Workflow Progression
Hi,
I have a salary adjustment approval workflow consisting of two tasks. Every thing was working fine until I replaced the standard generic user decision task TS00008267 with my own task.
Now, the task appear on the agent's inbox correctly, when executing I click on submit, but instead of going back to the inbox, Its another task execution window that appears with the only choice available is "cancel and go back to inbox"!!!
Whatever I do after that, the task doesnt complete and the workflow doesnt progress to the next task.
I tried all sort of stuff on the task definition parameters, but nothing worked.
Any hint would help out. Thanks.
Regards,
Adil.
Hi, Thank you for the answer.
Yes, I need a different task id on different workflows because it is used as a key on a custom table.
But what you said is right, its safer to copy the standard task, I will try that and come back to you with the result.
Adil.
Similar Messages
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Deploy customize workflow takes a long time to show up in application
Hi,
This is the first time (newbie) i am customizing and deploying work flow in ebiz(R12), the problem that I am facing is that after I deploy the customize workflow it takes a long for the ebiz to pickup/show the changes.
What I did was to customize a standard workflow and save it back to database. I have tried retrieving the customize workflow to make sure that the workflow was save into database (not a access problem). After about a day then the customize workflow shows up (I used the 'status diagram' to see the workflow progress). Have already tried restarting the server, clearing out the cache but the customization still does not take effect (will only take effect the next day) . Am i missing a step ?Hi,
Unless you are specifying an effective date in the future when you deploy the definition, the new version should become available immediately. Any existing workflow processes will continue to run using the definition that was valid when the process started, but any new processes will use the new definition.
If this is not happening, then I would urgently raise a service request with Oracle support, as you are experiencing something very different from the expected functionality.
HTH,
Matt
WorkflowFAQ.com - the ONLY independent resource for Oracle Workflow development
Alpha review chapters from my book "Developing With Oracle Workflow" are available via my website http://www.workflowfaq.com
Have you read the blog at http://www.workflowfaq.com/blog ?
WorkflowFAQ support forum: http://forum.workflowfaq.com -
Document Management System workflow
Dear Sirs,
In document management system while doing document distribution system is creating partial order,inial order but no
distribution order.Further to that it saying
"Not yet sent to recipient
Message no. 25235
Diagnosis
No distribution has been made to the recipient.
Procedure
You cannot execute this function until the partial order has been
allocated to a distribution order package."
Pl. help me to find out the problem
Thanks and regards
Mrinmoy Chakrabortyyou can do a developer level integration using iFS. Pls. check the docs for iFS to get more information. They have sample code to help u get started.
hth
satish paul
We installed Oracle Workflow Server 2.6.2. Database is Oracle 9i and the OS is Win NT.
Workflow is working fine and the notifications are reaching.
I would like to attach some documents to the workflow. How to do this? Is there anyway of doing this? As per our business needs one has to create and review the documents as the workflow progress.
-- aditya -
Workflow status is missing from the List after make some change in workflow
Hi,
We have this strange situation where the workflow status is missing from List views. Here is the situation:
Now if I check the All List view of this list, I can see these workflows that shows the status of the workflow - say "In progress", "Completed" etc.
When i make some workflow modification and after i save and publish. The workflow status in List will missing.
This issue happening is intermittent.
Why does this happen?
Any workaround/findings for the above scenario are much appreciated.
Thanks
JWeiHi JWei,
The workflow status column gets created when you first create the workflow and its first instance runs. The columns gets removed (and disappears from the view) if you delete the workflow or remove all instances of the wf on the list.
Please check whether you created some lookup columns in this list. If yes, please increase the lookup threshold for that web application in Central Administration.
Please create a new view which only contains the Title column and Workflow Status column, modify the workflow, check the workflow status column in the new view, compare the result.
Please create a new list, create a workflow, and test again, compare the result.
Please check if the link below is useful for you:
http://naimmurati.wordpress.com/2013/11/11/workflow-progress-column-missing-in-a-document-library/
Best Regards,
Wendy
Wendy Li
TechNet Community Support -
Document Management System in workflow
We installed Oracle Workflow Server 2.6.2. Database is Oracle 9i and the OS is Win NT.
Workflow is working fine and the notifications are reaching.
I would like to attach some documents to the workflow. How to do this? Is there anyway of doing this? As per our business needs one has to create and review the documents as the workflow progress.
-- adityayou can do a developer level integration using iFS. Pls. check the docs for iFS to get more information. They have sample code to help u get started.
hth
satish paul
We installed Oracle Workflow Server 2.6.2. Database is Oracle 9i and the OS is Win NT.
Workflow is working fine and the notifications are reaching.
I would like to attach some documents to the workflow. How to do this? Is there anyway of doing this? As per our business needs one has to create and review the documents as the workflow progress.
-- aditya -
I need some workflow material. plz. help me out
From RajHi Raju
Please find some questions related to
WorkFlow
1. Is there a good book about this subject?
Yes, "Practical Workflow for SAP" by Rickayzen, Dart, Brennecke and Schneider. Available from SAP press at the end of July. A german translation of this workflow book is also available directly from Galileo-Press, the publisher.
2. How do I convince my company to use workflow?
Feedback from user groups emphasizes that although the competitive advantage gained by using workflow eclipses the financial savings, it is the financial savings that are the deciding factor when obtaining support from senior management. Projects getting the blessing at the CEO level are much easier to manage, and far more likely to reach their goal within the project time frame. So plan well, and don't neglect the business case.
Because the following questions deal with the financial case in more detail, this section will finish by listing the competitive advantages.
The quality of the process is assured by pushing the relevant information together with links to related transactions directly to the user. Managers don't have the time to search for information so give them what they need to reach the correct decision.
Cycle time is reduced by pushing the process directly to the users. The users receive notification of a task immediately and can even be prioritized by the system.
The tasks are performed consistently and diligently by the users. The workflow system pushes all the necessary information needed to perform a task, including a clear description of what has to be done, how to do it and the impact this task has on the business process for your company. At any time, the user can check the list of tasks pending and determine at a glance which are the important tasks, and which tasks can be completed the next day without any negative impact.
The process instance is transparent. Any user can check at any time how far the process has progressed and which stage the process has reached. For example the call center can immediately see the status of a purchase order, an employee requisitioning a purchase would see at a glance if a colleague has been sitting on it for too long, the ad hoc notes made when approving an engineering change request are visible long after the request has gone into production.
The process is flexible, allowing it to be changed on the fly without retraining everyone involved. The description accompanying the change takes care of on-the-fly process improvements.
Deadline handing ensures that users perform the tasks within the time planned. Escalation measures ensure that the failure to meet a deadline can be corrected by other means.
Intelligent reporting highlights the weaknesses of a process. Often there is a simple cure to such weaknesses such as reeducating the users involved in the bottleneck or providing additional information (automatically). The difficulty of a non-automated process is identifying such bottlenecks.
The process definition is transparent. You can see at a glance how the process works and who will be selected to perform the different tasks. Think of the workflow as the process book. If you can spot the pattern and define the process without headaches, you can create a workflow definition effortlessly. However, don't forget that if a company has business processes that are erratic and lack a consistent pattern, the company is very likely to be losing a lot of money in terms of lost contracts, labor intensive administration and low customer confidence. It is my personal opinion that automating exactly this type of processes will yield the best returns, but only if you limit yourself to automating the basic skeleton of the process first. Don't get bogged down in the detailed exception handling. That can be done in the next phase once you've checked the process statistics and determined which exceptions are worth tackling.
As with most software the reasons for automating business processes are primarily to increase the competitive edge of your company and to cut costs. Although the increase in competitively gained by radically reducing process times is by far the most insignificant gain from workflow, you should not ignore the cost savings. The cost saving calculations are needed by upper management in order to approve workflow projects. This upper management signature will be very useful in different phases of the project and cannot be underestimated.
3. How do I calculate the cost saved by workflow?
Calculate the cost of the manual process in terms of man hours. Don't neglect the time spent gathering information. Ask the following questions:
Is the user forced to log into different systems, or scan through printed documentation....?
Does a skilled user spend time on parts of a task, where less skilled (less expensive) user could do the groundwork? I.e. Can a single task be split into skilled and unskilled tasks to free the skilled worker for work where his/her skills are really needed?
Is time spent researching the progress of a process (usually done by someone not involved in the process directly)?
Is time spent determining who to give the task to next?
Probably the most significant cost will the be the cost of failure?
How often does the process fail?
What is the real cost of failure? Loss of a contract? Loss of a customer? Law suit?
If the failure can be rectified, how labor intensive is it?
4. What are typical costs saved by workflow?
A manually processed accounts payable invoice will cost about 25 USD. After workflow enabling about 15 USD (one example based on customer feedback from a user group meeting).
5. What are typical reductions in processing time caused by workflow?
A traditional paper based approval process involving three people will typically take seven days to complete. The automated process will take one day (results based on customer feedback).
6. What do customers say are the strengths of SAP WebFlow?
WebFlow is the internet functionality of SAP Business Workflow. Based on customer feedback from the various regional users groups, the main strengths of SAP Business Workflow are:
Robust production workflow system, (upgrade continuity with the rest of the SAP system, versioning, scalability, no gluing....)
Standard workflow templates delivered by SAP can be used out-of-the-box or tweaked to deliver the optimum business process for your company. Workflows can be up and running including training in under a day (thanks to the knowledgeware delivered as part of the template packet).
Seamlessly integrated into the SAP environment, be it R/3, Business to Business Procurement, CRM, APO, mySAP.com.... Examples of integration are:
Business Reporting (WIS),
Context sensitive availability at any time through the system menu (available anytime, anywhere)
More and more standard SAP functionality is being provided by using SAP Business Workflow so your homegrown workflows fit the landscape exactly,
More and more workflow functionality is available directly within the SAP transaction or Web MiniApp.
WebFlow is becoming more and more important because companies are no longer being judged by their own performance but by the combined performance of the company AND its partners. In other words it is not enough that the business processes within your company run smoothly and faster than your competitors. You have to ensure that the processes between you and your partners are also as fast, efficient and flexible as possible. WebFlow delivers this.
7. How are users notified about their work pending?
The users are informed by a work item which you may think of as being very like an e-mail. The difference is the work item contains intelligence and by executing the work item you will be taken to the form or SAP transaction that makes up the step in the workflow. This form or transaction could be a decision, a request for information or a request for confirmation that a particular task has been performed.
The work item is usually accompanied by a description of what has to be done, where to refer to when assistance is needed (help desk, intranet...) and a summary of information about the business object or process which enables the operator to attack the task immediately.
This work item can be received and executed in MS OutlookÒ, Lotus NotesÒ, mySAP Workflow MiniApp or the SAP integrated inbox. If this is not enough, the workflow system can transmit e-mail notifications directly to any mail system, informing the user of the need to log in to the SAP system to execute the task. The e-mail notification is done on a subscription basis so that users can de-subscribe from this service if they already check their work item inbox regularly.
8. What workflow reporting is available and is it useful?
Standard workflow reports exist which allow the administrator to check statistics such as the frequency and average duration of the workflow processes. However the real strength of the workflow reporting is that it allows reports to be configured which analyze the process statistics in combination with the data involved within the workflow process and the organizational units associated with the process. For example you can determine the average time invested in a failed contract renewal request, the time taken to create material masters in different plants or the frequency of rejected purchase requisitions on a department to department basis. Often, big reducations in cost or cycle time can be obtained without touching the workflow definitions. Reeducating a particular group of users or incorporating supplementary information in a work item description can often cause dramatic improvements on the cycle times of particularly critical subsets of the process. It is not unusual that this may have a big impact on specific products, plants or organizational units. This will show up in the WebFlow reporting in LIS or the Business Warehouse but it might not show up in traditional statistical workflow reporting. Even though the average time does not change significantly, the impact on costs and profit can be dramatic.
9. How do I choose who to distribute the tasks to?
A work item is assigned to one or more users. Whoever reserves or executes the task first wins and the work item vanishes from the other users' inboxes. This eliminates the need to assign the user to one single user. I.e. No need for complicated algorithms to determine which single user will receive the work item and no need to worry about what will happen when one user is ill for the week (also taken care of by sophisticated substitution mechanisms which can be linked to the SAP organizational model).
Tasks can be assigned to an organizational unit but the strength of the workflow system is to enable business rules which select users according to the data being processed. For example, you might have one group of users associated with one quality notification type. The workflow can be configured to query the QM module directly to determine the users. You can define fallbacks using the default role associated with a task and allow agents to be specified on the fly by a supervisor.
Tasks can be assigned to office distribution lists which is useful when you want your users to subscribe or unsubscribe to a particular task. A typical use of this would be where you have a work rote or want to reduce user maintenance to an absolute minimum. The users subscribe or unsubscribe by joining or leaving an office distribution list (one mouse click).
10. What happens when a deadline is missed?
This depends on your workflow definition. In the simplest case an e-mail is sent to another user by the system (typically your supervisor so watch out!). However in more sophisticated scenarios a missed deadline can redirect that path that the workflow takes. One customer uses deadlines to automatically make an approval if the deadline is missed (at about the eighth approval level!!!). This gives the user the chance to make rejections but does not force him/her to go into the system to approve the other 99.9% of the requests. In safety critical environments the workflow might trigger off preventative action when a deadline is missed or might put other processes on hold. There is no limit as to how you can use this functionality.
11. What deadlines can be monitored?
Many different types of deadlines can monitored. At the single workflow step level you can define deadlines which trigger when the work item has not completed within a certain time and other deadlines when no one starts working on the work item within a given time. You can specify the task deadline statically (e.g. 1 week) or dynamically (e.g. 1 week for material type A and 2 weeks for all the other materials). The offset can be related to the step (e.g. you have 1 week to complete this step) or related to the process (e.g. complete within 2 weeks of the complete process starting, irrespective of how long your colleagues have hogged the previous steps).
Last but not least, deadlines can be set for sub-processes, which is often more important than the deadline of a single step in a workflow.
