SAP Workflow

SAP Business Workflow

Purpose

SAP Business Workflow can be used to define business processes that are not yet mapped in the R/3 System. These may be simple release or approval procedures, or more complex business processes such as creating a material master and the associated coordination of the departments involved. SAP Business Workflow is particularly suitable for situations in which work processes have to be run through repeatedly, or situations in which the business process requires the involvement of a large number of agents in a specific sequence.

You can also use SAP Business Workflow to respond to errors and exceptions in other, existing business processes. You can start a workflow when predefined events occur, for example an event can be triggered if particular errors are found during an automatic check.

SAP provides several workflows that map predefined business processes. These workflows do not require much implementation..

Integration

SAP Business Workflow uses the existing transactions and functions of the R/3 System and does not change the functions. You can combine the existing functions of the R/3 System to form new business processes with SAP Business Workflow. The workflow system takes over control of the business processes. If you are already using SAP Organizational Management, you can use the organizational structure created there to have the relevant agents carry out the individual activities. It is possible to have an activity carried out by a position. This ensures that the respective occupiers of the position can carry out the individual activities during execution of the workflow. This means that personnel changes in your organization are taken into account immediately in the execution of a workflow.

Features

SAP Business Workflow provides a number of tools for defining and analyzing workflows as well as for monitoring operation.

The Workflow Builder is for displaying and making changes to workflows. You can make small extensions directly to the original workflows supplied by SAP, such as carrying out your own agent assignments or changing deadline monitoring.

There are several Workflow Wizards to support you in the definition of workflows, with which you can create specific parts of a workflow. The Workflow Wizard Explorer gives you an overview of the existing Workflow Wizards.

In order to make the functions of the R/3 Systems available to a workflow, you use business objects, which you can define and analyze in the Business Object Builder. These business objects are made available to the workflow in reusable tasks. The Business Wizard Explorer gives you an overview of all existing tasks.

The end user receives information about the activities they are to carry out in their Business Workplace. This provides them with a central overview of all the activities that they are authorized to carry out. They can commence the activities from here.

Several tools are available to the workflow system administrator, with which they can control and analyze the current workflows. The workflow system administrator is notified of problems automatically by the system.

Basic terminology used in the workflow: 

• The workflow definition is the set of rules that determine the path that the process takes. For example, how a purchase requisition is processed, from the initial request to the creation of the purchase order
• A Workflow Instance, which is often simply referred to as the workflow, is a single workflow run. For example, the processing of a single purchase requisition for computers.
• The Tasks are the steps in the process, which have to be performed either by people or automatically by the software. For example, to check for the availability of the spare computers in the company.
• A Work item is the task instance that is performed as a single workflow step. For example, check that there are no spare computers available in the company.
• Agents are the people who process the tasks (via the work items). For example, requisitioner and a member of the purchasing department.
• Container is the place where all the data used in the workflow is collected.
• Binding is the set of rules that define which data is passed to which part of the process.

Building a simple workflow application:

 The central tool for creating, displaying and processing a workflow is the workflow builder (Transaction SWDD). Within the workflow builder you can create all components of a workflow, including all the containers you need for getting the data from one step to another. 

Generally, most of the workflows are started by an event (for example, when a material is created or when a new purchase requisition arrives). You define which data from this event needs to be passed to the workflow via binding.

However you can also start any workflow directly. Let us create a simple workflow and start the workflow directly, using the testing tools. 

Call transaction SWDD. When the workflow builder is called for the first time, a newly created initial workflow definition appears or else last created workflow appears. In such cases you can opt to create a new workflow by pressing “Create New Workflow”(ctrl + shft + F5). The following screen appears.

Create basic workflow to display material 

Step1 – Execute transaction SWDD 
Execute transaction SWDD and press the create button. If this is your first time in this should already be at this point. 

Step 2 – Add ‘activity’ step type 

Either right click on the undefined step->create->activity or drag the activity type step onto it from the left menu. 

Step 3 – Create task 

Click on option arrow at side of display icon to create new task 

Step 4 – Assign object method 

Enter Abbr., Name and desired object category, object type and method. In this example I am using method ‘DISPLAY’ within object type ‘BUS1001006’ which displays the material transaction. Click yes on the ‘transfer container elements’ popup dialog.

Step 5 – Possible Agent assignment 

Go to menu option Additional data->Agent assignment->Maintain. From here you can either click on ‘Attributes’ and assign to General Task or click on the ‘Create agent assignment’ icon to assign a specific agent (user, role, job etc). We are going to do the second option. 

Step 6 – Create possible agent assignment 

Click on the ‘Create agent assignment’ icon and choose the user option from the popup window, then enter your own SAP user name. That’s agent assignment donbe so click the back button to return to task details screen.

Step 7 – save task 

Within the task press save followed by the back button to return to the step screen. You should see the following popup screen to define container elements and binding. Simply press the green tick to accept the defaults. 

Step 8 – Assign actual agent and save 

Within the Agents section, click on the ‘Expression’ dropdown and select workflow initiator (expression). This means whoever initiates the workflow will become the agent. Now press the green tick at the top of the step details screen to save this step 

Please note you can also get to agent assignment via this screen by clicking on the yellow egg shaped agent assignment icon on the step screen (above). 

Step 9 – Access container 

Within the left menu choose ‘Workflow Container’ to see available containers 

Step 10 – update container settings 

Double click on the BUS1001006 container, go to the properties tab and tick the Import checkbox

Step 11 – Time to test First check your workflow model look similar to this

The click on the test button to test your workflow, first time you do this you will be asked for an Abbr. and Name. Just enter what you want here and press ok. Next it will ask for package and transport details, simply fill in as usual. 

Step 12 – Executing the workflow 

Double Click on the BUS1001006 entry and you will be presented with an input field at below. This is the import parameter you turned on in the container properties. Simply use the input help for the field and enter a material number. 

Now when you press the execute button the SAP display material transaction should be displayed for selected material.