Work Flow

[Former Member]

Hi,

What is work Flow

Can you Brief me With example.

thanks in Advance

Regards

Ram

[Former Member]

Hi Venkat Raju

1) Why use SAP Workflow?

SAP Workflow ensures " the right work is brought in the right sequence at the right time to the right people". It is a tool designed to facilitate and automate business processes that require tasks to be performed by people. Ideal for casual or non-SAP users, since all the work items can be performed outside of SAP by simply responding to an email, SAP workflow can be linked to Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes. Each step of a business transaction can be easily monitored and processes are completed from the beginning to the end. Workflow allows process owners to keep an eye on deadlines, provides statistics on the length of time to complete work processes, determine the workload with regard to individual employees and save processing time.

Since Workflow delivers work items to employees automatically via email, they do not have to wait or inquire about the status of a particular transaction. SAP Business Workflow can also be used to respond to errors and exceptions - it can start when predefined events occur. For example, an event can be triggered if particular errors are found during an automatic check of the data SAP workflow is particularly useful when there is a business process involving more than one person, when an automatic notification can replace a manual communication and when there is a defined set of individuals and/or documents implicated. It organizes one's work, alerts users and directs traffic by sending work items - once the user executes the work item, then another one can be sent to another user. For example, a Manager could use workflow to approve a vacation request from an employee. The workflow application would ensure that each person involved uses the correct online form and successfully completes their step before the planned leave was entered into SAP - either by an Administrator or automatically. By the same token, if someone registers for a training class, Workflow can act as an alert tool by notifying the supervisor in question or reminding the individual of an upcoming class.

Before implementing SAP Business Workflow, organizations should start by asking a series of questions, such as: - Which HR processes do we want to automate? - To what extent can we change current procedures and pass them over to electronic control? - What steps are these procedures made up of? - Who are the individuals involved and what are their roles? - How do we get the Workitem to go to the right people?

Even though Workflow can be implemented via user-defined tables without the Organizational Management component in place, having a pre-defined organizational structure adds tremendous value and saves time. A clear reporting structure made up of positions and position holders that is maintained by the HR department, ensures the ongoing ease-of-maintenance effort. The ability of HR personnel to add and delete users from positions as people come and go, without affecting your core workflows, is a tremendous long-term benefit. If you have Personnel Administration in place, employee's email addresses can also be maintained by the HR department in addition to employee's respective Time/HR and Payroll administrators who might be involved in the Workflow.

There are basically three options for connecting workflow to external email: Microsoft Outlook/Exchange, Lotus Notes or SAP Connect and Internet Mail. A key factor in SAP R/3 4.6 implementations and upgrades will be the use of a Web browser as the main workflow interface.

2) Benefits of SAP Workflow ?

Although the advantages gained by using workflow are not of financial nature, the time saved by optimizing processes could easily be translated into money. - The quality of your processes will be assured by sending relevant information directly to the user. Managers don't have the time to search for information. For example if an employee obtains a qualification as a result of hard work or training, their Managers can be notified immediately. - Cycle time is reduced by providing all the necessary information needed: people can check their list of pending tasks and determine which tasks can be completed the next day without any negative impact. I.e. A Payroll Administrator might be notified immediately of an employee address change via ESS that might implicate taxes. - Workflow allows to monitor deadlines.

It could be used to remind employees of upcoming performance reviews or training or to send payroll year-end tasks items to the relevant Payroll Administrators. Deadline handing ensures that users perform the tasks within the time planned. Escalation measures ensure that the failure to meet a deadline can be corrected by other means. - Users can see at a glance how the process works and who will be selected to perform the different tasks, which creates a transparent work environment. - SAP contains Workflow templates, which can be used as a reference providing more than 200 Workflow samples. - Implementing Workflow will save costs. Ask yourself how much time is spent gathering information, getting hold of people, logging into different systems and trying to understand who to give a task to? How often does this current process fail and how labor intensive is it to fix it? Workflow reduces time and effort spent and the savings in days can be considerable.

