Products and Buttons in the Product Finder and Configurator (PFC) as of SAP CRM 7.0 EHP3 SP05
What Has Changed?
As of Enhancement Package 3 (SP05) for SAP CRM 7.0, you can sell materials and services in the Interaction Center that are not utilities-specific in addition to utilities products (quotations/contracts) in the Interaction Center.
This means that you can search for and assign materials and other service products to a PDO directly as components in the PMU (not indirectly using packages). The BRFplus rule for the “Product List” is able to return this type of product.
New Buttons in PFC as of SP05
We have introduced new buttons in the PFC for the material and service products, which can now be displayed in the PDO result list, to reflect their different selling processes:
- If the result list contains a material, the Sales Order button is displayed.
- If the result list contains a service product, which is not a utilities product, the Service Order and Service Contract buttons are displayed.
- If the result list contains utilities products, the Quotation and Contract buttons are displayed as usual.
See how the button control works:
- If at least one product with one of the different product types is included in a result list, the product type-specific buttons appear in the button area for this list, next to other possible buttons.
- The buttons in every result list are specific to the products in this list.
- Visible does not mean active:
The different buttons are only activated, if at least one corresponding product in this list has been put into the basket.
There is one exception here: If the result list only contains exactly one product, the corresponding buttons are active as a default setting.
Which Products are Copied when Using the Buttons?
Only products to which the button that belongs to the list is assigned and which have already been added to the shopping basket, are relevant for the selling process.
There is one exception: If the list contains exactly one product, this product is picked when you click on a selling button, even if it is not marked for the basket. It is then added to the shopping basket automatically.
If products with different types in this list are added to the shopping basket, when you click on the selling buttons, a dialog box appears informing you that the system only transfers the products that are specific to this button.
What Does the Selling Transaction Look Like?
The utilities products (buttons Quotation and Contract) are still sold using the utilities three-step guided procedure.
If you sell materials using the button Sales Order, this starts a dynamic navigation to the standard UI object type 'BT115_SLSO'.
If you sell service products (that are not utilities products) using the button Service Order, this starts a dynamic navigation to the standard UI object type 'BT116_SRVO'.
If you sell service products (that are not utilities products) using the button Service Contract, this starts a dynamic navigation to the standard UI object type 'BT112_SC'.
IS-U Identification (Business Partner)
As is also the case for the utilities products, if materials or other service products are sold in the PFC using the buttons Sales Order, Service Order or Service Contract, the system first checks whether a business partner has been identified by the utilities identification. If this is not the case, before navigating to the selling transaction or the object, the system navigates to the utilities identification and the user is forced to identify a business partner there first. Once they have done so, this automatically triggers a forward navigation to the selling transaction or the object required.
How Are the Transaction Types Handled?
When navigating to the standard transaction or object for non utilities-specific product types, the system creates a new document there. To support the business transaction type decision for the new document, we have built in a check to identify whether the (package) Customizing setting Process Type Determination for Subdocuments has been maintained (You can find this setting in Customizing for Customer Relationship Management -> Industry-Specific Solutions -> Utilities Industry -> Transactions -> Settings for Utilities Transactions).
If the process type for subdocuments has been maintained, the system uses these settings, because the decision which transaction type has to be used is also made there. If the result is not unique, the decision is left open, meaning that the role customizing comes into play and you as the user may have to make a decision.
Which Information Is Transferred?
The following list shows which information is transferred from the PFC result list item to the new selling document:
- Business partner identified by the utilities identification as the new “sold-to party”
- Products (product ID)
- Product short texts
- IPC configurations for the products
Exception: This only works, if a “sales organization” can be determined uniquely.
The “One Document” Principle
The system should only create one new document for every standard transaction/object. This means that if the user leaves the transaction without cancelling or saving and Returns to the PFC, when they navigate to this Transaction again (using the selling buttons), the system reuses the old document and does not create a new one. The existing items are retained and new items are added.
New Navigation Bar Entries Available
A new dropdown menu is available for the navigation entry Product Finder & Configurator, which contains the values Sales Order, Service Order and Service Contract. You can navigate directly to the corresponding standard transaction or object from these entries. As described in the section “The One document principle”, there must always only be one relevant document.
During this navigation, no products are transferred from the PFC to the standard transaction/object required.
