1. The technical component tab shows the systems, instances, hosts and databases for which the work mode shall be scheduled. By default, the components selected in IT Calendar are pre populated. If you have started the Work Mode Scheduling UI for systems, you can add additional systems here.
   • • • For each system, the work mode will be scheduled also on the system instances.
       • You can choose whether the work mode shall be scheduled also to related system database and it's instances.
       • You can choose whether the work mode shall be scheduled also to related physical or virtual hosts.

1. Press save button to schedule the work modes.
   If it was possible to save the work modes you should get a popup " Workmode successfully scheduled."- Otherwise check the error message and correct the problem.
2. Via send instant notification you can send an email informing other users that a work mode has been scheduled.

Mass Upload of work modes from csv file

You can maintain multiple future work modes in one csv file  and upload them to IT Calendar as follows:

1. Select File → Upload Work Modes
2. Download the template
3. Fill the template as follows:
   Enter 1 line per work mode to be created. Separate the values in the line by comma.
   
   1. Enter a title.
   2. Enter the system, instance, host or database for which the work mode shall be created. In case of systems enter  Extended ID~System type . Example: "ABC00001~ABAP". For  technical systems, the work modes will be propagated to the system database and to the physical hosts of the system and database . 
   3. Enter the context type as follows: 060 for Technical System, 080 for database, 030 for Technical Instance, 020 for host
   4. Enter the Work Mode Type as follows:  010 Planned Downtime, 030 Peak Business Hours, 040 Non-Peak Business Hours, 050 Non-Business Hours, 020 Maintenance.
   5. Enter the start and end date in the form YYYYMMDD. 
   6. Enter start and end time in the form HHMMSS.
      Start date and time must be in the future. Creation of work modes for the past is not possible. End date and time must be after start date and time.
   7. Enter the time zone to identify the timezone of dates and times. You can check table TTZZ for supported time zone abbreviations.
   8. Enter the work mode category as follows:  001 Hardware Maintenance-General, 002 Hardware Maintenance-Application Server, 003 Hardware Maintenance-Database Server, 004 Hardware Maintenance-Middleware, 005 Hardware Maintenance-Network, 006 Hardware Maintenance, 007 Software Maintenance-General, 008 Software Maintenance-SAP, Software Maintenance-Operating System, 010 Software Maintenance-Database, 011 Software Maintenance-Other Component.
   9. Enter optionally a description
4. Upload the template
5. Check if there are any error messages.

Examples:

• You want to create a planned downtime for ABAP System ABC00001  including it's database  and physical hosts.
  Maintain the file according to the example below and upload it to IT Calendar.
  WMM_TITLE,CONTEXT_ID,CONTEXT_TYPE,WMM_TYPE,START_DATE,END_DATE,START_TIME,END_TIME,WMM_TIMEZONE,WMM_CATEGORY,WMM_DESCRIPTION
  Security Patching,ABC00001~ABAP,060,010,201804027,20180428,040000,130000,UTC,001,Apply latest Linux Security Patches
• You want to create a planned downtime for Database XYZ00001 and hosts "host1" and "host2" .
  Maintain the file according to the example below and upload it to IT Calendar.
  WMM_TITLE,CONTEXT_ID,CONTEXT_TYPE,WMM_TYPE,START_DATE,END_DATE,START_TIME,END_TIME,WMM_TIMEZONE,WMM_CATEGORY,WMM_DESCRIPTION
  Security Patching,XYZ00001,080,010,201804027,20180428,040000,130000,UTC,001,Apply latest Linux Security Patches
  Security Patching,host1,020,010,201804027,20180428,040000,130000,UTC,001,Apply latest Linux Security Patches
  Security Patching,host2,020,010,201804027,20180428,040000,130000,UTC,001,Apply latest Linux Security Patches

APIs to schedule and query work modes

You can also call APIs to create, edit , delete and query work modes from external systems. Please refer to SAP Note 2391688.

Required Roles

Workmode Application: SAP_SM_WMM_ALL , SAP_SM_WMM_DIS
Technical Administration composite role: SAP_TECHNICAL_ADMIN_COMP , SAP_TECHNICAL_ADMIN_DISP_COMP

Work Mode Analytics

Work Mode Analytics provides an overview over planned downtimes and outages for recent time periods.

The following data are reported:

• Total duration of planned downtimes . This number is calculated based on the planned downtimes for the selected system in IT Calendar.
• The used planned downtime. This number is calculated based on the measured system unavailability during planned downtimes windows
• Unplanned downtimes our outages . This number is calculated based on measured system unavailability  outside planned downtime windows.
• Total downtime is the sum of planned dowunties and outages

All durations can be displayed alternatively in minutes or hours.

Please note: The durations and times  reported in Work Mode Analytics are raw data measured by System monitoring and planned in Work Mode Management. The durations reported in Service Availability Management are also based on System monitoring and work mdoe management but can be adjusted by system administrators. Therefore, the reported data can differ between Work Mode Analytics and Service Availability Management.

IT Event scheduling

IT Event Management allows planning and maintenance of IT and Business Events for Technical systems, instances, databases, hosts and external services- You can create IT Events of category Business , Development, maintenance and generic. Unlike work modes, IT events do not influence system montoring, alerting and Service Availability management. 

IT Event Scheduling from IT Calendar

You can schedule IT Events  manually from IT Calendar as follows:

1. Open the IT Calendar for the selected scope.
2. Select one or multiple systems , databases or instances and select "Create IT Events"  to create  new IT Events .
3. The IT Event Scheduling UI opens.

Proceed as follows to create new IT events:

1. Enter title, type start and end date and time. The start and end date are pre-filled from the first displayed date in IT Calendar but you can overwrite it.
2. Optionally you can choose one category and maintain a description.
3. If you select the recurring flag, you can define recurrence pattern for the IT events. The following recurrence patterns are supported:

• • • • Daily. These work modes are scheduled daily. Example:  every day from 08:00 am until 04:00 pm. but not on holidays maintained in Holiday calendar
      • Weekly. These work modes are scheduled weekly . Examples: 
        every Monday to Friday from 08:00 am until 04:00 pm. but not on holidays maintained in Holiday calendar
        every Friday from 08:00 am until 11:00 am.
      • Weekly Multiple Patterns.
        Example:  every Monday to Friday from 08:00 am until 11:30 and from 01:00 pm until 04:00 pm  
      • Monthly. These work modes are scheduled monthly. Examples: 
        every 1st Monday of every 2nd month
        On the 2nd of every month

For recurring IT events, you should enter a start date when the first occurrence starts and an end date when the last occurrence ends.

1. The technical component tab shows the systems for which the IT event shall be scheduled.By default, the systems selected in IT Calendar are pre populated. You can add additional systems here.
2. Press save button to schedule the IT events.Via send instant notification you can send an email immediatly informing other users that  new  IT events have been scheduled.

Required Roles

• Technical Administration composite roles: SAP_TECHNICAL_ADMIN_COMP , SAP_TECHNICAL_ADMIN_DISP_COMP
• IT Events: SAP_SM_IT_EVENTS_ADMIN, SAP_SM_IT_EVENTS_DISP.

Automatic notification for work modes an IT events

Automated work mode and IT event notifications

Solution Manager can send out automatic e mail or SMS notifications about planned work modes or IT Events in a predefined schedule and using a predefined rich text or HTML template. Please refer to Notification Management for more information.

Technical Support

In case of issues, please open a support ticket on component SV-SMG-ADM-DTM