Hi,
Workflow is a technical job done by technical workflow consultants and not an SD job.
Workflow is a tool for automating the business process so that the process itself flows smoothly, without bottlenecks and without dead ends. Critical parts of the process can be streamlined with deadline monitoring and contingency options. Participants are informed of milestones in the process. The process definition itself is powerful enough to allow business re-engineering with re-training and to eliminate the impact of workforce changes on the basic business process.
SAP Business Workflow is the R/3 tool for handling the process automation within R/3 or between R/3 systems and other systems involved in the business process. It is flexible enough to handle ad hoc processes such as the circulation of an electronic document. It is robust enough to handle mission critical process in the production system such as the creation of a material master.
The different R/3 applications supply standard workflows for the commonly occurring processes. Once these workflow templates are activated, they are ready for immediate use. A complete set of workflow tools, including the workflow editor and workflow generation wizard, are provided to enhance these standard workflows or create new workflows. These tools are complemented with transactions for monitoring, tracking and the statistical analysis of the processes.
Because the business process often does not step at the R/3 boundary, various interfaces and third party tools are available for extending the process across systems.
Workflow is the technique for automating business processes. It is particularly beneficial
• when different people are involved in different parts of the process
• when a process only occurs sporadically and the users need to be reminded of what they need to do
• when the duration of the process is critical and deadlines have to be met when the process definition is likely to change on the fly and retraining users is not possible.
By automating the process, you free the users from having to know what to do when. Work items are sent to the participants notifying them of what they have to do, and a single click on the notification calls the correct transaction and navigates to the relevant screen.
When the workflow runs it creates work items which are like e-mails, but
• they have the advantage that they contain the intelligence needed to execute the relevant task with the correct data when the operational user executes them,
• they provide their own functionality so that the operational user has access to everything that is useful to improve the flow of the process,
• they disappear on their own when they have been executed by someone else or made obsolete.
These work items can be received in the R/3 business workplace, MS Outlook (or any other MAPI compatible client), Lotus Notes, or work item notifications can be distributed by e-mail.
Regards
Sai
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