Quality Tools in SAP - ABAP Test Cockpit (ATC)

Introduction

SAP is a huge solution for any type of company, covering each of their potential needs through functionalities (standard or custom made). These functionalities are also regrouped under modules, and let’s be honest… there are a looooooot of them!

To keep a high level of security and of reliability in the system, with all these modules working together or at the same time, ABAP developers have the possibility to use quality tools.

These tools help the developers to enhance their code quality. For example, it can help to find specific code patterns, known by the tool to be a very bad performance pattern, and then propose some more reliable alternatives. It can also detect errors in the code, or authorization issues in between different files of an application.

They can also be used by administrators to monitor the current state of performance in the system and target specific areas of the code. For instance, a company with SAP running for HR and for EWM can still monitor performance of their system, with complete HR or EWM modules, both at the same time, or even smaller areas inside of these modules.

In this blog, we will focus on one tool, which is provided by SAP and is already quite known (but not used enough :D) by the SAP community: ABAP Test Cockpit (ATC).
We will start by describing what exactly is ATC, and the benefits for different types of users.
Then, we will see what the pros and cons are of using a quality tool in your project.
Finally, we will quickly see how to configure ATC before discovering what other tools exist and could complete ATC functionalities.


Understanding the ABAP Test Cockpit (ATC)

Quality is a word you should have heard a lot, especially because it is one of the most important focuses to have when you’re working in ABAP environments.

ABAP Test Cockpit (ATC) is an integrated framework in the ABAP development environment that helps a lot when it comes to quality, security and performance. It checks ABAP code against a wide range of predefined and customizable rules to detect potential issues early in the development cycle. The primary functions of ATC include:

  • Code Quality Assurance: Ensuring that ABAP code follows SAP’s best practices and coding standards.
  • Performance Optimization: Identifying inefficient code that could lead to performance bottlenecks, now or later.
  • Security Compliance: Detecting vulnerability patterns and ensuring code security.
  • Custom Rule Integration: Allowing the creation of custom checks specific rules, to check more in depth on a particular module for instance.

It is an essential tool for developers, quality assurance professionals, and system administrators, as it allows automated analysis of ABAP code, in respect to the use of best practices, code performance optimization and security standards.

It is simple to install and easy to understand, but you can still create custom rules that are really focused on your needs.


Who Benefits from ATC?

ATC is useful not only for developers, but also for a lot of different people working in an ABAP environment, during development phase or even during maintenance phase.
Here below is an overview of what can be done with ATC, depending on your role in a project.

  • ABAP Developers: Get instant feedback on code quality and compliance, enabling quick corrections and optimizations.
  • Quality Assurance Teams: Automate code reviews to ensure consistent quality across development projects.
  • System Administrators: Maintain system integrity and performance by ensuring deployed code meets quality standards.
    For example, an administrator can easily monitor performances of the system after getting some feedback about latency in the system.
  •  Project Managers: Reduce project risks by catching issues early on and ensuring adherence to development standards.

 

Why you should use ATC in any ABAP project

Using ATC in an ABAP environment, no matter if it is for a small or big development, is highly beneficial. Indeed, it doesn’t require additional costs to use ATC, and it’s installation/configuration is very quick and straight forward.

Even when creating custom sets of rules, it is easy for a developer as it uses technical terms that are common in ABAP environments.

Once it is set up, usage of ATC during and after each development ensures that there is no severe performance or security issue, and also gives a vision on how the performance could be an issue later on, even after years of use.


Conclusion

The ABAP Test Cockpit (ATC) is an indispensable tool for maintaining high standards of code quality, performance, and security in ABAP development environments.

Using ATC in your development workflow not only enhances code quality but also reduces the time and effort required to maintain SAP systems, at no cost and with almost no configuration time.

You can easily define multiple custom sets of rules to check different aspects of your system, or you can just use the standard checks provided by SAP and regroup most of the security and performance checks needed, whatever you are developing.

I hope you had a good lecture and could understand how ATC helps you build sustainable and qualitative applications within an ABAP environment, ensuring high security standards.


We would love to hear how you found this blog. Was it interesting? Did you learn something? Is there something that could me more clear or you would need more information about?
Feel free to share it in the comments section or share a funny story you had using ATC!

N.B.: Other tools also exist to monitor and enhance performance, quality or security of your ABAP environment, but this will be for another blog post


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