12. How can I check the status of a workflow?
This is one of the very cool features of SAP Business Workflow. You can usually navigate directly from the business object to check the workflow progress. For example, while viewing a purchase order you can select "workflow" from the system menu or toolbar and you will see a list of workflows related to the purchase order. Usually just one, but if you have created a few of your own and these have been triggered you will see the status of these too. And that is not all. You also see a simplified summary of all the steps that have taken place so far including who performed them, when they were executed and which ad hoc notes were attached.
13. How are workflows triggered?
Workflows can be triggered automatically by changes in the system or manually by an operator. Manually triggered workflows are good for processes that remedy a problem the operator has noticed or for dealing with a forms-based requests (E.g. my PC won't boot). Automatically triggered workflows are useful because the operator does not even have to be aware of the workflow's existence to trigger it. In addition to triggers embedded in transactions there are also generic triggering mechanisms such as a change in the status of a business object or a change in the HR data. Irrespective of how the workflow is triggered, it is linked to the business object as described in the previous answer and can be tracked easily. Because WebFlow is part of the basis system, this triggering is reliable and easy to implement.
Workflows may be triggered by events but this is not essential. The event-handling makes it easy to trigger workflows from transactions and system changes without you having to make modifications. If you are creating your own report or transaction which triggers a workflow, avoid events and trigger the workflow directly with the WAPI function call. This is particularly important when triggering a workflow from outside the SAP system. This method reduces flexibility (the workflow ID is hard-coded) but increases performance if this is an issue (we're talking about 50 000 work items a day here!).
Any exception handling workflows that are intended to be triggered manually can be triggered from the system menu when viewing the relevant transaction. The SAP system has the intelligence to suggest workflows that can be triggered manually based on the authorization of the operator and the context that the operator is working in. No additional customizing is needed here.
14. What open interfaces are supported?
The most significant interface supported is the Wf-XML standard from the Workflow Management Coalition. This is an independent organization of which SAP is a funding member, along with most other major workflow vendors. The Wf-XML interface is based on XML and allows workflows from different vendors to communicate with each other. A detailed description of the interface is available on the WfMCs web site at www.wfmc.org.
15. What is Wf-XML used for?
Although a company is far better off workflow enabling their system with SAP WebFlow when SAP software is used anywhere within the process, a collaborative process can take place between partners using different software platforms employing different workflow systems. To support SAP customers in this situation, WebFlow offers the open interface Wf-XML. This allows Business Processes enabled using different tools to communicate and control each other. Any workflow tool offering this interface can connect up with other tools that also offer this interface.
Wf-XML is the only open interface for supporting interoperability of business processes, independent of what the business process being integrated.
16. Where does Wf-XML come from?
Wf-XML comes from the Workflow Management Coalition, an independent body of workflow vendors, customers and higher education establishments.
17. How does the workflow call procedures from non-SAP systems?
The Actional control broker integrates directly into SAP WebFlow enabling proxy objects to be called directly from the workflow step. When called, the proxy method will make a call to the outside system either as a background task or as a dialogue step. These proxy objects are generated in the SAP system using a converter which converts the objects interface (DCOM, CORBA...) to the SAP syntax. A syntax converter also lets developers view any object in any of the participating systems in the developer's preferred language.
18. How can I get the workflow initiator information in my task?
1) From your triggering event to the workflow, bind the event creator element to the workflow initiator element.
2) Create a workflow container element based on USR01.
3) Add a step based on USR01.FINDUSERFROMAGENTSTRUCTURE to convert your initiator to a USR01 object.
4) Pass the USR01 object to each task you want to display the details.
Mailing
19. What differences are there between a work item and a notification mail?
a) The work item cannot be used to notify several users.
Mails can be routed to several users, just like work items. When a mail is sent, and one recipient reads and deletes the mail, all other recipients will still have access to their own copy in their own inbox. However, when a work item is processed by one of the recipients it will automatically disappear from all the other inboxes. So you can see that a work item is unsuitable for notifying several users.
It is also worth noting that a mail can be forwarded in many different ways (fax, internet...) whereas the work item cannot.
b) The work item holds up the workflow
When the workflow sends a mail (usually as a background step) it continues with the process immediately after transmitting the mail. When a work item is generated, the workflow will not continue until the work item has been processed. This slows down the process. Occasionally this is what is intended (using the work item as an approval step without the ability to reject) but usually you will better off using mails for notifications.
Note: You can send business objects as references with the mail either as a business object reference attached to the mail or as an URL (ABAP required).
What is the difference between sending a mail to a recipient list compared to sending individual mails via a dynamic loop?
Performance. Sending 1 mail to 20 recipients will cost considerably less performance than sending 20 individual mails. If the mail is sent as a SAP Office mail (as opposed to e-mail, fax...) disk space will also be a factor because the SAP office mail will only exist once in the database, with references being created for each of the recipients.
The only time you need to consider individual mails with a dynamic loop is when the text of the mail varies from one recipient to another.
20. How do I send a standard text as an e-mail from workflow?
It is very easy sending standard text , which may include data from the workflow. You simply create a background step which sends the work item description. This may include variables which will be substituted when mail is sent.
In early releases you have to create your own task based on the method SELFITEM SendTaskDescription. In later releases a wizard is available for creating the step and in release 4.6 there is even a step type which does this all for you automatically.
Whichever path you take, there is very good online documentation describing exactly what has to be done.
21. How do I send a complex text from the workflow?
You may create mails using SAPscript. These mails can include conditions which are evaluated in order to determine which text blocks which are used in the mail. Workflow variables can be used in these conditions and workflow variables can be substituted into the body of the e-mail text.
22. How do I send really complex mails from the workflow?
If you this is not enough for you will probably want to write your own ABAP routines for generating the text and generating the attachments to go with the text.
Use the function group SO01 which contains functions of the form SO_*_API1 which are ideal for creating your own sophisticated messages. There are plenty of advantages of how these are used within the SAP system.
23. How do I send reports?
There are wizards (Release 3.1) which will create workflows for you to send reports to a distribution list. You can specify whether the results should be transmitted or evaluated at the time the recipient wishes to view the report. It is usually better to send the evaluation because this allows the recipient to see the results instantaneously, without having to wait for the report to execute first.
Deadlines
24. How can I configure the workflow so that different types of messages are sent out to different people depending on how late the processing is?
Follow these steps:
1. Specify a deadline period for the step.
2. Specify a name for the event. This adds new branch from the step.
3. Add a new step to the branch which sends a mail message.
4. Add another step to the branch which sends out the second deadline warning (see mail steps above). Use deadlines in this step to configure an earliest start so that the second message is not sent until a further time has elapsed.
5. Repeat step 5 as often as you like.
25. How can I configure the workflow so that when the deadline is missed the workflow step is simply skipped?
This is tricky to explain but easy to implement once you know how.
Follow these steps (in later releases there is a wizard which takes you through the steps):
1. In the terminating events view of the workflow step activate the "obsolete" event and give it a name.
2. Specify a deadline period for the step.
3. Specify a name for the event. This adds new branch from the step.
4. Add a new step to the deadline path. This step must be of type "process control".
5. Select the control "Make step obsolete" and use the search help to specify the workflow step that has the deadline. Only steps with obsolete paths defined will be displayed (see step 1).
26. How do I trigger a workflow with an e-mail?
You can customize the system to call a BOR method when an external mail (fax, e-mail...) arrives in the system. You BOR method should either trigger the e-mail directly or trigger an event. To customize this user exit use the transaction SCOT.
27. How can I make sure that user's access their tasks via the workflow and not via the menu or launch pad?
The routing mechanism for work items uses roles and organizational assignments to determine who receives which work item. However the routing does not provide extra authorization checks based on the routing configuration. If you want to ensure that the tasks are executed within the workflow, and not via the standard transaction, service or MiniApp, then you will have to apply your own protection.
The simplest way of doing this is to remove the standard transaction from the user's menu or Workplace role (but include it in the supervisor's role, just in case).
If you want to allow the user to execute the task from the menu if and only if they have received the work item then you should replace the standard transaction with your own custom built transaction. Your own transaction simply calls the standard transaction but performs it's own authorization check first, based on the routing mechanism used in the workflow. Tip: Add a second (ored) authorization check to make sure that a supervisor can execute the transaction in an emergency.
28. What is a workflow? What is a single-step task?
A single-step task is based on an object type from the object business repository (BOR) (for example, a purchase order) and a method for the object (for example, change). A workflow can contain several single-step tasks and activities such as loops and forks. Through a workflow, you create a logical sequence for the single-step tasks. The tool for creating or changing these types of workflows (workflow template) is the Workflow Builder (transaction SWDD).
29. What is a work item (important terms)?
A work item is the runtime object of a workflow or of a single-step task.You can execute dialog work items with the inbox (transaction SBWP). Each workflow and single-step task started is assigned a unique number known as the work item ID.
30. How is an event triggered from the application and a workflow then started?
An event can be triggered from the application in three different ways:
Directly:
Within the application, the SWE_EVENT_CREATE function module or the SWE_EVENT_CREAT_IN_UPD_TASK function module, for example, generates an event in the update.
With a change document:
Change documents are written within the application when you change application objects in the update. You can link events that have the same key with these types of change documents via transaction SWEC.
With status management:
The SWE_EVENT_CREATE_STATUS function module triggers an event in the same way as the direct method when a status is changed. This event contains the object type (for example, purchase order), the object key (for example, purchase order 4711) and other information. Using transaction PFTC, you can assign the event to a specific workflow or single-step task. More settings are available in transaction SWE2.
31. How are the responsible agents determined?
You can assign agents to a single-step task in transaction PFTC. For example, you can do this using organizational units, work center roles or positions. Within a workflow pattern, you can assign specific agents for this workflow to a single-step task. The overlap between both numbers of 'possible agents' represents the number of agents ('selected agents') who have the work item in the inbox later.
32. What is the difference of between an e-mail and a work item?
E-mails and work items are two completely separate things. They just happen to be displayed in the same inbox. An e-mail is a message sent to one or several people. However, a work item is a runtime object of a single-step task or workflow. Consequently, a work item cannot be deleted from the inbox of a user. In this case in fact, you have to adjust the agent assignment or delete the work item as described in note 49545.
33. PFAC no longer works for my role responsibility setup...
Use tx: OOCU_RESP
34. How do I transport workflow definitions and agent assignments?
When transporting workflows, you have to differentiate between the workflow definition and the agent assignment.
A workflow definition is a workbench request. When you save the workflow, a workflow version is created and a request written. Further information about the transport or about the status management is provided in note 378487 and in the notes mentioned there under related notes.
However, where the agent assignment is concerned, this is a Customizing request. To allow transport of agent assignments, the value of the semantic abbreviation CORR for the TRSP group name must be empty in table T77S0.
35. How do you debug a background workflow process?
In your method write the following code:
data exit.
Do.
if exit = 'X'.
exit.
endif.
enddo.
Run the workflow, causing an infinite loop on that step, and then go to SM50.
Here you can debug the process.
36.What is the Workflow basic Customizing?
Before you can use the Workflow module, you must first execute the basic Customizing in transaction SWU3. All of the listed points should be green (the number range for customer tasks is no longer required). A detailed description of the activities is provided in the relevant information buttons. You can also execute some (but not all) of the points using the Automatic Customizing button. See the online documentation for an exact description of what happens there. The RFC destination must work correctly and the user (usually WF BATCH) should have the SAP_ALL profile.
37.: What options do I have as a user to configure the inbox individually?
You have the following options:
You can create separate user-dependent or user-independent layouts so that you can adapt the displayed columns individually. You can access the function in the Workplace via an application function key.
You can set filters to set certain criteria for individual columns or several columns simultaneously, according to which specific work items are then filtered.
You can add dynamic columns in the layout that then display dynamic elements for certain tasks and users from the work item container. However, this is only possible if all tasks in the inbox belong to just one task. If they have several tasks in the inbox, filtering serves no useful purpose because all tasks are first completely read once. You can define these dynamic columns using transaction SWL1.
38. What does the substitute rule system look like in the workflow?
You have a choice of two different substitute rulings:
Active substitute ruling (for example, for absence due to vacations): In this case, the items belonging to the absent person are automatically assigned to the substitutes inbox (in addition to his own work items).
Passive substitution (for example, for absence due to illness): the substitute must explicitly assume the substitution and can only view the items of the absent person in this mode.
For other questions, you must also refer to note 74000.
39. How can users be automatically notified that new work items are available for processing?
Unfortunately, the dialog box that informs users of new work items which appears in SAPoffice is not available within SAP Systems.
However, the following two options are provided:
In the Workflow Builder, you can designate the item as an express item via additional data. The user then receives a corresponding express dialog box.
The RSWUWFML report (note 131795) is a more flexible option. This report sends an e-mail to an external Internet address to notify the user of new work items.
40. Can I set deadlines for the latest processing of work items?
this is where you can use deadline monitoring for work items. In the Workflow Builder, you can set dates for a requested/latest start/end date for each individual step. You must schedule the SWWDHEX job via transaction SWU3 for this. Schedule the job permanently in the production system otherwise it is difficult for the job to schedule individual deadline monitoring scenarios when workflow is heavy.
41. Can I also execute work items with external programs such as Outlook?
You can use the Web GUI for HTML instead of the Windows GUI. However, note that some functions do no work in the WEB GUI, due to technical restrictions in the browser. You must refer to note 487649 on this subject.
SAP also provides interfaces which allow you to process work items with external programs such as Lotus Notes or Microsoft Outlook. Refer to notes 77099, 98408 and 454845 for details.
Reward points if this helps you
Reagrds,
Amber S -
WorkFlow Tutorials with Screen Shot
HI Experts,
Can anyone send WorkFlow Tutorials with Screen Shots??..My email id is <REMOVED BY MODERATOR>.. Full points will be rewarded for this immediate help..Thanks..
Edited by: Alvaro Tejada Galindo on Jun 6, 2008 1:52 PMHi Satheesh,
Please find some questions related to WorkFlow
1. Is there a good book about this subject?
Yes, "Practical Workflow for SAP" by Rickayzen, Dart, Brennecke and Schneider. Available from SAP press at the end of July. A german translation of this workflow book is also available directly from Galileo-Press, the publisher.
