topic workflow in Application Development and Automation Discussions

workflow

Former Member — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 11:34:59 GMT

Hi Abapers,

Im not familiar with 'workflow' concept in ABAP. Please provide me some material with implimentation procedure which can answer below queries

What is workflow? Why is it used? How can we impliment it?

Regards,

Prem.

Re: workflow

Former Member — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 11:38:53 GMT

Workflow Process

Phase - 1: Process Phase.

1. Discussion with a user who is currently doing manual workflow.

2. Understanding Manual Flow in the Organization.

3. Collecting the Business Process components (like Sales Order creation, PO changes, etc).

4. Understanding the Ratio and Effort Estimation involved ion the manual flow (total man hours involved, time spent in determining the task assignment etc).

Phase – 2: Implementation Phase

1. Gap Analysis (mapping the business process and the business workflow and maps them into a into a business process model).

2. Type of Workflow (Standard / Circular / Hierarchical).

Task:

i. Single step Task.

ii. Multi-step Task.

3. Analyzing the ways to trigger the workflow.

6 ways of triggering the workflow:

• Using Change Document Object (wizard used – SWU_EWCD).

- Mentioning the table, field and type of event (On Change, On Delete and On

Create) also the triggering condition.

• Using Standard Report Programs

- Triggering events based on BDC (Function Module used – SAP_WAPI_CREATE_EVENT). The inputs required for this funct. Module is Object Type, Object Key, and Event Name.

- User Exit based on Movement types in Material Documents.

• Using Message Types (SWUY – Linking the Message type to the Workflow).

• Using Business Transactions (SWUG).

• Using Status change (BSVW – Linking Object type and event based upon the status).

• Using Logistics Information System (based upon the Exceptions).

4. Identifying the Business Components (Creating subtypes, events, methods, attributes etc).

5. Roles

- Process Consultant: Who analyzes the existing business process suitable for SAP business workflow and maps into a business process model.

- Workflow Developer: Person who implements the workflow based on the business process model and using the workflow definition tools.

- Workflow System Administrator: Who is responsible for the technical maintenance after customization of the workflow.

- Workflow Agent: Who is an end user in the productive workflow.

- Process Controller: Who evaluates the workflow and responsible for suggesting improvements.

6. Container Elements.

• Event Container

• Workflow Container

• Task Container

• Method Container

• Role Container

Phase – 3 Deployment Phase (preparing and customizing)

1. Organizational Assignment (assigning users to position and job).

2. Agent Assignment.

• Selected Agent

• Possible Agent

• Actual Agent

Phase – 4 Operation and Connection

1. Starting the workflow.

2. Ratio and Efficiency in workflow.

Transaction involved in Workflow

DEFINITION TOOLS

PPOC - Organizational Structure creation.

PFAC – Role creation

PFTC – Standard Task Creation

SWDD – Workflow Builder

SCDO – Change document object.

SWEC – Events for Change Document

SWU_EWCD – Event creation Wizard.

SWUY – Wizard for Message link with Workflow

SWETYPV – Event Linkage assignment

BSVW – Event status maintenance

SWUG – Trigger workflow using Transaction

RUNTIME TOOLS

SWLD – Main menu for Workflow

SWF3 – Workflow Wizard

SWUD – Diagnostics tool

SWI1 – Work item analysis

SWI3 – List of Workflows executed today.

SWEL – Event Log

SWIA – Workflow testing without Agent Check.

SWUI – Start a workflow.

SWUS – Start a workflow (Test Environment)

SWU4 – Consistency Check for Standard Task(Ts….).

SWU5 – Consistency Check for Customer Task(T….).

SWU6 – Consistency Check for Workflow Task(WF…).

SWU7 – Consistency Check for Workflow Template(WS…).

SWB_COND – Display start condition.

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Re: workflow

Former Member — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 11:40:41 GMT

Purpose

You use SAP Business Workflow (WebFlow Engine) to define business processes that are not yet mapped in the SAP 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. 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 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 effort. For an overview of these SAP workflows for mySAP Technology see workflow scenarios and the documentation for the application component.

Integration

Business Workflow uses the existing transactions and functions of the SAP System and does not change the functions. You can combine the existing functions of the SAP System to form new business processes with Business Workflow. The workflow system takes over control of the business processes. If you are already using 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.

Business Workflow is also integrated withcross-component Business Process Management (BPM) in Exchange Infrastructure (XI). A workflow can send messages to a business process and, conversely, messages from a business process can be processed in a workflow.

