Documentation tasks

The following table lists maintenance tasks that the System Administrator needs to perform in the Documentation area. For information about other areas, see Areas of maintenance tasks.

Event or frequency

Task

Automatable

Before going to production

Document fallback procedures

No

On demand

Document the application of patches, hotfixes, and custom tailoring

No

On demand

Document all automated administrative tasks

No

After modifying credentials Document credentials in a safe place No

Document fallback procedures

All fallback strategies must be documented to cover their applicable scenarios, precautions to be taken, and restoration procedures, so that they are available when needed.

Document the application of patches, hotfixes, and custom tailoring

The administrator is responsible for documenting all changes applied to the system, such as the application of patches and hotfixes, or custom tailoring releases. This includes the following information:

  • Date and time of the application
  • Information about the change
  • Status after the application (error or warning messages, and results of initial functionality tests)

This document is required for analysis if an issue is observed.

Note The standard question from Software Support engineers about the last change before first observation is directly referring to this document.

Document all automated administrative tasks

Diligence in implementation, documentation, and maintenance of these automated tasks is important because changes of the system configuration, or tailoring may directly result in a requirement to modify automated maintenance tasks as well.

Document credentials in a safe place

Service Manager automatically encrypts credentials in configuration files and in the Service Manager Integration Suite (SMIS) configuration. Therefore, credentials can no more be looked up from these files or SMIS.

These credentials include credentials for the relational database, LDAP server, SSL keystore files, or external applications that Service Manager integrates with.

To address the risk of not being able to access required resources because of failure, document all credentials in a secure place.

Related topics

Areas of maintenance tasks

System information record

Encrypt all credentials