2. How do I convince my company to use workflow?
Feedback from user groups emphasizes that although the competitive advantage gained by using workflow eclipses the financial savings, it is the financial savings that are the deciding factor when obtaining support from senior management. Projects getting the blessing at the CEO level are much easier to manage, and far more likely to reach their goal within the project time frame. So plan well, and don't neglect the business case.
Because the following questions deal with the financial case in more detail, this section will finish by listing the competitive advantages.
The quality of the process is assured by pushing the relevant information together with links to related transactions directly to the user. Managers don't have the time to search for information so give them what they need to reach the correct decision.
Cycle time is reduced by pushing the process directly to the users. The users receive notification of a task immediately and can even be prioritized by the system.
The tasks are performed consistently and diligently by the users. The workflow system pushes all the necessary information needed to perform a task, including a clear description of what has to be done, how to do it and the impact this task has on the business process for your company. At any time, the user can check the list of tasks pending and determine at a glance which are the important tasks, and which tasks can be completed the next day without any negative impact.
The process instance is transparent. Any user can check at any time how far the process has progressed and which stage the process has reached. For example the call center can immediately see the status of a purchase order, an employee requisitioning a purchase would see at a glance if a colleague has been sitting on it for too long, the ad hoc notes made when approving an engineering change request are visible long after the request has gone into production.
The process is flexible, allowing it to be changed on the fly without retraining everyone involved. The description accompanying the change takes care of on-the-fly process improvements.
Deadline handing ensures that users perform the tasks within the time planned. Escalation measures ensure that the failure to meet a deadline can be corrected by other means.
Intelligent reporting highlights the weaknesses of a process. Often there is a simple cure to such weaknesses such as reeducating the users involved in the bottleneck or providing additional information (automatically). The difficulty of a non-automated process is identifying such bottlenecks.
The process definition is transparent. You can see at a glance how the process works and who will be selected to perform the different tasks. Think of the workflow as the process book. If you can spot the pattern and define the process without headaches, you can create a workflow definition effortlessly. However, don't forget that if a company has business processes that are erratic and lack a consistent pattern, the company is very likely to be losing a lot of money in terms of lost contracts, labor intensive administration and low customer confidence. It is my personal opinion that automating exactly this type of processes will yield the best returns, but only if you limit yourself to automating the basic skeleton of the process first. Don't get bogged down in the detailed exception handling. That can be done in the next phase once you've checked the process statistics and determined which exceptions are worth tackling.
As with most software the reasons for automating business processes are primarily to increase the competitive edge of your company and to cut costs. Although the increase in competitively gained by radically reducing process times is by far the most insignificant gain from workflow, you should not ignore the cost savings. The cost saving calculations are needed by upper management in order to approve workflow projects. This upper management signature will be very useful in different phases of the project and cannot be underestimated.
3. How do I calculate the cost saved by workflow?
Calculate the cost of the manual process in terms of man hours. Don't neglect the time spent gathering information. Ask the following questions:
Is the user forced to log into different systems, or scan through printed documentation....?
Does a skilled user spend time on parts of a task, where less skilled (less expensive) user could do the groundwork? I.e. Can a single task be split into skilled and unskilled tasks to free the skilled worker for work where his/her skills are really needed?
Is time spent researching the progress of a process (usually done by someone not involved in the process directly)?
Is time spent determining who to give the task to next?
Probably the most significant cost will the be the cost of failure?
How often does the process fail?
What is the real cost of failure? Loss of a contract? Loss of a customer? Law suit?
If the failure can be rectified, how labor intensive is it?
4. What are typical costs saved by workflow?
A manually processed accounts payable invoice will cost about 25 USD. After workflow enabling about 15 USD (one example based on customer feedback from a user group meeting).
5. What are typical reductions in processing time caused by workflow?
A traditional paper based approval process involving three people will typically take seven days to complete. The automated process will take one day (results based on customer feedback).
6. What do customers say are the strengths of SAP WebFlow?
WebFlow is the internet functionality of SAP Business Workflow. Based on customer feedback from the various regional users groups, the main strengths of SAP Business Workflow are:
Robust production workflow system, (upgrade continuity with the rest of the SAP system, versioning, scalability, no gluing....)
Standard workflow templates delivered by SAP can be used out-of-the-box or tweaked to deliver the optimum business process for your company. Workflows can be up and running including training in under a day (thanks to the knowledgeware delivered as part of the template packet).
Seamlessly integrated into the SAP environment, be it R/3, Business to Business Procurement, CRM, APO, mySAP.com.... Examples of integration are:
Business Reporting (WIS),
Context sensitive availability at any time through the system menu (available anytime, anywhere)
More and more standard SAP functionality is being provided by using SAP Business Workflow so your homegrown workflows fit the landscape exactly,
More and more workflow functionality is available directly within the SAP transaction or Web MiniApp.
WebFlow is becoming more and more important because companies are no longer being judged by their own performance but by the combined performance of the company AND its partners. In other words it is not enough that the business processes within your company run smoothly and faster than your competitors. You have to ensure that the processes between you and your partners are also as fast, efficient and flexible as possible. WebFlow delivers this.
7. How are users notified about their work pending?
The users are informed by a work item which you may think of as being very like an e-mail. The difference is the work item contains intelligence and by executing the work item you will be taken to the form or SAP transaction that makes up the step in the workflow. This form or transaction could be a decision, a request for information or a request for confirmation that a particular task has been performed.
The work item is usually accompanied by a description of what has to be done, where to refer to when assistance is needed (help desk, intranet...) and a summary of information about the business object or process which enables the operator to attack the task immediately.
This work item can be received and executed in MS OutlookÒ, Lotus NotesÒ, mySAP Workflow MiniApp or the SAP integrated inbox. If this is not enough, the workflow system can transmit e-mail notifications directly to any mail system, informing the user of the need to log in to the SAP system to execute the task. The e-mail notification is done on a subscription basis so that users can de-subscribe from this service if they already check their work item inbox regularly.
8. What workflow reporting is available and is it useful?
Standard workflow reports exist which allow the administrator to check statistics such as the frequency and average duration of the workflow processes. However the real strength of the workflow reporting is that it allows reports to be configured which analyze the process statistics in combination with the data involved within the workflow process and the organizational units associated with the process. For example you can determine the average time invested in a failed contract renewal request, the time taken to create material masters in different plants or the frequency of rejected purchase requisitions on a department to department basis. Often, big reducations in cost or cycle time can be obtained without touching the workflow definitions. Reeducating a particular group of users or incorporating supplementary information in a work item description can often cause dramatic improvements on the cycle times of particularly critical subsets of the process. It is not unusual that this may have a big impact on specific products, plants or organizational units. This will show up in the WebFlow reporting in LIS or the Business Warehouse but it might not show up in traditional statistical workflow reporting. Even though the average time does not change significantly, the impact on costs and profit can be dramatic.
9. How do I choose who to distribute the tasks to?
A work item is assigned to one or more users. Whoever reserves or executes the task first wins and the work item vanishes from the other users' inboxes. This eliminates the need to assign the user to one single user. I.e. No need for complicated algorithms to determine which single user will receive the work item and no need to worry about what will happen when one user is ill for the week (also taken care of by sophisticated substitution mechanisms which can be linked to the SAP organizational model).
Tasks can be assigned to an organizational unit but the strength of the workflow system is to enable business rules which select users according to the data being processed. For example, you might have one group of users associated with one quality notification type. The workflow can be configured to query the QM module directly to determine the users. You can define fallbacks using the default role associated with a task and allow agents to be specified on the fly by a supervisor.
Tasks can be assigned to office distribution lists which is useful when you want your users to subscribe or unsubscribe to a particular task. A typical use of this would be where you have a work rote or want to reduce user maintenance to an absolute minimum. The users subscribe or unsubscribe by joining or leaving an office distribution list (one mouse click).
10. What happens when a deadline is missed?
This depends on your workflow definition. In the simplest case an e-mail is sent to another user by the system (typically your supervisor so watch out!). However in more sophisticated scenarios a missed deadline can redirect that path that the workflow takes. One customer uses deadlines to automatically make an approval if the deadline is missed (at about the eighth approval level!!!). This gives the user the chance to make rejections but does not force him/her to go into the system to approve the other 99.9% of the requests. In safety critical environments the workflow might trigger off preventative action when a deadline is missed or might put other processes on hold. There is no limit as to how you can use this functionality.
11. What deadlines can be monitored?
Many different types of deadlines can monitored. At the single workflow step level you can define deadlines which trigger when the work item has not completed within a certain time and other deadlines when no one starts working on the work item within a given time. You can specify the task deadline statically (e.g. 1 week) or dynamically (e.g. 1 week for material type A and 2 weeks for all the other materials). The offset can be related to the step (e.g. you have 1 week to complete this step) or related to the process (e.g. complete within 2 weeks of the complete process starting, irrespective of how long your colleagues have hogged the previous steps).
Last but not least, deadlines can be set for sub-processes, which is often more important than the deadline of a single step in a workflow.
12. How can I check the status of a workflow?
This is one of the very cool features of SAP Business Workflow. You can usually navigate directly from the business object to check the workflow progress. For example, while viewing a purchase order you can select "workflow" from the system menu or toolbar and you will see a list of workflows related to the purchase order. Usually just one, but if you have created a few of your own and these have been triggered you will see the status of these too. And that is not all. You also see a simplified summary of all the steps that have taken place so far including who performed them, when they were executed and which ad hoc notes were attached.
13. How are workflows triggered?
Workflows can be triggered automatically by changes in the system or manually by an operator. Manually triggered workflows are good for processes that remedy a problem the operator has noticed or for dealing with a forms-based requests (E.g. my PC won't boot). Automatically triggered workflows are useful because the operator does not even have to be aware of the workflow's existence to trigger it. In addition to triggers embedded in transactions there are also generic triggering mechanisms such as a change in the status of a business object or a change in the HR data. Irrespective of how the workflow is triggered, it is linked to the business object as described in the previous answer and can be tracked easily. Because WebFlow is part of the basis system, this triggering is reliable and easy to implement.
Workflows may be triggered by events but this is not essential. The event-handling makes it easy to trigger workflows from transactions and system changes without you having to make modifications. If you are creating your own report or transaction which triggers a workflow, avoid events and trigger the workflow directly with the WAPI function call. This is particularly important when triggering a workflow from outside the SAP system. This method reduces flexibility (the workflow ID is hard-coded) but increases performance if this is an issue (we're talking about 50 000 work items a day here!).
Any exception handling workflows that are intended to be triggered manually can be triggered from the system menu when viewing the relevant transaction. The SAP system has the intelligence to suggest workflows that can be triggered manually based on the authorization of the operator and the context that the operator is working in. No additional customizing is needed here.
14. What open interfaces are supported?
The most significant interface supported is the Wf-XML standard from the Workflow Management Coalition. This is an independent organization of which SAP is a funding member, along with most other major workflow vendors. The Wf-XML interface is based on XML and allows workflows from different vendors to communicate with each other. A detailed description of the interface is available on the WfMCs web site at www.wfmc.org.
15. What is Wf-XML used for?
Although a company is far better off workflow enabling their system with SAP WebFlow when SAP software is used anywhere within the process, a collaborative process can take place between partners using different software platforms employing different workflow systems. To support SAP customers in this situation, WebFlow offers the open interface Wf-XML. This allows Business Processes enabled using different tools to communicate and control each other. Any workflow tool offering this interface can connect up with other tools that also offer this interface.
Wf-XML is the only open interface for supporting interoperability of business processes, independent of what the business process being integrated.
16. Where does Wf-XML come from?
Wf-XML comes from the Workflow Management Coalition, an independent body of workflow vendors, customers and higher education establishments.
17. How does the workflow call procedures from non-SAP systems?
The Actional control broker integrates directly into SAP WebFlow enabling proxy objects to be called directly from the workflow step. When called, the proxy method will make a call to the outside system either as a background task or as a dialogue step. These proxy objects are generated in the SAP system using a converter which converts the objects interface (DCOM, CORBA...) to the SAP syntax. A syntax converter also lets developers view any object in any of the participating systems in the developer's preferred language.
18. How can I get the workflow initiator information in my task?
1) From your triggering event to the workflow, bind the event creator element to the workflow initiator element.
2) Create a workflow container element based on USR01.
3) Add a step based on USR01.FINDUSERFROMAGENTSTRUCTURE to convert your initiator to a USR01 object.
4) Pass the USR01 object to each task you want to display the details.
Mailing
19. What differences are there between a work item and a notification mail?
a) The work item cannot be used to notify several users.
Mails can be routed to several users, just like work items. When a mail is sent, and one recipient reads and deletes the mail, all other recipients will still have access to their own copy in their own inbox. However, when a work item is processed by one of the recipients it will automatically disappear from all the other inboxes. So you can see that a work item is unsuitable for notifying several users.
It is also worth noting that a mail can be forwarded in many different ways (fax, internet...) whereas the work item cannot.
b) The work item holds up the workflow
When the workflow sends a mail (usually as a background step) it continues with the process immediately after transmitting the mail. When a work item is generated, the workflow will not continue until the work item has been processed. This slows down the process. Occasionally this is what is intended (using the work item as an approval step without the ability to reject) but usually you will better off using mails for notifications.
Note: You can send business objects as references with the mail either as a business object reference attached to the mail or as an URL (ABAP required).
What is the difference between sending a mail to a recipient list compared to sending individual mails via a dynamic loop?
Performance. Sending 1 mail to 20 recipients will cost considerably less performance than sending 20 individual mails. If the mail is sent as a SAP Office mail (as opposed to e-mail, fax...) disk space will also be a factor because the SAP office mail will only exist once in the database, with references being created for each of the recipients.
The only time you need to consider individual mails with a dynamic loop is when the text of the mail varies from one recipient to another.
20. How do I send a standard text as an e-mail from workflow?
It is very easy sending standard text , which may include data from the workflow. You simply create a background step which sends the work item description. This may include variables which will be substituted when mail is sent.
In early releases you have to create your own task based on the method SELFITEM SendTaskDescription. In later releases a wizard is available for creating the step and in release 4.6 there is even a step type which does this all for you automatically.