3) How does it work?

There are several components of a workflow: Workflow Definition, Work Items, Triggering Events and at the Receiving end the Organizational Structure. The workflow definition is created in the Workflow builder and is made up of the various steps. Each step of the workflow definition can be a task pointing to a SAP transaction or a decision. A decision might contain specifications about agents and deadline monitoring for a step. The workflow is started either manually or by the system at runtime. For the system to start a workflow, the workflow definition must contain a triggering event (for example the event "Address update by the employee"). When the event occurs, the relevant workflow is started automatically. Tasks or Work items describe the activities involved and can refer to automatically executable methods (i.e. send an email to a supervisor) or they might need a user to execute them (i.e. supervisor has to go and click on a button in his workplace to approve something). Tasks refer to business objects, which are ABAP coding. Events are activities that trigger the workflow - one or several workflows at the time. Once the workflow is triggered, the definition flowchart determines when and in what order work happens. Work items are then received and executed in MS Outlook, Lotus Notes, mySAP Workflow MiniApp or the SAP integrated inbox. Alternatively, the workflow system can transmit e-mail notifications directly to any mail system, informing the user of the need to log in to the SAP system to execute the task. A work item is always assigned to one or more users. Once the task is executed, the work item vanishes from the other users' inboxes.

4) Integration to Email systems ?

Usually executable work items are received in the Workflow inbox. But casual SAP users, especially Managers might forget to check their inbox at a regular basis and so it makes sense to set up reminder emails, informing people via a batch job that they have work items in their inbox. Alternatively, an email can be sent directly to their Lotus Notes / Outlook account with a hotlink to the Workflow inbox. All emails, whether they exists in the form of Workflow notifications, Workflow Workitems, or just a standard SAP Office memo, are sent out of SAP through SAPConnect. This provides the all in one gateway between SAP and the mail server. The transport of workflow items between SAPConnect and the mail server (whether that's Lotus Notes or Microsoft Outlook) has been facilitated by SAP provided add-ons that are fully optimized for the different protocols required for each server. Lotus Notes, for example, uses a 'pipe' called the MTA, or Message Transfer Agent. This was designed jointly between SAP and Lotus to provide full integration between the two systems.

It should be noted that the type of transport medium used is dependent on the mail server and not the mail client. In other words, if the employee uses Outlook on their computer but the mail server is a Lotus Domino server, the MTA would be the mail gateway used. Each workflow background user must have an email address stored in their user profile. It is note worthy that no approval or reply notification will be allowed from an external mail system - in other words external email systems cannot respond back to SAP for security reasons.

Looking ahead…

Workflow is becoming more and more web-oriented which allows external business partners to receive notifications. Companies can adopt Workflow together with "Webflow" where workflows can be initiated via Internet transactions and where different external business partners can receive notifications sent by the workflow. The Web inbox offers access to partner companies logging on to your Web portal and it refreshes itself automatically. Any type of work item can be executed directly from a centralized list of work items, no matter what graphical user interface is needed to run it. Webflow is particularly useful when a company deals with outside partners using different software platforms.

Workflows can make an ERP system more efficient by automating 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. It is essential that the Workflow consultant is an expert in ABAP development or has access to ABAP programmers since a good deal of the work is technical. You will also need someone familiar with Lotus Notes / Outlook concepts and development in order to create the interfaces between the systems. The Workflow consultant should also have experience in installing and integrating efficient electronic archive systems.

