ABAP Test Cockpit is the SAP developer’s go-to tool for testing code throughout the software development life cycle. As SAP’s standard quality assurance inspection tool, it’s a best practice to perform multiple tests with ATC before applications make it to production.
However, ABAP Test Cockpit is more than just a tool to catch bugs. Organizations with mature SAP development processes also use the tool to enforce compliance with their coding standards.
As SAP code standards are developed and updated throughout an organization’s growth, applications that were built in the past fall out of compliance with the latest development guidelines.
This is where ABAP Test Cockpit comes in.
It can seem tedious to develop using rigid coding standards. However, it’s an endeavor that yields significant benefits for large organizations.
A comprehensive set of coding standards gives team members a common understanding of all the code developed across projects. This helps with onboarding, movement across projects and integration across applications.
Quality code that adheres to given standards allows developers to isolate problematic code with ease and bring any issues to an effective resolution.
A lack of standardization is one of the biggest obstacles to code reuse. Ensuring that SAP ABAP code meets quality guidelines clears this hurdle.
Once developers have targeted older applications that have yet to implement their current SAP code standards, they can begin prioritizing software that should be updated first. Older applications that have been replaced with more recent functionality may sometimes be discarded, depending on an organization’s operating procedures.
ABAP Test Cockpit can just as easily scan older applications for compatibility with current code guidelines the same way it scans ongoing development. Developers can use this tool to identify variables, data declarations, selection screen elements, file path names, and other artifacts that must be updated to meet current standards.
This exercise can be conducted any time major updates are made to an organization’s SAP ABAP coding standards in order to ensure compliance and quality throughout its application infrastructure.