Whichever path you take, there is very good online documentation describing exactly what has to be done.
21. How do I send a complex text from the workflow?
You may create mails using SAPscript. These mails can include conditions which are evaluated in order to determine which text blocks which are used in the mail. Workflow variables can be used in these conditions and workflow variables can be substituted into the body of the e-mail text.
22. How do I send really complex mails from the workflow?
If you this is not enough for you will probably want to write your own ABAP routines for generating the text and generating the attachments to go with the text.
Use the function group SO01 which contains functions of the form SO_*_API1 which are ideal for creating your own sophisticated messages. There are plenty of advantages of how these are used within the SAP system.
23. How do I send reports?
There are wizards (Release 3.1) which will create workflows for you to send reports to a distribution list. You can specify whether the results should be transmitted or evaluated at the time the recipient wishes to view the report. It is usually better to send the evaluation because this allows the recipient to see the results instantaneously, without having to wait for the report to execute first.
Deadlines
24. How can I configure the workflow so that different types of messages are sent out to different people depending on how late the processing is?
Follow these steps:
1. Specify a deadline period for the step.
2. Specify a name for the event. This adds new branch from the step.
3. Add a new step to the branch which sends a mail message.
4. Add another step to the branch which sends out the second deadline warning (see mail steps above). Use deadlines in this step to configure an earliest start so that the second message is not sent until a further time has elapsed.
5. Repeat step 5 as often as you like.
25. How can I configure the workflow so that when the deadline is missed the workflow step is simply skipped?
This is tricky to explain but easy to implement once you know how.
Follow these steps (in later releases there is a wizard which takes you through the steps):
1. In the terminating events view of the workflow step activate the "obsolete" event and give it a name.
2. Specify a deadline period for the step.
3. Specify a name for the event. This adds new branch from the step.
4. Add a new step to the deadline path. This step must be of type "process control".
5. Select the control "Make step obsolete" and use the search help to specify the workflow step that has the deadline. Only steps with obsolete paths defined will be displayed (see step 1).
26. How do I trigger a workflow with an e-mail?
You can customize the system to call a BOR method when an external mail (fax, e-mail...) arrives in the system. You BOR method should either trigger the e-mail directly or trigger an event. To customize this user exit use the transaction SCOT.
27. How can I make sure that user's access their tasks via the workflow and not via the menu or launch pad?
The routing mechanism for work items uses roles and organizational assignments to determine who receives which work item. However the routing does not provide extra authorization checks based on the routing configuration. If you want to ensure that the tasks are executed within the workflow, and not via the standard transaction, service or MiniApp, then you will have to apply your own protection.
The simplest way of doing this is to remove the standard transaction from the user's menu or Workplace role (but include it in the supervisor's role, just in case).
If you want to allow the user to execute the task from the menu if and only if they have received the work item then you should replace the standard transaction with your own custom built transaction. Your own transaction simply calls the standard transaction but performs it's own authorization check first, based on the routing mechanism used in the workflow. Tip: Add a second (ored) authorization check to make sure that a supervisor can execute the transaction in an emergency.
28. What is a workflow? What is a single-step task?
A single-step task is based on an object type from the object business repository (BOR) (for example, a purchase order) and a method for the object (for example, change). A workflow can contain several single-step tasks and activities such as loops and forks. Through a workflow, you create a logical sequence for the single-step tasks. The tool for creating or changing these types of workflows (workflow template) is the Workflow Builder (transaction SWDD).
29. What is a work item (important terms)?
A work item is the runtime object of a workflow or of a single-step task.You can execute dialog work items with the inbox (transaction SBWP). Each workflow and single-step task started is assigned a unique number known as the work item ID.
30. How is an event triggered from the application and a workflow then started?
An event can be triggered from the application in three different ways:
Directly:
Within the application, the SWE_EVENT_CREATE function module or the SWE_EVENT_CREAT_IN_UPD_TASK function module, for example, generates an event in the update.
With a change document:
Change documents are written within the application when you change application objects in the update. You can link events that have the same key with these types of change documents via transaction SWEC.
With status management:
The SWE_EVENT_CREATE_STATUS function module triggers an event in the same way as the direct method when a status is changed. This event contains the object type (for example, purchase order), the object key (for example, purchase order 4711) and other information. Using transaction PFTC, you can assign the event to a specific workflow or single-step task. More settings are available in transaction SWE2.
31. How are the responsible agents determined?
You can assign agents to a single-step task in transaction PFTC. For example, you can do this using organizational units, work center roles or positions. Within a workflow pattern, you can assign specific agents for this workflow to a single-step task. The overlap between both numbers of 'possible agents' represents the number of agents ('selected agents') who have the work item in the inbox later.
32. What is the difference of between an e-mail and a work item?
E-mails and work items are two completely separate things. They just happen to be displayed in the same inbox. An e-mail is a message sent to one or several people. However, a work item is a runtime object of a single-step task or workflow. Consequently, a work item cannot be deleted from the inbox of a user. In this case in fact, you have to adjust the agent assignment or delete the work item as described in note 49545.
33. PFAC no longer works for my role responsibility setup...
Use tx: OOCU_RESP
34. How do I transport workflow definitions and agent assignments?
When transporting workflows, you have to differentiate between the workflow definition and the agent assignment.
A workflow definition is a workbench request. When you save the workflow, a workflow version is created and a request written. Further information about the transport or about the status management is provided in note 378487 and in the notes mentioned there under related notes.
However, where the agent assignment is concerned, this is a Customizing request. To allow transport of agent assignments, the value of the semantic abbreviation CORR for the TRSP group name must be empty in table T77S0.
35. How do you debug a background workflow process?
In your method write the following code:
data exit.
Do.
if exit = 'X'.
exit.
endif.
enddo.
Run the workflow, causing an infinite loop on that step, and then go to SM50.
Here you can debug the process.
36.What is the Workflow basic Customizing?
Before you can use the Workflow module, you must first execute the basic Customizing in transaction SWU3. All of the listed points should be green (the number range for customer tasks is no longer required). A detailed description of the activities is provided in the relevant information buttons. You can also execute some (but not all) of the points using the Automatic Customizing button. See the online documentation for an exact description of what happens there. The RFC destination must work correctly and the user (usually WF BATCH) should have the SAP_ALL profile.
37.: What options do I have as a user to configure the inbox individually?
You have the following options:
You can create separate user-dependent or user-independent layouts so that you can adapt the displayed columns individually. You can access the function in the Workplace via an application function key.
You can set filters to set certain criteria for individual columns or several columns simultaneously, according to which specific work items are then filtered.
You can add dynamic columns in the layout that then display dynamic elements for certain tasks and users from the work item container. However, this is only possible if all tasks in the inbox belong to just one task. If they have several tasks in the inbox, filtering serves no useful purpose because all tasks are first completely read once. You can define these dynamic columns using transaction SWL1.
38. What does the substitute rule system look like in the workflow?
You have a choice of two different substitute rulings:
Active substitute ruling (for example, for absence due to vacations): In this case, the items belonging to the absent person are automatically assigned to the substitutes inbox (in addition to his own work items).
Passive substitution (for example, for absence due to illness): the substitute must explicitly assume the substitution and can only view the items of the absent person in this mode.
For other questions, you must also refer to note 74000.
39. How can users be automatically notified that new work items are available for processing?
Unfortunately, the dialog box that informs users of new work items which appears in SAPoffice is not available within SAP Systems.
However, the following two options are provided:
In the Workflow Builder, you can designate the item as an express item via additional data. The user then receives a corresponding express dialog box.
The RSWUWFML report (note 131795) is a more flexible option. This report sends an e-mail to an external Internet address to notify the user of new work items.
40. Can I set deadlines for the latest processing of work items?
this is where you can use deadline monitoring for work items. In the Workflow Builder, you can set dates for a requested/latest start/end date for each individual step. You must schedule the SWWDHEX job via transaction SWU3 for this. Schedule the job permanently in the production system otherwise it is difficult for the job to schedule individual deadline monitoring scenarios when workflow is heavy.
41. Can I also execute work items with external programs such as Outlook?
You can use the Web GUI for HTML instead of the Windows GUI. However, note that some functions do no work in the WEB GUI, due to technical restrictions in the browser. You must refer to note 487649 on this subject.
SAP also provides interfaces which allow you to process work items with external programs such as Lotus Notes or Microsoft Outlook. Refer to notes 77099, 98408 and 454845 for details.
More stuff on WORKFLOW
Transactions
AWUV Wizard for event creation Definition tools -> Event creation -> Set up with wizard
MCA1 Workflow Information System Reporting -> Workflow Information System (WIS)
OOAW Evaluation paths
PFAC Maintain standard roles
PFAC_CHG Change roles Definition tools -> Standard roles -> Change
PFAC_DEL Delete roles Definition tools -> Standard roles -> Delete
PFAC_DIS Display roles Definition tools -> Standard roles -> Display
PFAC_INS Create roles Definition tools -> Standard roles -> Create
PFOM Maintain assignment to SAP organizational objects Definition tools -> SAP org. objects -> Create assignments
PFOS Display assignment to SAP organizational objects Definition tools -> SAP org. objects -> Display assignments
PFSO Organizational environment of a user
PFT Maintain customer task
PFTC General task maintenance
PFTC_CHG Change tasks Definition tools -> Task/Task groups -> Change
PFTC_COP Copy tasks Definition tools -> Task/Task groups -> Copy
PFTC_DEL Delete tasks Definition tools -> Task/Task groups -> Delete
PFTC_DIS Display tasks Definition tools -> Task/Task groups -> Display
PFTC_INS Create tasks Definition tools -> Task/Task groups -> Create
PFTR Standard task for transaction
PFTS Standard task
PFWF Maintain workflow task (customer)
PFWS Maintain workflow template
PPOC Create organizational plan Definition tools -> Organizational plan -> Create
PPOM Maintain organizational plan Definition tools -> Organizational plan -> Change
PPOS Display organizational plan Definition tools -> Organizational plan -> Display
SWDA Ongoing Settings Administration -> Settings
SWDC Workflow editor administration data
SWDM Business Workflow Explorer Definition tools -> Business Workflow Explorer
SWE2 Display and maintain event type linkage Utilities -> Events -> Type linkages
SWE3 Display instance linkages Utilities -> Events -> Instance linkages
SWE4 Switch event log on/off Utilities -> Events -> Event/log -> On/Off
SWEC Link change documents to events Definition tools -> Event creation -> Change documents -> Linkage
SWED Assignment of change document objects to object types Definition tools -> Event creation -> Change documents -> Define workflow properties
SWEL Display event log Utilities -> Events -> Event log -> Display
SWF3 Workflow Wizard Explorer Definition tools -> Wizards -> Workflow Wizard Explorer
SWF4 Workflow Wizard Repository Definition tools -> Wizards -> Workflow Wizard Repository
SWI1 Selection report for workflows Utilities -> Work item selection
SWI2 Work item analysis Reporting -> Work item analysis
SWI3 Workflow outbox Runtime tools -> Workflow outbox
SWI4 Task analysis Reporting -> Task analysis
SWI5 Workload analysis Reporting -> Workload analysis
SWI6 Object links Runtime tools -> Object links
SWI7 Workflow resubmission folder From Integrated Inbox or Workflow Outbox
SWI8 Error overview Part of administration of workflow runtime system (transaction SWUF)
SWL1 Settings for dynamic columns Customizing, part of ongoing settings
SWLC Check tasks for agents Utilities -> Consistency check -> Organizational assignment
SWLD Workbench for Workflow 4.0
SWLP Copy plan version
SWLV Maintain work item views Customizing, part of ongoing settingS
SWLW Workbench for Workflow 3.0
SW01 Business Object Builder Definition tools -> Business Object Builder
SW06 Customizing object types From Business Object Builder, choose Settings -> Delegate -> System-wide
SWU0 Event simulation Utilities -> Events -> Simulate event
SWU2 RFC monitor Utilities -> Workflow RFC monitor
SWU3 Customizing consistency check Utilities -> Customizing
SWU4 Consistency check for standard tasks Utilities -> Consistency check -> Task -> Standard task
SWU5 Consistency check for customer tasks Utilities -> Consistency check -> Task -> Customer task
SWU6 Consistency check for workflow tasks Utilities -> Consistency check -> Task -> Workflow task
SWU7 Consistency check for workflow templates Utilities -> Consistency check -> Task -> Workflow template
SWU8 Switch technical trace on/off Utilities -> Technical trace -> On/off
SWU9 Display technical trace Utilities -> Technical trace -> Display
SWUD Diagnostic tools Utilities -> Diagnosis
SWUE Trigger event Utilities -> Events -> Generate event
SWUF Runtime system administration Administration -> Runtime system
SWUG Workflow start transactions Definition tools -> Workflow start transactions
SWUI Start workflows From the R/3 initial screen, choose Office -> Start Workflow
SWUS Start tasks Runtime tools -> Start workflow
SWUY Wizard for message linkage to workflow Definition tools -> Wizards -> Create "Call workflow from message"
SWX1 Create notification of absence
SWX2 Change notification of absence
SWX3 Display notification of absence
SWX4 Approve notification of absence
SWXF Form applications: Access point Environment -> Demo examples -> Fill out form
Reports
RSWWWIDE Delete work items
RHSOBJCH to fix PD Control Tables
Tables
SWW_OUTBOX - Lists Workflows in outbox together with status
SWW_CONT - Container Contents for Work Item Data Container
SWW_CONTOB- Container Cont. for Work Item Data Container (Only Objects)
SWWLOGHIST- History of a work item
SWWORGTASK- Assignment of WIs to Org.Units and Tasks
SWWUSERWI - Current Work Items Assigned to a User
SWWWIHEAD - Header Table for all Work Item Types
<REMOVED BY MODERATOR>
Regards,
Amber S
Edited by: Alvaro Tejada Galindo on Jun 6, 2008 1:51 PM -
Hi guys please provide me the concepts on workflow
hi guys,
please provide me the concepts on workflow.
i have no idea on workflow,
if you have any helpfull documentation and also some scenarios where u have faced and solved those,also some real time examples.
please help me, and also i will give points if it is helpfull.
thanks.
prasadnn.Hi Prasad
Please find some questions related to WorkFlow
1. Is there a good book about this subject?
Yes, "Practical Workflow for SAP" by Rickayzen, Dart, Brennecke and Schneider. Available from SAP press at the end of July. A german translation of this workflow book is also available directly from Galileo-Press, the publisher.
