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ChaRM: Approval Settings - Email Functionality in Change Request

Vivek_Hegde
Active Contributor
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Fellow Members,

Would the settings under "Approval Settings" sufficient to receive the email notofocation for Approval Procedure? I performed the activities and what I see is workflow/email coming to my SAP Inbox (So01 txn code) but not to my email inbox (outlook). When I see in SCOT, no email is generated for Approval workflow. What could be the reason behind it? Any inputs are appreciated.

Regards,

Vivek

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

raquel_pereiradacunha
Active Contributor
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Hi Vivek,

  I understand you have set up the steps of "Make workflow settings for Request for Change approval" correct? Is the business partner who needs to receive the email assigned to role Employee with the user id filled? Does this user id have the correct e-mail address in SU01 with communication method "E-mail"?

Regards,

Raquel

Former Member
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Hi Raquel,

As mentioned by you settings are already maintained. SOST is also working fine if we send mail manually. Only issue is during CHARM workflow.

Kindly advice.

Thanks,

Pankaj

Vivek_Hegde
Active Contributor
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Hi Raquel,

Thanks, Exactly, I have set up the steps of "Make workflow settings for Request for Change approval". The BP are of type Employee with proper Email Id maintained in SU01.

So doea that mean if I perform all the activities under "Approval Settings", should I be receiving emails without any further configuration?  Is my assumption correct? or am I missing something here? Pls advice.

Regards,

Vivek

Former Member
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Hi Vivek,

Any luck for outllok mails??

Thanks,

Pankaj

Former Member
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Hi Vivek,

I got the solution. Actually you have to define new action definition for SMCR Action Profile in SPPFCADM. For that new action defined you have to set the condition. Like once SMCR Request is created by requestor, It should trigger mail to Change Manager for approval.

Plz go through this link and Replace SDCR with SMCR transaction type.


http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/d06db8e2-5036-2c10-1a97-dee1364fc...

Thanks

Pankaj

raquel_pereiradacunha
Active Contributor
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Hi Pankaj,

If you use PPF action to send e-mail, it will work fine but only depending on the status of the whole RfC document, which means the first Change Manager ( the one you defined in the partner dependent field in the action) will receive e-mail when status is set to "to be approved" ( this is the default functionality, no need to set up workflow) but if we have 2 or more steps ( 2 or more approvers) the next approver will not be informed by e-mail when the preceding approver approves the RfC. And the email sent will not have the same contents as the SO01 message, neither will be triggered by the Workflow. I understood this is what Vivek needs. Am I correct Vivek?

As far as I could see, the standard settings only send messages to the Workplace.

Best regards,

Raquel

vervinckt_joyca
Active Contributor
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Hi Vivek,

I have also activated the Workflow CRM_RFC_APRV and was wondering about this "E-Mail to Approvers" step.

First of al, thanks for mentioning that these do appear in SO01.

Then about the actual emails to outlook:

So far, I found out that there is an action in the action profile: SMCR_IT_RFC_CREATE_EMAIL_DOC, which has a setting "Processing Using Selection Report" (most of the time, this is set to "Processing when saving document").

This action has no scheduling or start conditions, but is somehow only triggerd at the start of the approval procedure.

The selection report which is responsible for actually executing the action, is found under transaction CRMC_ACTION_JOB. There you can execute the SMCR_IT_RFC_CREATE_EMAIL_DOC action.

This action will send an email to all the approvers in the approval procedure.

However, this email is very very limited, it only sais:

subject: 8200000089:short description

content: You are one of the partners of this service request. Please keep it updated.

Also, the action creates all emails to all approvers immediately. So if you have a sequence (first IT manager, then business manager, etc) they will all get their emails at the same time.

So I'm not sure yet what the relationship is between the workflow and this action, but they do seem related.

I hope that this info can help you.

Kind regards,

Joyca

Vivek_Hegde
Active Contributor
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Hi Raquel,

Exactly, you read my mind. I was thinking the same too. Inserting 3 more new status (Change Manager Approved, CAB Approved , GMP Approved...etc) just for the sake of receiving an email via PPF action/status is not a viable solution. This is an option and should not be the ONLY option. The ideal scenario is all the parties involved in approving a CR being notified sequentially while the CR is in the status "To Be Approved".

