SRM Inbox questions

[Former Member]

Hi,

We are preparing to upgrade to SRM 4.0 or 5.0. Our users find it difficult to approve/reject shopping carts on the basis of a one-line description. In the R/3 inbox, we get the workitem preview pane, which allows us to display a lot more information about the workitem and it's object.

What are my possibilities for enhancing the SRM inbox to contain something 'similar' to the preview pane (but prettier, of course).

Are secondary methods available in the SRM inbox ? Just a thought...

Thanks

Sue

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Sue

We are running EBP 4 on SRM 3 and approvers login to the SRM Inbox and can see (and change!) all the shopping cart details. Yes, on entry to the transaction they see a 1 line description of the cart to be approved plus all the action buttons to the right, but they can then drill into it and see all the data.

It sounds like your users are getting a restricted view.

Gerald

[Jocelyn_Dart]

Sue,

Maybe you need to tackle it from a different angle? E.g. Performance of your overall SRM system, and to see whether improvements can be made in the performance of your shopping cart check and change BADIs (often key culprits for shopping cart delays.)

You might consider booking an Early Watch/Support type check - ask your local SAP Office which would be most appropriate.

Regards,

Jocelyn

[keohanster]

Hi Jocelyn,

Thanks, as always, for your excellent advice.

1) Afraid UWL is not an option at this point... Although I keep suggesting it!

2) Custom coding, yuk. The thing of it is, that the users feel they are clicking too much. They want everything (the shopping cart details, the workflow details) to be delivered in one click. There is also some concern about the length of time it takes to click into the cart to get the cart details... I guess a full refresh of the screen makes people think that the process is taking too long.

We are still in the process of working through the details. But, now I have your suggestions, and can bring them to the table.

Regards,

Sue

[keohanster]

Hi Gerald,

Yes, we found out that in our current productive system (EBP 3.5), the Inbox display was abbreviated. But the users do have the ability to drill into the cart, and change it, approve it, or reject it. But now the users would like to see (in addition to something like the R/3 'preview pane', which can contain lots of information about the cart, and where it's been) the entire workflow history, who has approved it, who has rejected it, why was it rejected, etc.

In R/3, I could capture most of this info, and stuff it into the workitem description. In SRM 5.0, I don't see how to do this, without gasp custom coding an inbox transaction.

Thank you for your help,

Sue

[Jocelyn_Dart]

Hi Sue,

Yep - irritating.

2 options:

1. Use the SAP EP 6.0 UWL as your SRM inbox - where of course you do have the preview pane.

2. Custom coding - e.g. read the work item long text, replace variables and display the whole thing in a tooltip against the work item line. Not fun.

But the thing is - if you've made it that far, why not just open the work item and look at the shopping cart itself? You can always use sRM screen variants to tailor what columns are included in the SRM item overview, there are icons that highlight if there are any attachments or notes to look at and everything.

You really need to work through the process with your users - otherwises you'll do a whole lot of development that they don't use anyway.

By the way, you can also turn off the approve/reject icons in the inbox list by changing the Dynamic Columns in inbox settings. Much safer.

Regards,

Jocelyn