Features

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. These can be saved as workflow configurations.

WebFlow Functions can be used to execute workflows between different companies. All the data required can be sent as XML documents. Business Workflow can also respond to suitable inbound XML documents.

There are several Workflow Wizards to support you in the definition of workflows, with which you can create specific parts of a workflow. You can start the existing Workflow Wizards from the Workflow Builder.

To make the functions of the SAP System available to the workflow, use the business object type. You can define and analyze business object types in the Business Object Builder. The workflow accesses the individual business objects at runtime using the reusable tasks. The Business Workflow Explorer gives you an overview of all existing tasks.

The end user receives information about the activities that they carry out in their Business Workplace or in the Workflow Inbox MiniApp or in the iView Universal Worklist of the enterprise portal. An iView is available within portals. 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.

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Re: workflow

Former Member — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 11:43:23 GMT

Workflow Definition

SAP Business Workflow® is a cross-application tool that makes it possible to integrate business tasks/processes between applications.

This tool was introduced in R/3 Release 3.0A, and received a substantial facelift in the Enjoy Release, 4.6A, which warranted the new name Workflow Builder.

Need for Workflow

A business process can consist of several steps. Historically, the tasks have been coordinated manually or by some informal means of communication (sticky note, e-mail, shouting, and so on).

The common problem in these approaches is :
Inefficiency
Each lacks a way to trace where a task is
Who executed (or is executing it),
How much time it required.

In contrast, the workflow ensures that the right work is sent to right person at the right time in the right sequence with the right information.

Why SAP Workflow?

Tool for the automization of business processes
Not tied up to any particular application
Operates uniformly across applications
Coordinate all participating tasks
Provide users with active support

Workflow Boundaries

The component uses the existing transactions & function modules. The functionality and operability of the existing transactions and function modules are neither changed nor restricted by the workflow control.

SAP Business Workflow does not intervene in the programmed processes within a transaction

The component makes the R/3 System easier to operate, which is particularly useful for inexperienced or occasional users.

Workflow

A workflow consists of a sequence of steps, which are processed either by people or automatically by the system.

Workflow Builder

Modeling tool for creating a workflow definition.
Creating and process workflow definition
Test and activate a workflow definition

Workflow Definition

Technical description of a workflow
Workflow definition is made up of individual steps and events with one step and one or more events making up one unit. These units can be arranged in sequence or in parallel.
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

Workflow Instance

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.

Task

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.

During runtime a tasks is represent as a Workitem.

Following tasks exist in the workflow context:
Single-step task
Activity in which an object method is executed on a specific object
Multi-step task (Workflow)
Activity whose description includes reference to a workflow definition

Work Item

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.

Agent

Agents are the people who process the tasks (via the work items). For example, requisitioner and a member of the purchasing department.

A system user who participates actively in SAP Business Workflow and executes work items

Types of agents available
Possible agent
User who is organizationally authorized to start a task and execute the associated work item
Responsible agent
User assigned locally to a step in the workflow definition
Excluded agent
User who is excluded from processing a work item

Container

Container is the place where all the data used in the workflow is collected.

Basic common data structure of the various definition.

Containers have container elements for holding the following:
Values (Constants)
Structure
Object references
Complex types

The container elements can be used to control the execution of work items and workflows.

Types of container:
Workflow container
Task Container
Event Container
Method Container
Rule Container

Binding

Binding is the set of rules that define which data is passed to which part of the process.

Assignment of values to a container element at runtime.

Binding definition:
Specification of assignment rules describing the assignment of data to a container element or the exchange of data between two container element.

Business Object Builder

Tool for creating and processing business object types.

Can be used to access the definition of an object type

Subtypes can be created for existing Business object type

Object Type

Business objects integrate the data and functions of business applications into your workflows.

They enable workflow engine to communicate with business applications with all the flexibility and robustness required for a production environment

Object Type

Description of data (objects) in the system created at definition time in the Business Object Builder

Object types are described and implemented by specifying the following components:
Basic data
Key fields
Attributes
Methods with parameters, result and exceptions
Events with parameters
Implementation program

The Object type must be defined before its data (Objects) can be used in the system.

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Re: workflow

Former Member — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 12:31:47 GMT

Hi Shori,

My emailid would be premraj.cheguri@gmail.com

Kindly send the material.

Regards,

Prem.