If this is not present in the standard configuration of ChaRM (as of SP08) then it is a considerable Limitation that I request somebody from SAP Development side should take a look on.

It would have been a  great feature in ChaRM if they had something like above in place. This definitely goes to my 'Wishlist' . Do you agree ?

Best Regards,

Vivek

Vivek_Hegde
Active Contributor
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Hi Joyca,

Thanks, for the highlighting the relatevely unknown txn code to us.

I explored CRMC_ACTION_JOB  txn code to execute SMCR_IT_RFC_CREATE_EMAIL_DOC action. As you mentioned it sends a mail with very limited subject and short description. Is therer any ways in which we customize this action to suit our requirement of recieving emails when the CR is in status "To be Approved".?

The idea is to trigger this action when CR is in status "To be Approved" and all the parties marked as approver for CR receiving emails. I tried scheduling this as a Batch Job but could not reach anywhere.

Regards,

Vivek

vervinckt_joyca
Active Contributor
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Hi Vivek,

I believe that you could change (in a copied version) the action SMCR_IT_RFC_CREATE_EMAIL_DOC to "Processing when saving document" instead of "Processing Using Selection Report", then you don't need to go to the CRMC_ACTION_JOB transaction or create a batch job for it.

Otherwise, I found this discussion about scheduling a batch job for CRMC_ACTION_JOB:
http://scn.sap.com/thread/1730872

But still, this action does not completely cover our needs. While it does send an email to all approvers, it sends the mail to all approvers immediately, and not one by one (e.g. the email to approver 2 should only be sent after approver 1 has given his approval).

I am also thinking towards a different solution.

I'm just thinking aloud here, I have absolutely no idea how much work the following idea would be for a developer. And as you said before, it would be very welcome if SAP themselves would provide such a functionality.

I picked this up on the actions in ITSM, such as SMIN_STD_MAIL_WATCHLIST and SMIN_STD_MAIL_REPORTER.

The schedule conditions there contain for example &NEW_TEXT_FOUND& = X or &STATUS_CHANGE& = X.

These container values are checked via implementations of BaDI CONTAINER_PPF (SE18). In there, there is some code, for example for the check for status change, it goes reading the current status from the buffer, and the previous status from the database, and compares those two.

I do think it would be possible for a developer to write a new implementation with some code that checks if, for example, approval step 1 has already been approved.

Kind regards,

Joyca

Former Member
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This message was moderated.

Vivek_Hegde
Active Contributor
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Hi Pankaj,

Kindly open a new thread, so that we don't deviate from our original message.

Thanks for understanding.

Regards,

Vivek

Vivek_Hegde
Active Contributor
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Hi,

Making use of schedule conditions &NEW_TEXT_FOUND& = X or &STATUS_CHANGE& = X seems to be a good option to begin with.
Condition STATUS_CHANGE = X may not yield the desired result since we want the CR to be in "To be Approved" status itself throughout the approval process.


I am just wondering whether NEW_TEXT_FOUND =X would recognize the "Activity" field under Approval Procedure to arrive at a trigger.

This is my just thought or wishful thinkg? May be.


Regards,
Vivek

vervinckt_joyca
Active Contributor
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Hi Vivek,

I thought about using &NEW_TEXT_FOUND&, but this only seems useful in a two-step approval procedure.

When Approver1 sets his approval, a new text does appear in the Texts block, indicating which user has approved step 1 at which time, so that could work as a trigger for the mail to approver2. But then there's nothing unique to trigger on to approver3.

Plus, I haven't tested anything yet, but I saw this in the code for NEW_TEXT_FOUND:

Now, I'm quite bad at reading ABAP but the comment seems to indicate that this won't work on other actions, only on the action to send a mail to the watchlist... but I'm not sure.

I'm even starting to doubt if STATUS_CHANGE will work outside of ITSM, because it refers somewhere to "BUS2000223" which is a business transaction category that is present on SMIN but not on SMCR... Also NEW_TEXT_FOUND refers to it.