WORKFLOW IN R3 4.6 AND mySAP ECC

The following is an extract from table HRP1000

WS00000016 AL-EARLYINP ArchiveLink - EarlyInput

WS00000023 AM_SUBWF FI-AA subflow for error handling

WS00000024 AM_WF_1 FI-AA mass change/retir. w/o rev.type 1

WS00000025 AM_WF_1_ERL FI-AA retirement with revenue dist.type1

WS00000026 AM_WF_ALL FI-AA mass change/retir. w/o rev.type 2

WS00000033 exmpformabs Workflow template: Notif. of absence

WS00000038 wf_req_rel Workflow for purch.req. release

WS00200025 WF Test1 WF test flow with one step

WS00200028 WF Test2 TestWF with parallelism and recursion

WS00200034 Pool Applicant pool

WS00200035 Contract Offer of contract of employment

WS00200036 Interview Interview Applicant

WS00200038 Applicant Applicant processing

WS00200061 Processing Process quality notification

WS00200062 Close Close quality notification

WS00200063 Complete Complete task

WS00200065 Process Process PM notification

WS00200066 Assign plan Assign plan

WS00200067 Release lot Release inspection lot for inspection

WS00200068 Confirm cert Confirm receipt of certificate

WS00200069 Inv.postings Perform missing inv.postings for lot

WS00200070 L-tInspCompl Long-term inspection completion

WS00200071 Usage dec. Make usage decision

WS00200072 Res.L-tChar. Results recording long-term inspection

WS00200073 Selection Applicant selection

WS00200075 Close Close PM notification

WS00200081 Processing Process error records

WS00200085 In process Process quality notification

WS00200095 In_process PM notification in process

WS00200096 Process Process service notification

WS00200097 Complete Complete task

WS00200098 Close Close service notification

WS00200099 In_process Service notification in process

WS00400002 ECO Doc Flow Demo ECM Object equal Document

WS00400004 FIPP_COMPL FIPP_COMPL

WS00400005 WFMC_CUSTOM1 WFMC: Customizing Message Control

WS00400006 WFMC_CUSTOM2 WFMC: Customizing output type

WS00400011 BSEG_SUBWF01 Release for payment single-stage

WS00400012 BSEG_FRAME1 Release for payment (frame)

WS00400014 WFMC_CUSTOM3 WFMC: Maintain access seq. and cond.tab.

WS00400019 CreateLetter Create + send letter

WS00400020 CreateLetter Create letter

WS00400021 BSEG_SUBWF02 Release for payment two-stage

WS00400022 BSEG_SUBWF03 Release for payment three-stage

WS00400024 AppEvtCreatr Event Creator 'Vacancy assigned'

WS00400025 PrepareHire Prepare hiring

WS00400026 MMIVquantity Handling invoice locked due to quantity

WS00400027 MMIVprice Handling invoice locked due to price

WS00400032 FIPP_FRAME_2 Preliminary posting (frame), sequential

WS00600011 ECM flow Engineering Change Master

WS10000050 crte_contrct Create contract

WS10000051 FIPP_FRAME Preliminary_Posting (Frame)

WS10000052 FIPP_SUBWF01 Release amount workflow single-stage

WS10000054 FIPP_SUBWF03 Release amount workflow three-stage

WS10000056 AL-EARLYINP ArchiveLink - EarlyInput

WS20000006 FIPP_SUBWF05 Release amount workflow empty

WS30000015 AF_process Process notification of absence

WS00000016 AL-EARLYINP ArchiveLink - EarlyInput

WS00000023 AM_SUBWF FI-AA subflow for error handling

WS00000024 AM_WF_1 FI-AA mass change/retir. w/o rev.type 1

WS00000025 AM_WF_1_ERL FI-AA retirement with revenue dist.type1

WS00000026 AM_WF_ALL FI-AA mass change/retir. w/o rev.type 2

WS00000027 AM_WF_2_ERL FI-AA retirement with revenue dist.type2

WS00000033 exmpformabs Workflow template: Notif. of absence

WS00000038 wf_req_rel Workflow for purch.req. release

WS00000039 ECM flow Engineering change master (template)