2. How do I convince my company to use workflow?
Feedback from user groups emphasizes that although the competitive advantage gained by using workflow eclipses the financial savings, it is the financial savings that are the deciding factor when obtaining support from senior management. Projects getting the blessing at the CEO level are much easier to manage, and far more likely to reach their goal within the project time frame. So plan well, and don't neglect the business case.
Because the following questions deal with the financial case in more detail, this section will finish by listing the competitive advantages.
The quality of the process is assured by pushing the relevant information together with links to related transactions directly to the user. Managers don't have the time to search for information so give them what they need to reach the correct decision.
Cycle time is reduced by pushing the process directly to the users. The users receive notification of a task immediately and can even be prioritized by the system.
The tasks are performed consistently and diligently by the users. The workflow system pushes all the necessary information needed to perform a task, including a clear description of what has to be done, how to do it and the impact this task has on the business process for your company. At any time, the user can check the list of tasks pending and determine at a glance which are the important tasks, and which tasks can be completed the next day without any negative impact.
The process instance is transparent. Any user can check at any time how far the process has progressed and which stage the process has reached. For example the call center can immediately see the status of a purchase order, an employee requisitioning a purchase would see at a glance if a colleague has been sitting on it for too long, the ad hoc notes made when approving an engineering change request are visible long after the request has gone into production.
The process is flexible, allowing it to be changed on the fly without retraining everyone involved. The description accompanying the change takes care of on-the-fly process improvements.
Deadline handing ensures that users perform the tasks within the time planned. Escalation measures ensure that the failure to meet a deadline can be corrected by other means.
Intelligent reporting highlights the weaknesses of a process. Often there is a simple cure to such weaknesses such as reeducating the users involved in the bottleneck or providing additional information (automatically). The difficulty of a non-automated process is identifying such bottlenecks.
The process definition is transparent. You can see at a glance how the process works and who will be selected to perform the different tasks. Think of the workflow as the process book. If you can spot the pattern and define the process without headaches, you can create a workflow definition effortlessly. However, don't forget that if a company has business processes that are erratic and lack a consistent pattern, the company is very likely to be losing a lot of money in terms of lost contracts, labor intensive administration and low customer confidence. It is my personal opinion that automating exactly this type of processes will yield the best returns, but only if you limit yourself to automating the basic skeleton of the process first. Don't get bogged down in the detailed exception handling. That can be done in the next phase once you've checked the process statistics and determined which exceptions are worth tackling.
As with most software the reasons for automating business processes are primarily to increase the competitive edge of your company and to cut costs. Although the increase in competitively gained by radically reducing process times is by far the most insignificant gain from workflow, you should not ignore the cost savings. The cost saving calculations are needed by upper management in order to approve workflow projects. This upper management signature will be very useful in different phases of the project and cannot be underestimated.
3. How do I calculate the cost saved by workflow?
Calculate the cost of the manual process in terms of man hours. Don't neglect the time spent gathering information. Ask the following questions:
Is the user forced to log into different systems, or scan through printed documentation....?
Does a skilled user spend time on parts of a task, where less skilled (less expensive) user could do the groundwork? I.e. Can a single task be split into skilled and unskilled tasks to free the skilled worker for work where his/her skills are really needed?
Is time spent researching the progress of a process (usually done by someone not involved in the process directly)?
Is time spent determining who to give the task to next?
Probably the most significant cost will the be the cost of failure?
How often does the process fail?
What is the real cost of failure? Loss of a contract? Loss of a customer? Law suit?
If the failure can be rectified, how labor intensive is it?
4. What are typical costs saved by workflow?
A manually processed accounts payable invoice will cost about 25 USD. After workflow enabling about 15 USD (one example based on customer feedback from a user group meeting).
5. What are typical reductions in processing time caused by workflow?
A traditional paper based approval process involving three people will typically take seven days to complete. The automated process will take one day (results based on customer feedback).
6. What do customers say are the strengths of SAP WebFlow?
WebFlow is the internet functionality of SAP Business Workflow. Based on customer feedback from the various regional users groups, the main strengths of SAP Business Workflow are:
Robust production workflow system, (upgrade continuity with the rest of the SAP system, versioning, scalability, no gluing....)
Standard workflow templates delivered by SAP can be used out-of-the-box or tweaked to deliver the optimum business process for your company. Workflows can be up and running including training in under a day (thanks to the knowledgeware delivered as part of the template packet).
Seamlessly integrated into the SAP environment, be it R/3, Business to Business Procurement, CRM, APO, mySAP.com.... Examples of integration are:
Business Reporting (WIS),
Context sensitive availability at any time through the system menu (available anytime, anywhere)
More and more standard SAP functionality is being provided by using SAP Business Workflow so your homegrown workflows fit the landscape exactly,
More and more workflow functionality is available directly within the SAP transaction or Web MiniApp.
WebFlow is becoming more and more important because companies are no longer being judged by their own performance but by the combined performance of the company AND its partners. In other words it is not enough that the business processes within your company run smoothly and faster than your competitors. You have to ensure that the processes between you and your partners are also as fast, efficient and flexible as possible. WebFlow delivers this.
7. How are users notified about their work pending?
The users are informed by a work item which you may think of as being very like an e-mail. The difference is the work item contains intelligence and by executing the work item you will be taken to the form or SAP transaction that makes up the step in the workflow. This form or transaction could be a decision, a request for information or a request for confirmation that a particular task has been performed.
The work item is usually accompanied by a description of what has to be done, where to refer to when assistance is needed (help desk, intranet...) and a summary of information about the business object or process which enables the operator to attack the task immediately.
This work item can be received and executed in MS OutlookÒ, Lotus NotesÒ, mySAP Workflow MiniApp or the SAP integrated inbox. If this is not enough, the workflow system can transmit e-mail notifications directly to any mail system, informing the user of the need to log in to the SAP system to execute the task. The e-mail notification is done on a subscription basis so that users can de-subscribe from this service if they already check their work item inbox regularly.
8. What workflow reporting is available and is it useful?
Standard workflow reports exist which allow the administrator to check statistics such as the frequency and average duration of the workflow processes. However the real strength of the workflow reporting is that it allows reports to be configured which analyze the process statistics in combination with the data involved within the workflow process and the organizational units associated with the process. For example you can determine the average time invested in a failed contract renewal request, the time taken to create material masters in different plants or the frequency of rejected purchase requisitions on a department to department basis. Often, big reducations in cost or cycle time can be obtained without touching the workflow definitions. Reeducating a particular group of users or incorporating supplementary information in a work item description can often cause dramatic improvements on the cycle times of particularly critical subsets of the process. It is not unusual that this may have a big impact on specific products, plants or organizational units. This will show up in the WebFlow reporting in LIS or the Business Warehouse but it might not show up in traditional statistical workflow reporting. Even though the average time does not change significantly, the impact on costs and profit can be dramatic.
9. How do I choose who to distribute the tasks to?
A work item is assigned to one or more users. Whoever reserves or executes the task first wins and the work item vanishes from the other users' inboxes. This eliminates the need to assign the user to one single user. I.e. No need for complicated algorithms to determine which single user will receive the work item and no need to worry about what will happen when one user is ill for the week (also taken care of by sophisticated substitution mechanisms which can be linked to the SAP organizational model).
Tasks can be assigned to an organizational unit but the strength of the workflow system is to enable business rules which select users according to the data being processed. For example, you might have one group of users associated with one quality notification type. The workflow can be configured to query the QM module directly to determine the users. You can define fallbacks using the default role associated with a task and allow agents to be specified on the fly by a supervisor.
Tasks can be assigned to office distribution lists which is useful when you want your users to subscribe or unsubscribe to a particular task. A typical use of this would be where you have a work rote or want to reduce user maintenance to an absolute minimum. The users subscribe or unsubscribe by joining or leaving an office distribution list (one mouse click).
10. What happens when a deadline is missed?
This depends on your workflow definition. In the simplest case an e-mail is sent to another user by the system (typically your supervisor so watch out!). However in more sophisticated scenarios a missed deadline can redirect that path that the workflow takes. One customer uses deadlines to automatically make an approval if the deadline is missed (at about the eighth approval level!!!). This gives the user the chance to make rejections but does not force him/her to go into the system to approve the other 99.9% of the requests. In safety critical environments the workflow might trigger off preventative action when a deadline is missed or might put other processes on hold. There is no limit as to how you can use this functionality.
11. What deadlines can be monitored?
Many different types of deadlines can monitored. At the single workflow step level you can define deadlines which trigger when the work item has not completed within a certain time and other deadlines when no one starts working on the work item within a given time. You can specify the task deadline statically (e.g. 1 week) or dynamically (e.g. 1 week for material type A and 2 weeks for all the other materials). The offset can be related to the step (e.g. you have 1 week to complete this step) or related to the process (e.g. complete within 2 weeks of the complete process starting, irrespective of how long your colleagues have hogged the previous steps).
Last but not least, deadlines can be set for sub-processes, which is often more important than the deadline of a single step in a workflow.
12. How can I check the status of a workflow?
This is one of the very cool features of SAP Business Workflow. You can usually navigate directly from the business object to check the workflow progress. For example, while viewing a purchase order you can select "workflow" from the system menu or toolbar and you will see a list of workflows related to the purchase order. Usually just one, but if you have created a few of your own and these have been triggered you will see the status of these too. And that is not all. You also see a simplified summary of all the steps that have taken place so far including who performed them, when they were executed and which ad hoc notes were attached.
13. How are workflows triggered?
Workflows can be triggered automatically by changes in the system or manually by an operator. Manually triggered workflows are good for processes that remedy a problem the operator has noticed or for dealing with a forms-based requests (E.g. my PC won't boot). Automatically triggered workflows are useful because the operator does not even have to be aware of the workflow's existence to trigger it. In addition to triggers embedded in transactions there are also generic triggering mechanisms such as a change in the status of a business object or a change in the HR data. Irrespective of how the workflow is triggered, it is linked to the business object as described in the previous answer and can be tracked easily. Because WebFlow is part of the basis system, this triggering is reliable and easy to implement.
Workflows may be triggered by events but this is not essential. The event-handling makes it easy to trigger workflows from transactions and system changes without you having to make modifications. If you are creating your own report or transaction which triggers a workflow, avoid events and trigger the workflow directly with the WAPI function call. This is particularly important when triggering a workflow from outside the SAP system. This method reduces flexibility (the workflow ID is hard-coded) but increases performance if this is an issue (we're talking about 50 000 work items a day here!).
Any exception handling workflows that are intended to be triggered manually can be triggered from the system menu when viewing the relevant transaction. The SAP system has the intelligence to suggest workflows that can be triggered manually based on the authorization of the operator and the context that the operator is working in. No additional customizing is needed here.
14. What open interfaces are supported?
The most significant interface supported is the Wf-XML standard from the Workflow Management Coalition. This is an independent organization of which SAP is a funding member, along with most other major workflow vendors. The Wf-XML interface is based on XML and allows workflows from different vendors to communicate with each other. A detailed description of the interface is available on the WfMCs web site at www.wfmc.org.
15. What is Wf-XML used for?
Although a company is far better off workflow enabling their system with SAP WebFlow when SAP software is used anywhere within the process, a collaborative process can take place between partners using different software platforms employing different workflow systems. To support SAP customers in this situation, WebFlow offers the open interface Wf-XML. This allows Business Processes enabled using different tools to communicate and control each other. Any workflow tool offering this interface can connect up with other tools that also offer this interface.
Wf-XML is the only open interface for supporting interoperability of business processes, independent of what the business process being integrated.
16. Where does Wf-XML come from?
Wf-XML comes from the Workflow Management Coalition, an independent body of workflow vendors, customers and higher education establishments.
17. How does the workflow call procedures from non-SAP systems?
The Actional control broker integrates directly into SAP WebFlow enabling proxy objects to be called directly from the workflow step. When called, the proxy method will make a call to the outside system either as a background task or as a dialogue step. These proxy objects are generated in the SAP system using a converter which converts the objects interface (DCOM, CORBA...) to the SAP syntax. A syntax converter also lets developers view any object in any of the participating systems in the developer's preferred language.
18. How can I get the workflow initiator information in my task?
1) From your triggering event to the workflow, bind the event creator element to the workflow initiator element.
2) Create a workflow container element based on USR01.
3) Add a step based on USR01.FINDUSERFROMAGENTSTRUCTURE to convert your initiator to a USR01 object.
4) Pass the USR01 object to each task you want to display the details.
Mailing
19. What differences are there between a work item and a notification mail?
a) The work item cannot be used to notify several users.
Mails can be routed to several users, just like work items. When a mail is sent, and one recipient reads and deletes the mail, all other recipients will still have access to their own copy in their own inbox. However, when a work item is processed by one of the recipients it will automatically disappear from all the other inboxes. So you can see that a work item is unsuitable for notifying several users.
It is also worth noting that a mail can be forwarded in many different ways (fax, internet...) whereas the work item cannot.
b) The work item holds up the workflow
When the workflow sends a mail (usually as a background step) it continues with the process immediately after transmitting the mail. When a work item is generated, the workflow will not continue until the work item has been processed. This slows down the process. Occasionally this is what is intended (using the work item as an approval step without the ability to reject) but usually you will better off using mails for notifications.
Note: You can send business objects as references with the mail either as a business object reference attached to the mail or as an URL (ABAP required).
What is the difference between sending a mail to a recipient list compared to sending individual mails via a dynamic loop?
Performance. Sending 1 mail to 20 recipients will cost considerably less performance than sending 20 individual mails. If the mail is sent as a SAP Office mail (as opposed to e-mail, fax...) disk space will also be a factor because the SAP office mail will only exist once in the database, with references being created for each of the recipients.