I will probably test some of these things when I have some more time.

Kind regards,

Joyca

raquel_pereiradacunha
Active Contributor
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Hi Vivek,

I found out the reason why the e-mails are not sent to the external e-mail address.

Go to transaction SO16. In tab "Mail sy.grp" set the field "Send to the home address of the user".

Then in tab "Addressing" refresh the buffer with "Reset buffer".

Ensure that the users have the e-mail address in their data, with communication type "E-mail".

E-mail in my inbox:

Now the e-mails will work for the approvers.

Best regards,

Raquel

Vivek_Hegde
Active Contributor
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Hi Raquel,

Thanks for the suggestion.

I maintained the settings as adviced, but unfortunately, I don't see approval mails in my inbox. Also in SCOT, there are no new emails generated in SMTP node. Am I missing anything here? Have you done any additional configuration to get emails?

Regards,

Vivek

raquel_pereiradacunha
Active Contributor
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Hi Vivek,

I followed the steps of the IMG activity, filled in the user e-mail address in SU01 and in the business partner, set Employee role, and then changed SO16. Nothing else. When I changed SO16, the emails were shown in SCOT and SOST, and not in SO01.

Have you reset the buffer? Communication type is "E-mail" in SU01 and BP?

Can you show me the details of the task 0020 E-mail Approvers in the Workflow?

Regards,

Raquel

Vivek_Hegde
Active Contributor
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Hi Raquel,

Here are my setting and screenshots so far:

1. Maintained the email in SU01 for user CHARMAPPR

2) Set Employee role in BP and verify email address data

3) SO16 make the changes

CRM_RFC_APRV Settings

But I am still getting the emails in SO01 only !! not in mailbox

So wondering what might have changed in my system Appreciate any inputs.

Regards,

Vivek

raquel_pereiradacunha
Active Contributor
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Hi Vivek,

the only difference I see is a flag in SO16:

In your SO01 screenshot, you are showing the workflow activities, not the e-mails. Are you sure you are still receiving that messages in SO01? Have you checked SOST to see if the external e-mails are waiting to be sent?

Look at my SO01 when I was still receiving e-mails there. These e-mails are below Documents, and the workflow task to be executed is below Workflow. In my example you don't see the task because it was already executed.

This e-mail is not shown anymore in SO01, only in my inbox.

This is my SOST:

regards,

Raquel

Vivek_Hegde
Active Contributor
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Hi Raquel,

Thanks, it worked!

I unchecked those boxes in SO16 same as your screenshot and Voila ! emails are now coming to my outlook inbox as well as in SOST outbound queue.  One small doubt, my email sender is user WF-BATCH and, in your screenshot it is Workflow System. Are they same or you have a SU01 user known as Workflow System to send emails?

Thanks so much for your help ! much appreciated

Regards,

Vivek

raquel_pereiradacunha
Active Contributor
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Hi Vivek,

I am glad it worked! I was wondering why it works for me and not for you. I was going to start asking about SCOT configurations..

WF-BATCH is named Workflow System . It's the same user as yours.

Regards,

Raquel

Former Member
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Hi Vivek,

I have tried exactly above steps and I do not see any email generated even in so01 am I missing anything other than steps what you mentioned above.

Thanks

Sateesh.

Answers (5)

Answers (5)

Former Member
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Hi Vivek,

Please make sure your email address is maintained in your business partner in BP transaction.

Regards,

Prasad

Former Member
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Yes done already

Former Member
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I will check whether workflow is active using SWU3

Former Member
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Hi  Vivek:

We thought at certain point, we could change in CRMC_ACTION_CONF our action definition.  Below you will see.  We basically added or created a 2nd entries for smart forms, and in the second one we placed the CAB e-mail address, as in principle, CAB is always the same over here.  However, when the action is executed, only one e-mail is sent and the other smart form seems to be never processed.     ,

The other one was left untouched as that is the one that the action itself populates with the e-mail address of the person to notify.

We played a lot with the options in CRMC_ACTION_DEF with the Action Determination and Action Merging, but no entries there forced the processing of the second smart form.