WS00000042 ECO flow Demo ECM object unequal BOM

WS00000044 ECO BOM flow Demo ECM bill of material

WS00200025 WF Test1 WF test flow with one step

WS00200028 WF Test2 TestWF with parallelism and recursion

WS00200034 Pool Applicant pool

WS00200035 Contract Offer of contract of employment

WS00200036 Interview Interview applicant

WS00200037 Selection Applicant selection

WS00200038 Applicant Applicant processing

WS00200061 Processing Process quality notification

WS00200062 Close Close quality notification

WS00200063 Complete Complete task

WS00200065 Process Process PM notification

WS00200066 Assign plan Assign plan

WS00200067 Release lot Release inspection lot for inspection

WS00200068 Confirm cert Confirm receipt of certificate

WS00200069 Inv.postings Make missing inventory postings for lot

WS00200070 L-tInspCompl Long-term inspection completion

WS00200071 Usage dec. Make usage decision

WS00200072 Res.l-t.ins. Record results of long-term inspection

WS00200073 Selection Applicant selection

WS00200074 Complete Complete task

WS00200075 Close Close PM notification

WS00200081 Processing Process error records

WS00200085 In process Process quality notification

WS00200095 In_process PM notification in process

WS00200096 Process Process service notification

WS00200097 Complete Complete task

WS00200098 Close Close service notification

WS00200099 In_process Service notification in process

WS00400002 ECO flow Demo ECM Object equal Document

WS10000021 AL-EARLYINP ArchiveLink - EarlyInput

WS10000044 exmpformabs Example workflow: Notif. of absence

WS10000048 send_mail Send mail

WS10000049 CRTE_CONTACT Create contact

WS10000050 crte_contrct Create contract

WS10000051 FIPP_FRAME Preliminary posting (framework)

WS10000052 FIPP_SUBWF01 Release amount workflow single-stage

WS10000053 FIPP_SUBWF02 Release amount workflow two-stage

WS10000054 FIPP_SUBWF03 Release amount workflow three-stage

WS10000055 FIPP_SUBWF04 Full release workflow

WS10000056 AL-EARLYINP ArchiveLink - EarlyInput

WS20000001 Selection Applicant selection

WS20000006 FIPP_SUBWF05 Betragsfreigabeworkflow leer

WS00000023 AM_SUBWF FI-AA subflow for error handling

WS00000024 AM_WF_1 FI-AA mass change/retir. w/o rev.type 1

WS00000025 AM_WF_1_ERL FI-AA retirement with revenue dist.type1

WS00000026 AM_WF_ALL FI-AA mass change/retir. w/o rev.type 2

WS00000027 AM_WF_2_ERL AM Standard mit Erlös (Typ 2)

WS00000033 exmpformabs Workflow template: Notif. of absence

WS00000038 wf_req_rel Workflow for purch.req. release

WS00000039 ECM flow Engineering change master (template)