The only time you need to consider individual mails with a dynamic loop is when the text of the mail varies from one recipient to another.
20. How do I send a standard text as an e-mail from workflow?
It is very easy sending standard text , which may include data from the workflow. You simply create a background step which sends the work item description. This may include variables which will be substituted when mail is sent.
In early releases you have to create your own task based on the method SELFITEM SendTaskDescription. In later releases a wizard is available for creating the step and in release 4.6 there is even a step type which does this all for you automatically.
Whichever path you take, there is very good online documentation describing exactly what has to be done.
21. How do I send a complex text from the workflow?
You may create mails using SAPscript. These mails can include conditions which are evaluated in order to determine which text blocks which are used in the mail. Workflow variables can be used in these conditions and workflow variables can be substituted into the body of the e-mail text.
22. How do I send really complex mails from the workflow?
If you this is not enough for you will probably want to write your own ABAP routines for generating the text and generating the attachments to go with the text.
Use the function group SO01 which contains functions of the form SO_*_API1 which are ideal for creating your own sophisticated messages. There are plenty of advantages of how these are used within the SAP system.
23. How do I send reports?
There are wizards (Release 3.1) which will create workflows for you to send reports to a distribution list. You can specify whether the results should be transmitted or evaluated at the time the recipient wishes to view the report. It is usually better to send the evaluation because this allows the recipient to see the results instantaneously, without having to wait for the report to execute first.
Deadlines
24. How can I configure the workflow so that different types of messages are sent out to different people depending on how late the processing is?
Follow these steps:
1. Specify a deadline period for the step.
2. Specify a name for the event. This adds new branch from the step.
3. Add a new step to the branch which sends a mail message.
4. Add another step to the branch which sends out the second deadline warning (see mail steps above). Use deadlines in this step to configure an earliest start so that the second message is not sent until a further time has elapsed.
5. Repeat step 5 as often as you like.
25. How can I configure the workflow so that when the deadline is missed the workflow step is simply skipped?
This is tricky to explain but easy to implement once you know how.
Follow these steps (in later releases there is a wizard which takes you through the steps):
1. In the terminating events view of the workflow step activate the "obsolete" event and give it a name.
2. Specify a deadline period for the step.
3. Specify a name for the event. This adds new branch from the step.
4. Add a new step to the deadline path. This step must be of type "process control".
5. Select the control "Make step obsolete" and use the search help to specify the workflow step that has the deadline. Only steps with obsolete paths defined will be displayed (see step 1).
26. How do I trigger a workflow with an e-mail?
You can customize the system to call a BOR method when an external mail (fax, e-mail...) arrives in the system. You BOR method should either trigger the e-mail directly or trigger an event. To customize this user exit use the transaction SCOT.
27. How can I make sure that user's access their tasks via the workflow and not via the menu or launch pad?
The routing mechanism for work items uses roles and organizational assignments to determine who receives which work item. However the routing does not provide extra authorization checks based on the routing configuration. If you want to ensure that the tasks are executed within the workflow, and not via the standard transaction, service or MiniApp, then you will have to apply your own protection.
The simplest way of doing this is to remove the standard transaction from the user's menu or Workplace role (but include it in the supervisor's role, just in case).
If you want to allow the user to execute the task from the menu if and only if they have received the work item then you should replace the standard transaction with your own custom built transaction. Your own transaction simply calls the standard transaction but performs it's own authorization check first, based on the routing mechanism used in the workflow. Tip: Add a second (ored) authorization check to make sure that a supervisor can execute the transaction in an emergency.
28. What is a workflow? What is a single-step task?
A single-step task is based on an object type from the object business repository (BOR) (for example, a purchase order) and a method for the object (for example, change). A workflow can contain several single-step tasks and activities such as loops and forks. Through a workflow, you create a logical sequence for the single-step tasks. The tool for creating or changing these types of workflows (workflow template) is the Workflow Builder (transaction SWDD).
29. What is a work item (important terms)?
A work item is the runtime object of a workflow or of a single-step task.You can execute dialog work items with the inbox (transaction SBWP). Each workflow and single-step task started is assigned a unique number known as the work item ID.
30. How is an event triggered from the application and a workflow then started?
An event can be triggered from the application in three different ways:
Directly:
Within the application, the SWE_EVENT_CREATE function module or the SWE_EVENT_CREAT_IN_UPD_TASK function module, for example, generates an event in the update.
With a change document:
Change documents are written within the application when you change application objects in the update. You can link events that have the same key with these types of change documents via transaction SWEC.
With status management:
The SWE_EVENT_CREATE_STATUS function module triggers an event in the same way as the direct method when a status is changed. This event contains the object type (for example, purchase order), the object key (for example, purchase order 4711) and other information. Using transaction PFTC, you can assign the event to a specific workflow or single-step task. More settings are available in transaction SWE2.
31. How are the responsible agents determined?
You can assign agents to a single-step task in transaction PFTC. For example, you can do this using organizational units, work center roles or positions. Within a workflow pattern, you can assign specific agents for this workflow to a single-step task. The overlap between both numbers of 'possible agents' represents the number of agents ('selected agents') who have the work item in the inbox later.
32. What is the difference of between an e-mail and a work item?
E-mails and work items are two completely separate things. They just happen to be displayed in the same inbox. An e-mail is a message sent to one or several people. However, a work item is a runtime object of a single-step task or workflow. Consequently, a work item cannot be deleted from the inbox of a user. In this case in fact, you have to adjust the agent assignment or delete the work item as described in note 49545.
33. PFAC no longer works for my role responsibility setup...
Use tx: OOCU_RESP
34. How do I transport workflow definitions and agent assignments?
When transporting workflows, you have to differentiate between the workflow definition and the agent assignment.
A workflow definition is a workbench request. When you save the workflow, a workflow version is created and a request written. Further information about the transport or about the status management is provided in note 378487 and in the notes mentioned there under related notes.
However, where the agent assignment is concerned, this is a Customizing request. To allow transport of agent assignments, the value of the semantic abbreviation CORR for the TRSP group name must be empty in table T77S0.
35. How do you debug a background workflow process?
In your method write the following code:
data exit.
Do.
if exit = 'X'.
exit.
endif.
enddo.
Run the workflow, causing an infinite loop on that step, and then go to SM50.
Here you can debug the process.
36.What is the Workflow basic Customizing?
Before you can use the Workflow module, you must first execute the basic Customizing in transaction SWU3. All of the listed points should be green (the number range for customer tasks is no longer required). A detailed description of the activities is provided in the relevant information buttons. You can also execute some (but not all) of the points using the Automatic Customizing button. See the online documentation for an exact description of what happens there. The RFC destination must work correctly and the user (usually WF BATCH) should have the SAP_ALL profile.
37.: What options do I have as a user to configure the inbox individually?
You have the following options:
You can create separate user-dependent or user-independent layouts so that you can adapt the displayed columns individually. You can access the function in the Workplace via an application function key.
You can set filters to set certain criteria for individual columns or several columns simultaneously, according to which specific work items are then filtered.
You can add dynamic columns in the layout that then display dynamic elements for certain tasks and users from the work item container. However, this is only possible if all tasks in the inbox belong to just one task. If they have several tasks in the inbox, filtering serves no useful purpose because all tasks are first completely read once. You can define these dynamic columns using transaction SWL1.
38. What does the substitute rule system look like in the workflow?
You have a choice of two different substitute rulings:
Active substitute ruling (for example, for absence due to vacations): In this case, the items belonging to the absent person are automatically assigned to the substitutes inbox (in addition to his own work items).
Passive substitution (for example, for absence due to illness): the substitute must explicitly assume the substitution and can only view the items of the absent person in this mode.
For other questions, you must also refer to note 74000.
39. How can users be automatically notified that new work items are available for processing?
Unfortunately, the dialog box that informs users of new work items which appears in SAPoffice is not available within SAP Systems.
However, the following two options are provided:
In the Workflow Builder, you can designate the item as an express item via additional data. The user then receives a corresponding express dialog box.
The RSWUWFML report (note 131795) is a more flexible option. This report sends an e-mail to an external Internet address to notify the user of new work items.
40. Can I set deadlines for the latest processing of work items?
this is where you can use deadline monitoring for work items. In the Workflow Builder, you can set dates for a requested/latest start/end date for each individual step. You must schedule the SWWDHEX job via transaction SWU3 for this. Schedule the job permanently in the production system otherwise it is difficult for the job to schedule individual deadline monitoring scenarios when workflow is heavy.
41. Can I also execute work items with external programs such as Outlook?
You can use the Web GUI for HTML instead of the Windows GUI. However, note that some functions do no work in the WEB GUI, due to technical restrictions in the browser. You must refer to note 487649 on this subject.
SAP also provides interfaces which allow you to process work items with external programs such as Lotus Notes or Microsoft Outlook. Refer to notes 77099, 98408 and 454845 for details.
Hi ,
More stuff on WORKFLOW
Transactions
AWUV Wizard for event creation Definition tools -> Event creation -> Set up with wizard
MCA1 Workflow Information System Reporting -> Workflow Information System (WIS)
OOAW Evaluation paths
PFAC Maintain standard roles
PFAC_CHG Change roles Definition tools -> Standard roles -> Change
PFAC_DEL Delete roles Definition tools -> Standard roles -> Delete
PFAC_DIS Display roles Definition tools -> Standard roles -> Display
PFAC_INS Create roles Definition tools -> Standard roles -> Create
PFOM Maintain assignment to SAP organizational objects Definition tools -> SAP org. objects -> Create assignments
PFOS Display assignment to SAP organizational objects Definition tools -> SAP org. objects -> Display assignments
PFSO Organizational environment of a user
PFT Maintain customer task
PFTC General task maintenance
PFTC_CHG Change tasks Definition tools -> Task/Task groups -> Change
PFTC_COP Copy tasks Definition tools -> Task/Task groups -> Copy
PFTC_DEL Delete tasks Definition tools -> Task/Task groups -> Delete
PFTC_DIS Display tasks Definition tools -> Task/Task groups -> Display
PFTC_INS Create tasks Definition tools -> Task/Task groups -> Create
PFTR Standard task for transaction
PFTS Standard task
PFWF Maintain workflow task (customer)
PFWS Maintain workflow template
PPOC Create organizational plan Definition tools -> Organizational plan -> Create
PPOM Maintain organizational plan Definition tools -> Organizational plan -> Change
PPOS Display organizational plan Definition tools -> Organizational plan -> Display
SWDA Ongoing Settings Administration -> Settings
SWDC Workflow editor administration data
SWDM Business Workflow Explorer Definition tools -> Business Workflow Explorer
SWE2 Display and maintain event type linkage Utilities -> Events -> Type linkages
SWE3 Display instance linkages Utilities -> Events -> Instance linkages
SWE4 Switch event log on/off Utilities -> Events -> Event/log -> On/Off
SWEC Link change documents to events Definition tools -> Event creation -> Change documents -> Linkage
SWED Assignment of change document objects to object types Definition tools -> Event creation -> Change documents -> Define workflow properties
SWEL Display event log Utilities -> Events -> Event log -> Display
SWF3 Workflow Wizard Explorer Definition tools -> Wizards -> Workflow Wizard Explorer
SWF4 Workflow Wizard Repository Definition tools -> Wizards -> Workflow Wizard Repository
SWI1 Selection report for workflows Utilities -> Work item selection
SWI2 Work item analysis Reporting -> Work item analysis
SWI3 Workflow outbox Runtime tools -> Workflow outbox
SWI4 Task analysis Reporting -> Task analysis
SWI5 Workload analysis Reporting -> Workload analysis
SWI6 Object links Runtime tools -> Object links
SWI7 Workflow resubmission folder From Integrated Inbox or Workflow Outbox
SWI8 Error overview Part of administration of workflow runtime system (transaction SWUF)
SWL1 Settings for dynamic columns Customizing, part of ongoing settings
SWLC Check tasks for agents Utilities -> Consistency check -> Organizational assignment
SWLD Workbench for Workflow 4.0
SWLP Copy plan version
SWLV Maintain work item views Customizing, part of ongoing settingS
SWLW Workbench for Workflow 3.0
SW01 Business Object Builder Definition tools -> Business Object Builder
SW06 Customizing object types From Business Object Builder, choose Settings -> Delegate -> System-wide
SWU0 Event simulation Utilities -> Events -> Simulate event
SWU2 RFC monitor Utilities -> Workflow RFC monitor
SWU3 Customizing consistency check Utilities -> Customizing
SWU4 Consistency check for standard tasks Utilities -> Consistency check -> Task -> Standard task
SWU5 Consistency check for customer tasks Utilities -> Consistency check -> Task -> Customer task
SWU6 Consistency check for workflow tasks Utilities -> Consistency check -> Task -> Workflow task
SWU7 Consistency check for workflow templates Utilities -> Consistency check -> Task -> Workflow template
SWU8 Switch technical trace on/off Utilities -> Technical trace -> On/off
SWU9 Display technical trace Utilities -> Technical trace -> Display
SWUD Diagnostic tools Utilities -> Diagnosis
SWUE Trigger event Utilities -> Events -> Generate event
SWUF Runtime system administration Administration -> Runtime system
SWUG Workflow start transactions Definition tools -> Workflow start transactions
SWUI Start workflows From the R/3 initial screen, choose Office -> Start Workflow
SWUS Start tasks Runtime tools -> Start workflow
SWUY Wizard for message linkage to workflow Definition tools -> Wizards -> Create "Call workflow from message"
SWX1 Create notification of absence
SWX2 Change notification of absence
SWX3 Display notification of absence
SWX4 Approve notification of absence
SWXF Form applications: Access point Environment -> Demo examples -> Fill out form
Reports
RSWWWIDE Delete work items
RHSOBJCH to fix PD Control Tables
Tables
SWW_OUTBOX - Lists Workflows in outbox together with status
SWW_CONT - Container Contents for Work Item Data Container
SWW_CONTOB- Container Cont. for Work Item Data Container (Only Objects)
SWWLOGHIST- History of a work item
SWWORGTASK- Assignment of WIs to Org.Units and Tasks
SWWUSERWI - Current Work Items Assigned to a User
SWWWIHEAD - Header Table for all Work Item Types
Reward poits if helpful.