Maybe somebody has an idea about forcing the action to process a 2nd and 3rd sapforms.  Maybe Joyca or Raquel have anything to add.     Excellent Dan's option, but I want to see if there is a possibility of not doing any development, still.

Finally, I have a question for you Vivek:   In your original message, you have 3 approvers:  IT Manager, Business Manager and cGMP Team.  I guess the first 2 are standard BPs, also employees.   What about the 3rd one?  We have our CAB team as a BP group, which we created as BP Organization type, but since it is not employee, never receives e-mails, even if we place an e-mail address in the BP address tab.  The e-mail functionality only works when the BP is also an employee. 

Could you tell me what type of BP you are using for cGMPTeam and if you know how to enforce that a BP organization, not employee can also receive e-mails using the configuration mentioned above?

Thanks,

Juan

Former Member
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We want to share the fact that we are able to still use BP type group or organization and send e-mails to them automatically through ChaRM.  That BP is not employee.

We connected the two BPs via External BP Name.  Once that reference exists, we are receiving e-mails using the BP type group or organization in ChaRM.

Mails:

Regards,

Juan

Vivek_Hegde
Active Contributor
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Hi Juan,

Thanks for the update. In our original design we used the BP type Employee for the CGMP Team. It was due to the fact that technically, system expects the Partner Function to be of type Employee in CRM UI screen. We got below error when we maintained BP as a Group.

This is due to Partner Function assignment for CGMP Team field.

Since now you mentioned that we can use BP of type Group in the Approval Process, I am interested to know how we can acheive this too. Were you able to overcome  "Partner XXX is not an Employee" errors in the UI ? How did you do this?

Any inputs would be appreciated.

Regards,

Vivek

Former Member
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Hi Vivek:

I hope to remember all we did.  If I forget something I will add it after.

1.  Our main approver is partner function SDCR0003 (Function Category Service Team).

With these 2 changes, we were able to do the approval part.  That part was not an issue, but we were still missing the capacity of that BP Service Team to receive e-mails and the connection to that was by attaching its BP to an external BP (type employee).  That took us to the next step.

2. Our Org Structure shows we have a OU associated to BP 4000000000.

Vivek, if you want me to attach some other screens to show more details in deep, please let me know. 

Regards,

Juan

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Thanks Juan for your input on multiple email for BP, but I have below doubts-

1. I have generated user name and BP using AI_SDK.. report and end user automatically assign the general role not employee in BP so we are getting Identification tab and assigning all systems from where user can create the incident so how can we map using your below screen.

2. Can we change the BP role to employe for all the users ???

3. We want to use this for multiple support users belongs to OU and notify all the users whenever incident is created and assign to relevant support team.

I have open a separate discussion as well at below link -

http://scn.sap.com/thread/3473428

Saurabh

Former Member
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Hi Saurabh:

Thanks for your questions.

2. Yes, you can.   If your BPs were created as e.g. Person, then you may create an eCATT  (transaction SECATT), to automate the following actions.

2.1 Launch BP and enter the BP # or name assigned to the Person you want to add the BP role Employee.

2.2 You enter in change mode selecting the pencil.

2.3 Select the field Change in BP role's <F4> select option and choose BUP003 Employee from that list.

2.4 Save it and the BP has been assigned the Employee Role.

Note:  Behind the scenes what happens is that an entry is created in table BUT100 where all the BP roles other than the default one, are stored.

3.  With regards to your item #3, I just came back from vacation, but we are actually working on a Workflow Solution that uses Evaluation Paths, which will help retrieving all the employees with an specific relationship in an Organizational Unit, that become in SAP workflow terminology [Approval] Agents.  Those Agents are the employees that are notified about an item or task that needs their attention.  That item or task for us is basically a new phase a SAP change request or Incident has been moved in, for which a team of people are suppose to act upon.  All are informed, but as soon as the 1st of them acts upon the document, the task or item gets removed from all the rest of the notified users' inbox (business workplace), or Web UI Workflow Tasks list.

The solution may not perfectly match your case, but as SAP delivers both SAP SolMan Change Management and Incident Management with a basic Workflow, the addition we are doing may help you to build your own scenarios.