WS00000042 ECO flow Demo ECM object unequal BOM

WS00000044 ECO BOM flow Demo ECM bill of material

WS00200028 WF Test2 TestWF with parallelism and recursion

WS00200034 Pool Applicant pool

WS00200034 Pool Applicant pool

WS00200034 Pool Applicant pool

WS00200035 Contract Offer of contract of employment

WS00200035 Contract Offer of Contract

WS00200035 Contract Offer of Contract

WS00200036 Interview Interview Applicant

WS00200036 Interview Interview Applicant

WS00200037 Selection Applicant selection

WS00200038 Applicant Applicant processing

WS00200061 Processing Process quality notification

WS00200062 Close Close quality notification

WS00200063 Complete Complete task

WS00200065 Process Process PM notification

WS00200066 Assign plan Assign plan

WS00200067 Release lot Release inspection lot for inspection

WS00200068 Confirm cert Confirm receipt of certificate

WS00200069 Inv.postings Perform missing inv.postings for lot

WS00200070 L-tInspCompl Long-term inspection completion

WS00200071 Usage dec. Make usage decision

WS00200072 Res.L-T.ins. Record results of long-term inspection

WS00200073 Selection Applicant selection

WS00200073 Selection Selection procedure

WS00200073 Selection Applicant selection

WS00200074 Complete Complete task

WS00200075 Close Close PM notification

WS00200081 Processing Process error records

WS00200085 In process Process quality notification

WS00200095 In_process PM notification in process

WS00200096 Process Process service notification

WS00200097 Complete Complete task

WS00200098 Close Close service notification

WS00200099 InProcess Service notification in process

WS00400002 ECO Doc Flow Demo ECM Object equal Document

WS00400004 FIPP_COMPL FIPP_COMPL

WS00400005 WFMC_CUSTOM1 WFMC: Customizing Message Control

WS00400006 WFMC_CUSTOM2 WFMC: Customizing message type

WS00400011 BSEG_SUBWF01 Release for payment single-stage

WS00400012 BSEG_FRAME1 Release for payment (frame)

WS00400014 WFMC_CUSTOM3 WFMC: Maintain access seq. and cond.tab.

WS00400019 CreateLetter Create + send letter

WS00400020 CreateLetter Create letter

WS00400021 BSEG_SUBWF02 Release for payment two-stage

WS00400024 AppEvtCreatr Event Creator 'Vacancy assigned'

WS00400025 PrepareHire Prepare hiring

WS00400026 MMIVquantity Handling invoice locked due to quantity

WS00400027 MMIVprice Handling invoice locked due to price

WS00600011 ECM flow Engineering Change Master

WS10000021 AL-EARLYINP ArchiveLink - EarlyInput

WS10000048 send_mail Send mail

WS10000049 CRTE_CONTACT Create contact

WS10000050 crte_contrct Create contract

WS10000051 FIPP_FRAME Preliminary_Posting (Frame)

WS10000052 FIPP_SUBWF01 Release amount workflow single-stage

WS10000053 FIPP_SUBWF02 Release amount workflow two-stage

WS10000054 FIPP_SUBWF03 Release amount workflow three-stage

WS10000055 FIPP_SUBWF04 Acct assignment approval workflow

WS10000056 AL-EARLYINP ArchiveLink - EarlyInput

WS20000006 FIPP_SUBWF05 Release amount workflow empty

WS30000015 AF_process Process notification of absence

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Message was edited by:

narendran vajravelu

[Former Member]

Narendran has illegally copied material from my firm's web site at URL http://www.insightcp.com/res_23.htm. This is copyrighted material, and it is illegal to copy and post it here. Please remove it as soon as possible.

[Lakshmipathi]

<b>[1] How do I convince my company to use workflow?</b>

Feedback from user groups emphasizes that although the competitive advantage gained by using workflow eclipses the financial savings, it is the financial savings that are the deciding factor when obtaining support from senior management. Projects getting the blessing at the CEO level are much easier to manage, and far more likely to reach their goal within the project time frame.

So plan well, and don't neglect the business case.

Because the following questions deal with the financial case in more detail, this section will finish by listing the competitive

advantages.

The quality of the process is assured by pushing the relevant information together with links to related transactions

directly to the user. Managers don't have the time to search for information so give them what they need to reach the correct

decision.

Cycle time is reduced by pushing the process directly to the users. The users receive notification of a task immediately

and can even be prioritized by the system.

The tasks are performed consistently and diligently by the users. The workflow system pushes all the necessary

information needed to perform a task, including a clear description of what has to be done, how to do it and the impact this

task has on the business process for your company. At any time, the user can check the list of tasks pending and

determine at a glance which are the important tasks, and which tasks can be completed the next day without any negative

impact.

The process instance is transparent. Any user can check at any time how far the process has progressed and which

stage the process has reached. For example the call center can immediately see the status of a purchase order, an

employee requisitioning a purchase would see at a glance if a colleague has been sitting on it for too long, the ad hoc notes

made when approving an engineering change request are visible long after the request has gone into production.