Regards,
Amber S -
Change or Restart Workflow and Skip to Workflow
You have the option in server settings to "Restart current workflow for the selected projects", with the choices of skipping to current workflow stage or to a particular workflow stage. Using a new 2013 project server workflow neither of these
choices work. The project in each case is returned to the very first workflow stage.
Is this a bug or badly designed workflow?
Is this also the case with legacy 2010 workflows?
rgds
Mike
Mike MahoneyMike,
Thanks to John on the Product Team, I think I can explain what is going on.
I am going to assume you have a workflow similar to the one below? Some simple logic, a wait event and a transition or some type.
As the workflow progresses in the above case, it will log a message out, then wait for the submit button to be pressed before transitioning. If you try to use the Change / Restart workflow function and choose Restart > Skip to Stage 3, what
you will see is the workflow restart, log Stage 1 to the history list, and then wait for input. There is no skipping through as the workflow is waiting for the event.
The new workflows, whilst allowing looping etc, are essentially still sequential in nature, so to skip though the various stages, they need to start at the beginning and then progress through the stages depending on the logic in the stage transitions.
Just like in 2010, to get something to progress, you need to introduce some special 'Skip to Stage' logic (for want of a better phrase), with this logic, you can tell the workflow 'If the workflow is being run normally, or restarts the workflow and includes
this stage' execute the actions within. This is achieved by using the 'Include Stage' condition I mentioned in a post above. In the example below, I have wrapped the logging and the Wait for submitted event in an 'Include Stage' action (and added
some extra logging)
Now when this workflow runs normally, it will go through and execute everything, including the bits inside the 'Include Stage' action because the workflow was started normally (as in the name).
However, if I choose to restart > Skip to Stage 3 for instance, the workflow will realise it is in 'Skip to Stage' mode and not execute anything in the 'Include Stage' action as the workflow is not being run normally, nor is that stage included (we
are skipping to Stage 3). As the Wait for Submit is not executed, the workflow will not wait for the submit button to be pressed and progress without issue to the desired stage. From a logging perspective, you should see something like 'Stage 1 > Leaving
Stage 1 > Stage 2 > Leaving Stage 2 > Stage 3 > Included Stage 3.
It took some time, but I hope that explains what your seeing. If it doesn't, well it does give a good overview of how to use Skip to Stage logic in 2013 workflows.
Alex Burton
www.epmsource.com |
Twitter
Project Server TechCenter |
Project Developer Center |
Project Server Help | Project Product Page -
gugys i have a training on workflow of two hours
so i wanna do som initial preperation to ask som questions
plz tel me
what are the imp topics of workflow that should be covered in the session
if u have any step by step guide
plz send me at [email protected]
or all kind of documents
plz give me the links if u have
plz help me its urgent
thanks in advanceHi Anit,
Please find some questions related to WorkFlow
1. Is there a good book about this subject?
Yes, "Practical Workflow for SAP" by Rickayzen, Dart, Brennecke and Schneider. Available from SAP press at the end of July. A german translation of this workflow book is also available directly from Galileo-Press, the publisher.
2. How do I convince my company to use workflow?
Feedback from user groups emphasizes that although the competitive advantage gained by using workflow eclipses the financial savings, it is the financial savings that are the deciding factor when obtaining support from senior management. Projects getting the blessing at the CEO level are much easier to manage, and far more likely to reach their goal within the project time frame. So plan well, and don't neglect the business case.
Because the following questions deal with the financial case in more detail, this section will finish by listing the competitive advantages.
The quality of the process is assured by pushing the relevant information together with links to related transactions directly to the user. Managers don't have the time to search for information so give them what they need to reach the correct decision.
Cycle time is reduced by pushing the process directly to the users. The users receive notification of a task immediately and can even be prioritized by the system.
The tasks are performed consistently and diligently by the users. The workflow system pushes all the necessary information needed to perform a task, including a clear description of what has to be done, how to do it and the impact this task has on the business process for your company. At any time, the user can check the list of tasks pending and determine at a glance which are the important tasks, and which tasks can be completed the next day without any negative impact.
The process instance is transparent. Any user can check at any time how far the process has progressed and which stage the process has reached. For example the call center can immediately see the status of a purchase order, an employee requisitioning a purchase would see at a glance if a colleague has been sitting on it for too long, the ad hoc notes made when approving an engineering change request are visible long after the request has gone into production.
The process is flexible, allowing it to be changed on the fly without retraining everyone involved. The description accompanying the change takes care of on-the-fly process improvements.
Deadline handing ensures that users perform the tasks within the time planned. Escalation measures ensure that the failure to meet a deadline can be corrected by other means.
Intelligent reporting highlights the weaknesses of a process. Often there is a simple cure to such weaknesses such as reeducating the users involved in the bottleneck or providing additional information (automatically). The difficulty of a non-automated process is identifying such bottlenecks.
The process definition is transparent. You can see at a glance how the process works and who will be selected to perform the different tasks. Think of the workflow as the process book. If you can spot the pattern and define the process without headaches, you can create a workflow definition effortlessly. However, don't forget that if a company has business processes that are erratic and lack a consistent pattern, the company is very likely to be losing a lot of money in terms of lost contracts, labor intensive administration and low customer confidence. It is my personal opinion that automating exactly this type of processes will yield the best returns, but only if you limit yourself to automating the basic skeleton of the process first. Don't get bogged down in the detailed exception handling. That can be done in the next phase once you've checked the process statistics and determined which exceptions are worth tackling.
As with most software the reasons for automating business processes are primarily to increase the competitive edge of your company and to cut costs. Although the increase in competitively gained by radically reducing process times is by far the most insignificant gain from workflow, you should not ignore the cost savings. The cost saving calculations are needed by upper management in order to approve workflow projects. This upper management signature will be very useful in different phases of the project and cannot be underestimated.
3. How do I calculate the cost saved by workflow?
Calculate the cost of the manual process in terms of man hours. Don't neglect the time spent gathering information. Ask the following questions:
Is the user forced to log into different systems, or scan through printed documentation....?
Does a skilled user spend time on parts of a task, where less skilled (less expensive) user could do the groundwork? I.e. Can a single task be split into skilled and unskilled tasks to free the skilled worker for work where his/her skills are really needed?
Is time spent researching the progress of a process (usually done by someone not involved in the process directly)?
Is time spent determining who to give the task to next?
Probably the most significant cost will the be the cost of failure?
How often does the process fail?
What is the real cost of failure? Loss of a contract? Loss of a customer? Law suit?
If the failure can be rectified, how labor intensive is it?
4. What are typical costs saved by workflow?
A manually processed accounts payable invoice will cost about 25 USD. After workflow enabling about 15 USD (one example based on customer feedback from a user group meeting).
5. What are typical reductions in processing time caused by workflow?
A traditional paper based approval process involving three people will typically take seven days to complete. The automated process will take one day (results based on customer feedback).
6. What do customers say are the strengths of SAP WebFlow?
WebFlow is the internet functionality of SAP Business Workflow. Based on customer feedback from the various regional users groups, the main strengths of SAP Business Workflow are:
Robust production workflow system, (upgrade continuity with the rest of the SAP system, versioning, scalability, no gluing....)
Standard workflow templates delivered by SAP can be used out-of-the-box or tweaked to deliver the optimum business process for your company. Workflows can be up and running including training in under a day (thanks to the knowledgeware delivered as part of the template packet).
Seamlessly integrated into the SAP environment, be it R/3, Business to Business Procurement, CRM, APO, mySAP.com.... Examples of integration are:
Business Reporting (WIS),
Context sensitive availability at any time through the system menu (available anytime, anywhere)
More and more standard SAP functionality is being provided by using SAP Business Workflow so your homegrown workflows fit the landscape exactly,
More and more workflow functionality is available directly within the SAP transaction or Web MiniApp.
WebFlow is becoming more and more important because companies are no longer being judged by their own performance but by the combined performance of the company AND its partners. In other words it is not enough that the business processes within your company run smoothly and faster than your competitors. You have to ensure that the processes between you and your partners are also as fast, efficient and flexible as possible. WebFlow delivers this.
7. How are users notified about their work pending?
The users are informed by a work item which you may think of as being very like an e-mail. The difference is the work item contains intelligence and by executing the work item you will be taken to the form or SAP transaction that makes up the step in the workflow. This form or transaction could be a decision, a request for information or a request for confirmation that a particular task has been performed.
The work item is usually accompanied by a description of what has to be done, where to refer to when assistance is needed (help desk, intranet...) and a summary of information about the business object or process which enables the operator to attack the task immediately.
This work item can be received and executed in MS OutlookÒ, Lotus NotesÒ, mySAP Workflow MiniApp or the SAP integrated inbox. If this is not enough, the workflow system can transmit e-mail notifications directly to any mail system, informing the user of the need to log in to the SAP system to execute the task. The e-mail notification is done on a subscription basis so that users can de-subscribe from this service if they already check their work item inbox regularly.
8. What workflow reporting is available and is it useful?
Standard workflow reports exist which allow the administrator to check statistics such as the frequency and average duration of the workflow processes. However the real strength of the workflow reporting is that it allows reports to be configured which analyze the process statistics in combination with the data involved within the workflow process and the organizational units associated with the process. For example you can determine the average time invested in a failed contract renewal request, the time taken to create material masters in different plants or the frequency of rejected purchase requisitions on a department to department basis. Often, big reducations in cost or cycle time can be obtained without touching the workflow definitions. Reeducating a particular group of users or incorporating supplementary information in a work item description can often cause dramatic improvements on the cycle times of particularly critical subsets of the process. It is not unusual that this may have a big impact on specific products, plants or organizational units. This will show up in the WebFlow reporting in LIS or the Business Warehouse but it might not show up in traditional statistical workflow reporting. Even though the average time does not change significantly, the impact on costs and profit can be dramatic.
9. How do I choose who to distribute the tasks to?
A work item is assigned to one or more users. Whoever reserves or executes the task first wins and the work item vanishes from the other users' inboxes. This eliminates the need to assign the user to one single user. I.e. No need for complicated algorithms to determine which single user will receive the work item and no need to worry about what will happen when one user is ill for the week (also taken care of by sophisticated substitution mechanisms which can be linked to the SAP organizational model).
Tasks can be assigned to an organizational unit but the strength of the workflow system is to enable business rules which select users according to the data being processed. For example, you might have one group of users associated with one quality notification type. The workflow can be configured to query the QM module directly to determine the users. You can define fallbacks using the default role associated with a task and allow agents to be specified on the fly by a supervisor.
Tasks can be assigned to office distribution lists which is useful when you want your users to subscribe or unsubscribe to a particular task. A typical use of this would be where you have a work rote or want to reduce user maintenance to an absolute minimum. The users subscribe or unsubscribe by joining or leaving an office distribution list (one mouse click).
10. What happens when a deadline is missed?
This depends on your workflow definition. In the simplest case an e-mail is sent to another user by the system (typically your supervisor so watch out!). However in more sophisticated scenarios a missed deadline can redirect that path that the workflow takes. One customer uses deadlines to automatically make an approval if the deadline is missed (at about the eighth approval level!!!). This gives the user the chance to make rejections but does not force him/her to go into the system to approve the other 99.9% of the requests. In safety critical environments the workflow might trigger off preventative action when a deadline is missed or might put other processes on hold. There is no limit as to how you can use this functionality.
11. What deadlines can be monitored?
Many different types of deadlines can monitored. At the single workflow step level you can define deadlines which trigger when the work item has not completed within a certain time and other deadlines when no one starts working on the work item within a given time. You can specify the task deadline statically (e.g. 1 week) or dynamically (e.g. 1 week for material type A and 2 weeks for all the other materials). The offset can be related to the step (e.g. you have 1 week to complete this step) or related to the process (e.g. complete within 2 weeks of the complete process starting, irrespective of how long your colleagues have hogged the previous steps).
Last but not least, deadlines can be set for sub-processes, which is often more important than the deadline of a single step in a workflow.
12. How can I check the status of a workflow?
This is one of the very cool features of SAP Business Workflow. You can usually navigate directly from the business object to check the workflow progress. For example, while viewing a purchase order you can select "workflow" from the system menu or toolbar and you will see a list of workflows related to the purchase order. Usually just one, but if you have created a few of your own and these have been triggered you will see the status of these too. And that is not all. You also see a simplified summary of all the steps that have taken place so far including who performed them, when they were executed and which ad hoc notes were attached.
13. How are workflows triggered?
Workflows can be triggered automatically by changes in the system or manually by an operator. Manually triggered workflows are good for processes that remedy a problem the operator has noticed or for dealing with a forms-based requests (E.g. my PC won't boot). Automatically triggered workflows are useful because the operator does not even have to be aware of the workflow's existence to trigger it. In addition to triggers embedded in transactions there are also generic triggering mechanisms such as a change in the status of a business object or a change in the HR data. Irrespective of how the workflow is triggered, it is linked to the business object as described in the previous answer and can be tracked easily. Because WebFlow is part of the basis system, this triggering is reliable and easy to implement.
Workflows may be triggered by events but this is not essential. The event-handling makes it easy to trigger workflows from transactions and system changes without you having to make modifications. If you are creating your own report or transaction which triggers a workflow, avoid events and trigger the workflow directly with the WAPI function call. This is particularly important when triggering a workflow from outside the SAP system. This method reduces flexibility (the workflow ID is hard-coded) but increases performance if this is an issue (we're talking about 50 000 work items a day here!).
Any exception handling workflows that are intended to be triggered manually can be triggered from the system menu when viewing the relevant transaction. The SAP system has the intelligence to suggest workflows that can be triggered manually based on the authorization of the operator and the context that the operator is working in. No additional customizing is needed here.
14. What open interfaces are supported?
The most significant interface supported is the Wf-XML standard from the Workflow Management Coalition. This is an independent organization of which SAP is a funding member, along with most other major workflow vendors. The Wf-XML interface is based on XML and allows workflows from different vendors to communicate with each other. A detailed description of the interface is available on the WfMCs web site at www.wfmc.org.
