- SAP Managed Tags:
Dear all: Please click on the images to see them in good quality
Dear Community,
Welcome to our blog 4 from our eight-part blog journey. In this blog we will provide you with a comprehensive understanding on Process Flow.
*Access previous blogs:
- Outline: Introducing Blog Series of SAP Signavio Process In... - SAP Community
- Start page and four main pillars: Start page of SAP Signavio Process Insights, disco... - SAP Community
- Blog 1: End-to-End processes: End-to-end Processes and modular processes in SAP ... - SAP Community
- Deep Dive: End-to-End processes: Source to Pay: Deep dive: End-to-End processes with a closer look... - SAP Community
- Blog 2: Lines of Business: Lines of Business (LoBs) and Value Drivers in SAP ... - SAP Community
- Blog 3: Value Analysis: Value Analysis and potential monetary impact in SA... - SAP Community
Dear Community,
Nowadays it has become a challenge and therefore top priority to achieve efficiency in the processes. Customers are interested in the products/services you offer, and to deliver high performance, you need processes that run efficiently. In this part of the blog journey, we will focus on Process Flows and how the discovery edition provides you ways to realize continuous improvement, save time and cash and increase value by overcoming bottlenecks.
What is a process flow?
A Process Flow visualizes for a baseline set of documents in a specific time period how many documents reach each stage of the process and the average time this takes. It allows you to see the value of identifying process efficiencies as well as inefficiencies (blockers). Keep in mind that the discovery edition offers a first taste of Process Flows, compared to more than 105 Process Flows available in the full solution. In other words, SAP Signavio Process Insights provides you with a rich and holistic overview of your organization's performance.
How to request process one Process Flow:
A feature, which was included to the discovery edition is that customers can now choose one out of three Process Flows (Supplier invoice issuing (with purchase order) to FI-AP clearing, Sales billing document creation to FI-AR clearing, and Purchase order item creation (with account assignment) to invoice receipt creation) when executing the data extraction for the request.
During the request process for SAP Signavio Process Insights, discovery edition, you will encounter this image shown below.
As you can see in the picture, you need to select one Process Flow. We strongly recommend that you read this blog because it provides a comprehensive overview of what the Process Flow measures: Now Choose One out of 3 available Process Flow for... - SAP Community.
Visualization of a Process Flow
The picture above illustrates the Process Flow “Supplier invoice issuing (with purchase order) to FI-AR clearing” (Keep in mind that the Process Flow looks different depending on the data available in your source system).
Process Flow Information
Documents created and date range of data: Diving deeper into the Process Flow, you can see in the next example that between 20th June 2022 and 1st August 2022, 14,510 supplier invoices were created.
The completion rate indicates the percentage of business object instances that reached the end of the Process Flow, in this case, 95%. In total, the process took on average 25,3 days to completion.
There are 5 identified blockers, we will come back to this notion below.
Process Flow stages
The blue part of the picture below represents the stages of a process. To describe, the Process Flow starts when the supplier creates an invoice (first stage) and continues to the second stage when the invoice gets created and posted. It then enters the accounting department (third stage) where the FI-AP items are released for payment and passed on further to FI-AP clearing documents created. The process ends by FI-AP items cleared.
Duration time
This box shows how long it took on average for business object instances to transition between stages.
The lead time is the average time it took business object instances to move from one stage to the next. The values shown are rounded. To see the shortest and longest lead times recorded, hover over the lead time.
If the time is negative, this indicates a deviation from the best practice sequence and causing inefficiencies. It needs to be investigated.
NEW: Discovery edition now offers a precise duration time (in days, hours, minutes)
Filtering capabilities
One important factor which is worth paying attention to, is that you can add valuable filters on the Process Flow such as company code (like Germany) or Document Type. This allows you to further investigate in identifying where the bottlenecks arise from.
Why are there different colors?
Note: Each Process Flow stage and blocker is clickable content for further investigation.
As you can see, blockers differ in their color:
Green indicates low improvement potential because only 5% or less of business object instances are affected. If this metric increases, however, the information in the box can indicates a blocker with moderate or high improvement potential.
Orange indicates moderate improvement potential because more than 5% of business object instances are affected and this indicates a blocker. This is also something you should investigate further because it's possibly a moderate cause of process inefficiencies.
Red indicates high improvement potential because more than 10% of business object instances are affected and this indicates a blocker. This is something you should investigate further because it's possibly a significant bottleneck in your process.
Blue indicates that what is shown is information only. This information can never be a blocker. The information provided is not positive or negative. These boxes remain blue, regardless of the percentage of business objects affected.
Blockers
In this example, the analysis identified five blockers in total (in red -one, "Supplier invoice created by a user", is not visible in this screenshot). When you take a closer look on blockers, you will see the exact number (written in small) of documents affected. To dive into a more detailed view of the number and percentage of items affected by each blocker, simply click on the respective blocker. You can then review the item list, apply filters, and download it.
Example of a Blocker
This blocker indicates that supplier invoices with open FI-AP items, meaning they haven't been canceled or cleared, and the net due date has already passed. As you can see on the top, this blocker highly affects the overall Process Flow as 14,500 from 14,510 documents are affected.
Compare your performance by viewing the company benchmark across organizational entities. For example, you can visually compare the metrics for the following aspects of a Process Flow:
- A Process Flow stage
- The lead time between two stages of a Process Flow
- A frequent blocker or other information shown as a box within a Process Flow
How to learn more about each blocker
For each Process Flow, you will find further explanation (click on “documentation”) in case you need to revise specific sections, increasing your understanding by breaking down complex processes into manageable parts, making it easier to grasp the overall workflow.
Access the documentation (reference guide)
Find detailed information:
What next?
As mentioned earlier in this blog, Discovery edition outlines strong filtering capabilities in order to investigate and go into in-depth problem solving. Stay tuned because in Blog 6 we will dive deeper into filtering capabilities on which you can greatly enhance your understanding further.
Innovation recommendations
At this point it is worth to mention that a couple of weeks ago, a direct link from a blocker to specific innovation recommendations has been introduced to the system, enabling process owners and transformation drivers to swiftly move from a process challenge to potential solutions.
As you can take out from the screenshot, the system suggests seven innovation recommendations, broken down into industry popularity, type, end-to-end processes and lines of business. When clicking on the link, you will find a general description of the innovation recommendation and how capabilities help you.
Key takeaways
- A Process is a set of interrelated activities converting input into results. Process Flows visualize the progression of these activities through various stages within a specified time period, highlighting both efficiencies and inefficiencies.
- Choose 1 out of 3 available Process Flows in SAP Signavio Process Insights, discovery edition
- Detailed component descriptions help in understanding each stage of the process, identifying blockers, and enhancing overall workflow comprehension.
- Color Coding of Process Flows: The color-coding system (green, orange, red, blue) visually indicates the potential for improvement and highlights areas requiring further investigation.
- Benchmarking and Performance Comparison: You can compare the performance metrics across different organizational entities
- Next Steps for Efficiency: Suggestions for optimizing inefficient processes using data-driven improvements (Innovation recommendations)
In the next blog of our eight-part blog journey, we will explore in-depth immediate actions to take (correction recommendations).
Request your free* SAP Signavio Process Insights, discovery edition today: Signavio Process Insights, Discovery Edition (ondemand.com)
*For all SAP maintenance customers
Any queries, please reach out to us by leaving a comment below or send us an email to: Signavio-discovery@sap.com
Kind regards,
Discovery team
SAP Signavio