The process is flexible, allowing it to be changed on the fly without retraining everyone involved. The description

accompanying the change takes care of on-the-fly process improvements.

Deadline handing ensures that users perform the tasks within the time planned. Escalation measures ensure that the

failure to meet a deadline can be corrected by other means.

Intelligent reporting highlights the weaknesses of a process. Often there is a simple cure to such weaknesses such as

reeducating the users involved in the bottleneck or providing additional information (automatically). The difficulty of a

non-automated process is identifying such bottlenecks.

The process definition is transparent. You can see at a glance how the process works and who will be selected to

perform the different tasks. Think of the workflow as the process book. If you can spot the pattern and define the process

without headaches, you can create a workflow definition effortlessly. However, don't forget that if a company has business

processes that are erratic and lack a consistent pattern, the company is very likely to be losing a lot of money in terms of

lost contracts, labor intensive administration and low customer confidence. It is my personal opinion that automating exactly

this type of processes will yield the best returns, but only if you limit yourself to automating the basic skeleton of the

process first. Don't get bogged down in the detailed exception handling. That can be done in the next phase once you've

checked the process statistics and determined which exceptions are worth tackling.

As with most software the reasons for automating business processes are primarily to increase the competitive edge of your

company and to cut costs. Although the increase in competitively gained by radically reducing process times is by far the most

insignificant gain from workflow, you should not ignore the cost savings. The cost saving calculations are needed by upper

management in order to approve workflow projects. This upper management signature will be very useful in different phases of

the project and cannot be underestimated.

<b>[2] How do I calculate the cost saved by workflow?</b>

Calculate the cost of the manual process in terms of man hours. Don't neglect the time spent gathering information. Ask the

following questions:

Is the user forced to log into different systems, or scan through printed documentation....?

Does a skilled user spend time on parts of a task, where less skilled (less expensive) user could do the groundwork? I.e.

Can a single task be split into skilled and unskilled tasks to free the skilled worker for work where his/her skills are really

needed?

Is time spent researching the progress of a process (usually done by someone not involved in the process directly)?

Is time spent determining who to give the task to next?

Probably the most significant cost will the be the cost of failure?

How often does the process fail?

What is the real cost of failure? Loss of a contract? Loss of a customer? Law suit?

If the failure can be rectified, how labor intensive is it?

<b>[3] What are typical costs saved by workflow?</b>

A manually processed accounts payable invoice will cost about 25 USD. After workflow enabling about 15 USD (one example based on customer feedback from a user group meeting).

<b>[4] What are typical reductions in processing time caused by workflow?</b>

A traditional paper based approval process involving three people will typically take seven days to complete. The automated

process will take one day (results based on customer feedback).

<b>[5] What do customers say are the strengths of SAP WebFlow</b>?

WebFlow is the internet functionality of SAP Business Workflow. Based on customer feedback from the various regional users groups, the main strengths of SAP Business Workflow are:

Robust production workflow system, (upgrade continuity with the rest of the SAP system, versioning, scalability, no

gluing....)

Standard workflow templates delivered by SAP can be used out-of-the-box or tweaked to deliver the optimum business

process for your company. Workflows can be up and running including training in under a day (thanks to the

knowledgeware delivered as part of the template packet).

Seamlessly integrated into the SAP environment, be it R/3, Business to Business Procurement, CRM, APO,

mySAP.com.... Examples of integration are:

Business Reporting (WIS),

Context sensitive availability at any time through the system menu (available anytime, anywhere)

More and more standard SAP functionality is being provided by using SAP Business Workflow so your homegrown

workflows fit the landscape exactly,

More and more workflow functionality is available directly within the SAP transaction or Web MiniApp.