We started publishing our solution.   It includes:  Workflow Template, Tasks, Function Modules, Rule to Extract Agents using Evaluation Path, Bindings, and BRFPlus working altogether.  You can access  it in http://scn.sap.com/community/it-management/alm/solution-manager/blog/2014/01/21/sap-crmsolman-charm-....

BTW, Happy 2014.

Regards,

Juan

Former Member
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Hello Juan,

thanks for your hints, I have appreciated. We have the same requirement>send out mail to more than one person. but no approval workflow. So I customized the BP as you do but only the first one get a mail. Last CAB PM is BP CAB PM  Role BUP003 User:CAB PM and connected in Identification to OU CAB PM first entry, as you show in Display group 4000000 and Display Person RLM. The User CAB PM (BP CAB PM) have the 3 entries for the mail receiver.Can you give an advice?

Thanks in advance

Johannes

Former Member
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Hi Johannes

I think the link that was placed in my last response may give you an idea on how to notify more than one Agent.  We know there are many ways of doing multiple notifications, but we found that using SAP Workflow fulfills any scenario, not because we have explored them all, but because with SAP WF you can basically get yourself into any "home renovation project" you can dream of keeping the foundation intact and free of damages.   

After taking out first baby steps, we do not have to worry that much, any longer.  E-mails or WF tasks are sent to as many Agents as we want.  Our next steps have been fur us to add another challenge to cover more areas of CRM, such as updating Web UI fields in the background, not at the BSP level to deal with the screen objects, but at the table level: Faster and more effective.

Please let me know if the information in the link is sufficient, otherwise if you provide more specific details, we can sit down and see how to make it to work for you.

Regards,

Juan

Former Member
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Hi Vivek,

And what about my blog, as i remeber i already gaved you the link

here im sending to Approval assigment block with 2 scenarios

  1. If parallel approval all partners get email once in the beginning
  2. If sequencial 1st approver gets email, when he approves follow on approver gets and so on.

http://scn.sap.com/community/it-management/alm/solution-manager/blog/2013/05/31/email-to-approvers-i...

I speaked with SAP guys before implementing this, and they said there is no standard.

Regards Dan

Email to Approvers in Approval Assigment Block

prakhar_saxena
Active Contributor
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Hi Vivek,

I have gone through all the replies and trying to figure out what you want to achieve and it seems you want to trigger an email sequentially to all the approvers right?

I don't think currently anything standard is there so you have to design an ABAP workflow to achieve this via ppf action etc.

As far as design goes if you expect this in standard it should also be included in mobile apps but we know good things comes in small packages(SPs)

Regards

Prakhar

Former Member
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Hi,

1. Could you please check that your outlook email address maintained properly in SU01.

2. Also try to send maill from SAP to outlook regular email settings or correct, sometime might be issue with scot config

Please check

Thanks

Jansi

Vivek_Hegde
Active Contributor
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Hi,

Thanks,

I verfied, both email address and SCOT settings are fine. What I do not understand is, in case of approval mails, I do not see any mails in SCOT txn code under SMTP node. That means, email is not getting generated at first place. So how do I find out whether my approval procedure generating any E Mails?

Regards,

Vivek 

Former Member
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Hi Vivek,

Same issue i am facing..I have 2 issues.

a)My change manager is also receiving mails in So01. but he is not receving in his outlook mails.

b)When change manager approves request ,then requestor is not receiving approved mail neither in his So01 inbox nor in outlook mails.

SOST is working fine and i have sent the mails manually.

Kindly advice..

Thanks,

Pankaj

Vivek_Hegde
Active Contributor
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Hi Pankaj,

Let's wait for some expert advice on this. I have a fundamental doubt on whether the IMG activities under "Aproval Settings"  enough or any extra configuration required to recieve emails. Unfortunately, there is no clear documentation exists to clarify this.

Regards,

Vivek

Former Member
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Hello Vivek,

Check your settings in SPPFCADM for conditions configuration if it's triggerd for proper user status.

Actions profile SMCR_ACTIONS or SMHF_ACTIONS.

BR,

SAPFan