Using Responsibility Rules in Situation Handling (2/2)

[angelika_salmen]

Situation Handling

Situation Handling is a framework in SAP S/4HANA Cloud that automatically informs the right users about issues requiring their attention. Situation Handling identifies the users by using integrated Responsibility Management. The blog post series Responsibility Management: What Is It and Why Do You Need It? (1/5) describes in detail how Responsibility Management works. This blog post series illustrates how Situation Handling and Responsibility Management work hand in hand. The second blog post shows how to inform the right persons about situations using responsibility rules. The examples are based on the extended framework for Situation Handling.

Sample use case

In the previous blog post I discussed the use case of expiring purchase contracts based on the fictional procurement unit of a reseller. Let’s use the same scenario. But this time we want to inform the creator a purchase contract creator when it’s about to expire.

Link between Situation Handling and Responsibility Management

The link between Situation Handling and Responsibility Management is the responsibility context. You choose the context when configuring a situation scenario. The responsibility context includes one or more responsibility rules that you can choose from when creating a situation template.

Situation scenario

As an extensibility specialist you create your situation scenario with the Manage Situation Scenarios app. The scenario defines a business scope for an object that is affected by a situation and comes with multiple elements, such as situation triggers and actions for users. The situation scenario is assigned to a responsibility context that includes corresponding rules for the business scope. The responsibility context type SITO (Situation Object) is assigned automatically.

For our sample case we’ve extended the situation scenario PROC_PURCHASECONTRACT with custom rules.

Assign a responsibility context to a situation scenario

Situation template

As a business process configuration expert you configure your Situation Handling use cases with the Manage Situation Types – Extended app. This includes conditions for when situations are triggered, informative texts for the business users, and situation recipients.

In the Recipients section of the situation template, you can select a rule from the list that contains all rules defined for the responsibility context. In our example, it’s Creator of purchase contract.

In the template you can add multiple rules and a team category to support optimal flexibility for deferred situation types.

Select a rule to determine the recipients of a situation

Overview of Responsibility Management

Here’s a simplified overview of rules within a responsibility context.

Simplified view of Responsibility Management

Situation conditions and rules

Condition filters are used to detect situations. Once again, let’s take the situation template Expiration of Purchase Contracts (PROC_ABOUT_TO_EXPIRE_CTR). You specify when to trigger a situation for an expiring contract by defining a condition for the anchor object that is the purchase contract.

Condition filter Validity Period End = NEXT 30 DAYS.

If this is the only condition filter, then all purchase contracts that will expire within the next 30 days are taken into account.

Define condition filters

The recipient configuration is used to identify the persons who need to be informed about situations. In the situation type you can keep the recipient configuration that comes with the underlying template. That’s the case in our example. If the template configuration offers multiple rules and a team category you can also remove the ones that you don’t need.

Now let’s look at a sample configuration.

Configure situation detection with condition filters

You can use the condition filters to fine tune the detection of situations. The available filters are the fields from the trigger CDS view and the anchor CDS view (which are not flagged as hidden fields in the situation scenario). You can choose as many filters as you like. By the way, when you start testing, I recommend using filters to get a decent number of situations.

We defined the same two situation conditions that we defined in the previous blog post. This means, there is no difference in detecting situations.

Situation Type 1 recognizes situations for expiring contracts with the suppliers Apple and Lenovo. The situation is triggered 30 days before a contract’s expiration date. This requires two conditions:

• Suppliers: Apple, Lenovo
• Validity period end: next 30 days

Condition filters for situation type 1

Situation Type 2 recognizes situations for expiring contracts with the suppliers Canon, Epson, HP, and Samsung. The situation is triggered 14 days before a contract’s expiration date. This requires two conditions:

• Supplier: Canon, Epson, HP, Samsung
• Validity period end: next 14 days

Condition filters for situation type 2

Inform the right person about a situation

Responsibility rules are based on a BAdI implementation that can be as simple or as complex as required. You can use predefined rules that come with the situation scenario and you can define custom rules. In our example, we’re using a custom rule that identifies the creator of a purchase contract that is described in the blog post Responsibility Management: Create Your Rules.

• Rule: Identify the creator of a purchase contract.

Sample contracts

Let’s illustrate the effects of our configuration with some sample contracts.

• Apple contract no. 5987
  • Creator: Sri (strategic purchaser, team Strategic Purchasing 1)
• Lenovo contract no. 3958
  • Creator: Saul (strategic purchaser, team Strategic Purchasing 2)
• Canon contract no. 4092
  • Creator: Sarah (strategic purchaser, team Strategic Purchasing 2)

The following persons are informed about the situation:

The creator of the Apple contract no. 5987 is informed 30 days before it expires:

• Sri

The creator of the Lenovo contract no. 3958 is informed 30 days before it expires:

• Saul

The creator of the Canon contract no. 4092 is informed 14 days before it expires:

• Sarah

Inform the right persons about situations using rules

Now you know everything about how Responsibility Management and Situation Handling go hand in hand.

• Using Responsibility Teams in Situation Handling (1/2)
• Using Responsibility Rules in Situation Handling (2/2)

For more information, you can also refer to

SAP Help Portal

• Responsibility Management in SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA
• Situation Handling in SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA

SAP Community for Intelligent Situation Handling