WebFlow is becoming more and more important because companies are no longer being judged by their own performance but by the combined performance of the company AND its partners. In other words it is not enough that the business processes within your company run smoothly and faster than your competitors. You have to ensure that the processes between you and your partners are also as fast, efficient and flexible as possible. WebFlow delivers this.

<b>[6] How are users notified about their work pending?</b>

The users are informed by a work item which you may think of as being very like an e-mail. The difference is the work item

contains intelligence and by executing the work item you will be taken to the form or SAP transaction that makes up the step in the workflow. This form or transaction could be a decision, a request for information or a request for confirmation that a particular task has been performed.

The work item is usually accompanied by a description of what has to be done, where to refer to when assistance is needed

(help desk, intranet...) and a summary of information about the business object or process which enables the operator to attack the task immediately.

This work item can be received and executed in MS Outlook, Lotus Notes, mySAP Workflow MiniApp or the SAP integrated inbox. If this is not enough, the workflow system can transmit e-mail notifications directly to any mail system, informing the user of the need to log in to the SAP system to execute the task. The e-mail notification is done on a subscription basis so that users can de-subscribe from this service if they already check their work item inbox regularly.

<b>[7] What is workflow reporting is available and is it useful?</b>

Standard workflow reports exist which allow the administrator to check statistics such as the frequency and average

duration of the workflow processes. However the real strength of the workflow reporting is that it allows reports to be configured which analyze the process statistics in combination with the data involved within the workflow process and

the organizational units associated with the process. For example you can determine the average time invested in a

failed contract renewal request, the time taken to create material masters in different plants or the frequency of rejected purchase requisitions on a department to department basis. Often, big reductions in cost or cycle time can be obtained without touching the workflow definitions.

Re-educating a particular group of users or incorporating supplementary information in a work item description can often cause dramatic improvements on the cycle times of particularly critical subsets of the process. It is not unusual that this

may have a big impact on specific products, plants or organizational units. This will show up in the WebFlow reporting in

LIS or the Business Warehouse but it might not show up in traditional statistical workflow reporting. Even though the

average time does not change significantly, the impact on costs and profit can be dramatic.

<b>[8] How do I choose who to distribute the tasks to?</b>

A work item is assigned to one or more users. Whoever reserves or executes the task first wins and the work item vanishes

from the other users' inboxes. This eliminates the need to assign the user to one single user. I.e. No need for complicated

algorithms to determine which single user will receive the work item and no need to worry about what will happen when one user is ill for the week (also taken care of by sophisticated substitution mechanisms which can be linked to the SAP organizational model).

Tasks can be assigned to an organizational unit but the strength of the workflow system is to enable business rules which

select users according to the data being processed. For example, you might have one group of users associated with one

quality notification type. The workflow can be configured to query the QM module directly to determine the users. You can define fallbacks using the default role associated with a task and allow agents to be specified on the fly by a supervisor.

Tasks can be assigned to office distribution lists which is useful when you want your users to subscribe or unsubscribe to a

particular task. A typical use of this would be where you have a work rote or want to reduce user maintenance to an absolute minimum. The users subscribe or unsubscribe by joining or leaving an office distribution list (one mouse click).

<b>[9] What happens when a deadline is missed?</b>

This depends on your workflow definition. In the simplest case an e-mail is sent to another user by the system (typically your

supervisor so watch out!). However in more sophisticated scenarios a missed deadline can redirect that path that the workflow takes. One customer uses deadlines to automatically make an approval if the deadline is missed (at about the eighth approval level!!!). This gives the user the chance to make rejections but does not force him/her to go into the

system to approve the other 99.9% of the requests. In safety critical environments the workflow might trigger off

preventative action when a deadline is missed or might put other processes on hold. There is no limit as to how you

can use this functionality.

