Why You Need to Redesign Your SAP Testing Strategy for the Cloud ALM Era

Why You Need to Redesign Your SAP Testing Strategy for the Cloud ALM Era

SolMan's End of Maintenance and the Shift to Cloud ALM Are Rewriting How SAP Testing Works

On December 31, 2027, two things end simultaneously for SAP customers. First, mainstream support for SAP ECC — the backbone of enterprise operations for decades. Second, mainstream maintenance for SAP Solution Manager (SolMan), the platform that has underpinned test management, change control, and ALM across the SAP landscape. Most organizations are laser-focused on their S/4HANA migration. But while they plan the system transition, many are overlooking a critical parallel shift: the entire test management framework is changing too. This applies equally to companies newly adopting SAP Cloud — the moment you open your Cloud ALM tenant, the first question is the same: "Test management lives here now, but how do I actually execute tests?"

Whether you're migrating or starting fresh, now is the time to (re)design your SAP testing strategy.

1. A Look Back at Test Management in the SolMan Era

SAP Solution Manager served as the central ALM platform for SAP customers for years. It offered Test Suite for test case management, CBTA (Component-Based Test Automation) for automation, and tight integration with ChaRM (Change Request Management) — a comprehensive toolkit for on-premise environments. In practice, many organizations never fully leveraged these capabilities, relying instead on spreadsheet-based manual management with hundreds or even thousands of test cases tracked in Excel. Still, SolMan delivered real value: centralized test assets, change management integration, and full control over on-premise infrastructure. For better or worse, it was the baseline for SAP test management.

That baseline disappears at the end of 2027. For companies newly adopting SAP Cloud, this baseline never existed in the first place. Every SAP customer now faces the same question: "How do we manage and execute testing in the Cloud ALM era?"

2. What Changes with Cloud ALM

SAP's answer — both as SolMan's successor and as the default ALM platform for new SAP Cloud customers — is SAP Cloud ALM. It's a cloud-native SaaS solution included with SAP Enterprise Support at no additional license cost. Organizations adopting SAP Cloud through RISE with SAP or GROW with SAP receive Cloud ALM as their ALM platform from day one. For a deeper look at how S/4HANA transitions are expanding the scope of testing, see our previous post: [How SAP Testing Strategy Must Evolve in the S/4HANA Era].

Cloud ALM manages the full SAP solution lifecycle — project management, implementation, testing, deployment, and operations. Its approach to test management differs fundamentally from SolMan. It provides full traceability by linking processes, requirements, and test cases in a single flow. It lets you import SAP Best Practice-based standard test cases for a faster start. And its dashboards give real-time visibility into test progress and defect status.

For organizations transitioning from SolMan, Cloud ALM's test governance is a clear step forward. For new adopters, it's an opportunity to establish structured test management from the start.

But here's the critical point most teams miss.

3. The Core Issue: Orchestration and Execution Are Not the Same Thing

Cloud ALM is a platform for managing tests — not for executing them.

This isn't criticism. It's SAP's official position. SAP chose not to embed a native test automation engine in Cloud ALM, opting instead for an open architecture that integrates with third-party test automation tools. When you create an automated test case in Cloud ALM, you're essentially creating a shell. The actual scripting and execution happen in an external tool.

Think of it this way: Cloud ALM is the conductor of an orchestra. It decides what to play, arranges the sequence, and tracks progress. But the actual performance requires instruments — your test automation tool. You can play without a conductor, but a conductor waving a baton in an empty hall produces no music.

Cloud ALM (Conductor: test planning, tracking, dashboards) & Test Automation Tool (Musicians: script creation, execution, validation)

This structural reality creates the same challenge for both existing and new customers.

For existing SolMan customers:

Many are planning the ALM platform transition while deferring the test automation tool strategy. The assumption that "moving to Cloud ALM will sort out testing" is risky. If your organization used SolMan's CBTA, note that CBTA's support ends with SolMan — it won't function in Cloud ALM, and your existing automation assets can't simply carry over. When large-scale testing is needed — such as an S/4HANA migration or quarterly upgrades — a gap in automation tooling can be critical.
(Related: [SAP Testing Strategy: ECC to S/4HANA Migration])

For new SAP Cloud adopters:

Cloud ALM comes included, so the management platform is covered. But deciding which tool will execute your test cases, how you'll prepare test data, and how you'll automate regression testing at scale — these require separate planning. Having a Cloud ALM tenant doesn't mean test automation is ready.

Either way, you risk having a conductor but no musicians.

4. Three Questions to Address Now

Whether you're transitioning from SolMan or adopting SAP Cloud for the first time, the critical questions are identical.

Question 1: How will you build and manage test assets within the Cloud ALM framework?

If you're transitioning: You need a plan to migrate test cases, scripts, and execution history from SolMan or Excel into Cloud ALM. If you've been managing in spreadsheets, this is actually an opportunity to restructure your test assets properly. If you're starting new: You need to design the structure for building test assets from scratch. Leverage Cloud ALM's Best Practice templates, but invest in configuring test scenarios that reflect your actual business processes. In either case, assessing your current state — or designing your target state — comes first.

Question 2: Which test automation tool will you run on top of Cloud ALM?

If Cloud ALM handles orchestration, you need a separate tool for execution. This decision will define your testing efficiency and quality for years to come. Without one, your team faces running hundreds of end-to-end test scenarios manually — a common reality in S/4HANA transformation projects. Evaluate carefully across execution approach, speed, SAP-specific depth, and maintenance efficiency. This is the most critical challenge for both existing and new customers alike.

Question 3: How will you build the testing framework within your SAP project timeline?

Whether it's an S/4HANA migration or a greenfield S/4HANA Cloud implementation, the project itself demands large-scale testing. Simultaneously, you need to establish the framework to manage and execute those tests. The practical approach: start with 3–5 core business processes, set up Cloud ALM test management and your automation tool for those first, and apply them from the very first test cycle. Trying to build everything at once means the project timeline pushes testing infrastructure to the back — and ultimately, nothing gets done.

Conclusion

2027 marks a turning point for the SAP ecosystem. It's easy to lose sight of the test management challenge while focusing on the S/4HANA system transition or the feature build-out of a new SAP Cloud implementation.

Cloud ALM represents a genuine advance in how testing is managed. But starting a project without understanding the separation between orchestration and execution risks an unexpected gap — no functioning test automation when Go-live arrives. This applies whether you're transitioning from SolMan or using Cloud ALM for the first time.

If you already have answers to the three questions above, you're in a strong position. If not, now is the time to start. In the next post, we'll dig into the most critical question: where Cloud ALM's test management covers your needs in practice, where it falls short, and the key criteria you should evaluate when choosing a test automation tool.