<b>[10] What deadlines can be monitored?</b>

Many different types of deadlines can monitored. At the single workflow step level you can define deadlines which trigger when the work item has not completed within a certain time and other deadlines when no one starts working on the

work item within a given time. You can specify the task deadline statically (e.g. 1 week) or dynamically (e.g. 1 week for material type A and 2 weeks for all the other materials). The offset can be related to the step (e.g. you have 1 week to complete this step) or related to the process (e.g. complete within 2 weeks of the complete process starting, irrespective of how long your colleagues have hogged the previous steps).

Last but not least, deadlines can be set for sub-processes, which is often more important than the deadline of a single

step in a workflow.

<b>[11] How can I check the status of a workflow?</b>

This is one of the very cool features of SAP Business Workflow. You can usually navigate directly from the business

object to check the workflow progress. For example, while viewing a purchase order you can select "workflow" from

the system menu or toolbar and you will see a list of workflows related to the purchase order. Usually just one, but if you have created a few of your own and these have been triggered you will see the status of these too. And that is not all. You also see a simplified summary of all the steps that have taken place so far including who performed them, when they were executed and which ad hoc notes were attached.

<b>[12] How are workflows triggered?</b>

Workflows can be triggered automatically by changes in the system or manually by an operator. Manually triggered workflows are good for processes that remedy a problem the operator has noticed or for dealing with a forms-based requests (E.g. my PC won't boot). Automatically triggered workflows are useful because the operator does not even

have to be aware of the workflow's existence to trigger it. In addition to triggers embedded in transactions there are also generic triggering mechanisms such as a change in the status of a business object or a change in the HR data. Irrespective

of how the workflow is triggered, it is linked to the business object as described in the previous answer and can be tracked easily. Because WebFlow is part of the basis system, this triggering is reliable and easy to implement.

Workflows may be triggered by events but this is not essential. The event-handling makes it easy to trigger workflows from

transactions and system changes without you having to make modifications. If you are creating your own report or transaction

which triggers a workflow, avoid events and trigger the workflow directly with the WAPI function call. This is particularly important when triggering a workflow from outside the SAP system. This method reduces flexibility (the workflow ID is hard-coded) but increases performance if this is an issue (we're talking about 50 000 work items a day here!).

Any exception handling workflows that are intended to be triggered manually can be triggered from the system menu when

viewing the relevant transaction. The SAP system has the intelligence to suggest workflows that can be triggered manually

based on the authorization of the operator and the context that the operator is working in. No additional customizing is needed

here.

<b>[13] What open interfaces are supported?</b>

The most significant interface supported is the Wf-XML standard from the Workflow Management Coalition. This is an

independent organization of which SAP is a funding member, along with most other major workflow vendors. The Wf-XML

interface is based on XML and allows workflows from different vendors to communicate with each other. A detailed description of the interface is available on the WfMCs web site at www.wfmc.org.

<b>[14] What is Wf-XML used for?</b>

Although a company is far better off workflow enabling their system with SAP WebFlow when SAP software is used anywhere within the process, a collaborative process can take place between partners using different software platforms employing different workflow systems. To support SAP customers in this situation, WebFlow offers the open interface Wf-XML. This allows Business Processes enabled using different tools to communicate and control each other. Any workflow tool offering this interface can connect up with other tools that also offer this interface.

Wf-XML is the only open interface for supporting interoperability of business processes, independent of what the business

process being integrated.

<b>[15] Where does Wf-XML come from?</b>

Wf-XML comes from the Workflow Management Coalition, an independent body of workflow vendors, customers and higher education establishments.

<b>[16] How does the workflow call procedures from non-SAP systems?</b>

The Actional control broker integrates directly into SAP WebFlow enabling proxy objects to be called directly from the workflow step. When called, the proxy method will make a call to the outside system either as a background task or as a dialogue step.

These proxy objects are generated in the SAP system using a converter which converts the objects interface (DCOM,

CORBA...) to the SAP syntax. A syntax converter also lets developers view any object in any of the participating systems in the developer's preferred language

Thanks

G. Lakshmipathi