15. What is Wf-XML used for?
Although a company is far better off workflow enabling their system with SAP WebFlow when SAP software is used anywhere within the process, a collaborative process can take place between partners using different software platforms employing different workflow systems. To support SAP customers in this situation, WebFlow offers the open interface Wf-XML. This allows Business Processes enabled using different tools to communicate and control each other. Any workflow tool offering this interface can connect up with other tools that also offer this interface.
Wf-XML is the only open interface for supporting interoperability of business processes, independent of what the business process being integrated.
16. Where does Wf-XML come from?
Wf-XML comes from the Workflow Management Coalition, an independent body of workflow vendors, customers and higher education establishments.
17. How does the workflow call procedures from non-SAP systems?
The Actional control broker integrates directly into SAP WebFlow enabling proxy objects to be called directly from the workflow step. When called, the proxy method will make a call to the outside system either as a background task or as a dialogue step. These proxy objects are generated in the SAP system using a converter which converts the objects interface (DCOM, CORBA...) to the SAP syntax. A syntax converter also lets developers view any object in any of the participating systems in the developer's preferred language.
18. How can I get the workflow initiator information in my task?
1) From your triggering event to the workflow, bind the event creator element to the workflow initiator element.
2) Create a workflow container element based on USR01.
3) Add a step based on USR01.FINDUSERFROMAGENTSTRUCTURE to convert your initiator to a USR01 object.
4) Pass the USR01 object to each task you want to display the details.
Mailing
19. What differences are there between a work item and a notification mail?
a) The work item cannot be used to notify several users.
Mails can be routed to several users, just like work items. When a mail is sent, and one recipient reads and deletes the mail, all other recipients will still have access to their own copy in their own inbox. However, when a work item is processed by one of the recipients it will automatically disappear from all the other inboxes. So you can see that a work item is unsuitable for notifying several users.
It is also worth noting that a mail can be forwarded in many different ways (fax, internet...) whereas the work item cannot.
b) The work item holds up the workflow
When the workflow sends a mail (usually as a background step) it continues with the process immediately after transmitting the mail. When a work item is generated, the workflow will not continue until the work item has been processed. This slows down the process. Occasionally this is what is intended (using the work item as an approval step without the ability to reject) but usually you will better off using mails for notifications.
Note: You can send business objects as references with the mail either as a business object reference attached to the mail or as an URL (ABAP required).
What is the difference between sending a mail to a recipient list compared to sending individual mails via a dynamic loop?
Performance. Sending 1 mail to 20 recipients will cost considerably less performance than sending 20 individual mails. If the mail is sent as a SAP Office mail (as opposed to e-mail, fax...) disk space will also be a factor because the SAP office mail will only exist once in the database, with references being created for each of the recipients.
The only time you need to consider individual mails with a dynamic loop is when the text of the mail varies from one recipient to another.
20. How do I send a standard text as an e-mail from workflow?
It is very easy sending standard text , which may include data from the workflow. You simply create a background step which sends the work item description. This may include variables which will be substituted when mail is sent.
In early releases you have to create your own task based on the method SELFITEM SendTaskDescription. In later releases a wizard is available for creating the step and in release 4.6 there is even a step type which does this all for you automatically.
Whichever path you take, there is very good online documentation describing exactly what has to be done.
21. How do I send a complex text from the workflow?
You may create mails using SAPscript. These mails can include conditions which are evaluated in order to determine which text blocks which are used in the mail. Workflow variables can be used in these conditions and workflow variables can be substituted into the body of the e-mail text.
22. How do I send really complex mails from the workflow?
If you this is not enough for you will probably want to write your own ABAP routines for generating the text and generating the attachments to go with the text.
Use the function group SO01 which contains functions of the form SO_*_API1 which are ideal for creating your own sophisticated messages. There are plenty of advantages of how these are used within the SAP system.
23. How do I send reports?
There are wizards (Release 3.1) which will create workflows for you to send reports to a distribution list. You can specify whether the results should be transmitted or evaluated at the time the recipient wishes to view the report. It is usually better to send the evaluation because this allows the recipient to see the results instantaneously, without having to wait for the report to execute first.
Deadlines
24. How can I configure the workflow so that different types of messages are sent out to different people depending on how late the processing is?
Follow these steps:
1. Specify a deadline period for the step.
2. Specify a name for the event. This adds new branch from the step.
3. Add a new step to the branch which sends a mail message.
4. Add another step to the branch which sends out the second deadline warning (see mail steps above). Use deadlines in this step to configure an earliest start so that the second message is not sent until a further time has elapsed.
5. Repeat step 5 as often as you like.
25. How can I configure the workflow so that when the deadline is missed the workflow step is simply skipped?
This is tricky to explain but easy to implement once you know how.
Follow these steps (in later releases there is a wizard which takes you through the steps):
1. In the terminating events view of the workflow step activate the "obsolete" event and give it a name.
2. Specify a deadline period for the step.
3. Specify a name for the event. This adds new branch from the step.
4. Add a new step to the deadline path. This step must be of type "process control".
5. Select the control "Make step obsolete" and use the search help to specify the workflow step that has the deadline. Only steps with obsolete paths defined will be displayed (see step 1).
26. How do I trigger a workflow with an e-mail?
You can customize the system to call a BOR method when an external mail (fax, e-mail...) arrives in the system. You BOR method should either trigger the e-mail directly or trigger an event. To customize this user exit use the transaction SCOT.
27. How can I make sure that user's access their tasks via the workflow and not via the menu or launch pad?
The routing mechanism for work items uses roles and organizational assignments to determine who receives which work item. However the routing does not provide extra authorization checks based on the routing configuration. If you want to ensure that the tasks are executed within the workflow, and not via the standard transaction, service or MiniApp, then you will have to apply your own protection.
The simplest way of doing this is to remove the standard transaction from the user's menu or Workplace role (but include it in the supervisor's role, just in case).
If you want to allow the user to execute the task from the menu if and only if they have received the work item then you should replace the standard transaction with your own custom built transaction. Your own transaction simply calls the standard transaction but performs it's own authorization check first, based on the routing mechanism used in the workflow. Tip: Add a second (ored) authorization check to make sure that a supervisor can execute the transaction in an emergency.
28. What is a workflow? What is a single-step task?
A single-step task is based on an object type from the object business repository (BOR) (for example, a purchase order) and a method for the object (for example, change). A workflow can contain several single-step tasks and activities such as loops and forks. Through a workflow, you create a logical sequence for the single-step tasks. The tool for creating or changing these types of workflows (workflow template) is the Workflow Builder (transaction SWDD).
29. What is a work item (important terms)?
A work item is the runtime object of a workflow or of a single-step task.You can execute dialog work items with the inbox (transaction SBWP). Each workflow and single-step task started is assigned a unique number known as the work item ID.
30. How is an event triggered from the application and a workflow then started?
An event can be triggered from the application in three different ways:
Directly:
Within the application, the SWE_EVENT_CREATE function module or the SWE_EVENT_CREAT_IN_UPD_TASK function module, for example, generates an event in the update.
With a change document:
Change documents are written within the application when you change application objects in the update. You can link events that have the same key with these types of change documents via transaction SWEC.
With status management:
The SWE_EVENT_CREATE_STATUS function module triggers an event in the same way as the direct method when a status is changed. This event contains the object type (for example, purchase order), the object key (for example, purchase order 4711) and other information. Using transaction PFTC, you can assign the event to a specific workflow or single-step task. More settings are available in transaction SWE2.
31. How are the responsible agents determined?
You can assign agents to a single-step task in transaction PFTC. For example, you can do this using organizational units, work center roles or positions. Within a workflow pattern, you can assign specific agents for this workflow to a single-step task. The overlap between both numbers of 'possible agents' represents the number of agents ('selected agents') who have the work item in the inbox later.
32. What is the difference of between an e-mail and a work item?
E-mails and work items are two completely separate things. They just happen to be displayed in the same inbox. An e-mail is a message sent to one or several people. However, a work item is a runtime object of a single-step task or workflow. Consequently, a work item cannot be deleted from the inbox of a user. In this case in fact, you have to adjust the agent assignment or delete the work item as described in note 49545.
33. PFAC no longer works for my role responsibility setup...
Use tx: OOCU_RESP
34. How do I transport workflow definitions and agent assignments?
When transporting workflows, you have to differentiate between the workflow definition and the agent assignment.
A workflow definition is a workbench request. When you save the workflow, a workflow version is created and a request written. Further information about the transport or about the status management is provided in note 378487 and in the notes mentioned there under related notes.
However, where the agent assignment is concerned, this is a Customizing request. To allow transport of agent assignments, the value of the semantic abbreviation CORR for the TRSP group name must be empty in table T77S0.
35. How do you debug a background workflow process?
In your method write the following code:
data exit.
Do.
if exit = 'X'.
exit.
endif.
enddo.
Run the workflow, causing an infinite loop on that step, and then go to SM50.
Here you can debug the process.
36.What is the Workflow basic Customizing?
Before you can use the Workflow module, you must first execute the basic Customizing in transaction SWU3. All of the listed points should be green (the number range for customer tasks is no longer required). A detailed description of the activities is provided in the relevant information buttons. You can also execute some (but not all) of the points using the Automatic Customizing button. See the online documentation for an exact description of what happens there. The RFC destination must work correctly and the user (usually WF BATCH) should have the SAP_ALL profile.
37.: What options do I have as a user to configure the inbox individually?
You have the following options:
You can create separate user-dependent or user-independent layouts so that you can adapt the displayed columns individually. You can access the function in the Workplace via an application function key.
You can set filters to set certain criteria for individual columns or several columns simultaneously, according to which specific work items are then filtered.
You can add dynamic columns in the layout that then display dynamic elements for certain tasks and users from the work item container. However, this is only possible if all tasks in the inbox belong to just one task. If they have several tasks in the inbox, filtering serves no useful purpose because all tasks are first completely read once. You can define these dynamic columns using transaction SWL1.
38. What does the substitute rule system look like in the workflow?
You have a choice of two different substitute rulings:
Active substitute ruling (for example, for absence due to vacations): In this case, the items belonging to the absent person are automatically assigned to the substitutes inbox (in addition to his own work items).
Passive substitution (for example, for absence due to illness): the substitute must explicitly assume the substitution and can only view the items of the absent person in this mode.
For other questions, you must also refer to note 74000.
39. How can users be automatically notified that new work items are available for processing?
Unfortunately, the dialog box that informs users of new work items which appears in SAPoffice is not available within SAP Systems.
However, the following two options are provided:
In the Workflow Builder, you can designate the item as an express item via additional data. The user then receives a corresponding express dialog box.
The RSWUWFML report (note 131795) is a more flexible option. This report sends an e-mail to an external Internet address to notify the user of new work items.
40. Can I set deadlines for the latest processing of work items?
this is where you can use deadline monitoring for work items. In the Workflow Builder, you can set dates for a requested/latest start/end date for each individual step. You must schedule the SWWDHEX job via transaction SWU3 for this. Schedule the job permanently in the production system otherwise it is difficult for the job to schedule individual deadline monitoring scenarios when workflow is heavy.
41. Can I also execute work items with external programs such as Outlook?
You can use the Web GUI for HTML instead of the Windows GUI. However, note that some functions do no work in the WEB GUI, due to technical restrictions in the browser. You must refer to note 487649 on this subject.
SAP also provides interfaces which allow you to process work items with external programs such as Lotus Notes or Microsoft Outlook. Refer to notes 77099, 98408 and 454845 for details.
More stuff on WORKFLOW
Transactions
AWUV Wizard for event creation Definition tools -> Event creation -> Set up with wizard
MCA1 Workflow Information System Reporting -> Workflow Information System (WIS)
OOAW Evaluation paths
PFAC Maintain standard roles
PFAC_CHG Change roles Definition tools -> Standard roles -> Change
PFAC_DEL Delete roles Definition tools -> Standard roles -> Delete
PFAC_DIS Display roles Definition tools -> Standard roles -> Display
PFAC_INS Create roles Definition tools -> Standard roles -> Create
PFOM Maintain assignment to SAP organizational objects Definition tools -> SAP org. objects -> Create assignments
PFOS Display assignment to SAP organizational objects Definition tools -> SAP org. objects -> Display assignments
PFSO Organizational environment of a user
PFT Maintain customer task
PFTC General task maintenance
PFTC_CHG Change tasks Definition tools -> Task/Task groups -> Change
PFTC_COP Copy tasks Definition tools -> Task/Task groups -> Copy
PFTC_DEL Delete tasks Definition tools -> Task/Task groups -> Delete
PFTC_DIS Display tasks Definition tools -> Task/Task groups -> Display
PFTC_INS Create tasks Definition tools -> Task/Task groups -> Create
PFTR Standard task for transaction
PFTS Standard task
PFWF Maintain workflow task (customer)
PFWS Maintain workflow template
PPOC Create organizational plan Definition tools -> Organizational plan -> Create
PPOM Maintain organizational plan Definition tools -> Organizational plan -> Change
PPOS Display organizational plan Definition tools -> Organizational plan -> Display
SWDA Ongoing Settings Administration -> Settings
SWDC Workflow editor administration data
SWDM Business Workflow Explorer Definition tools -> Business Workflow Explorer
SWE2 Display and maintain event type linkage Utilities -> Events -> Type linkages
SWE3 Display instance linkages Utilities -> Events -> Instance linkages
SWE4 Switch event log on/off Utilities -> Events -> Event/log -> On/Off
SWEC Link change documents to events Definition tools -> Event creation -> Change documents -> Linkage
SWED Assignment of change document objects to object types Definition tools -> Event creation -> Change documents -> Define workflow properties
SWEL Display event log Utilities -> Events -> Event log -> Display
SWF3 Workflow Wizard Explorer Definition tools -> Wizards -> Workflow Wizard Explorer
SWF4 Workflow Wizard Repository Definition tools -> Wizards -> Workflow Wizard Repository
SWI1 Selection report for workflows Utilities -> Work item selection
SWI2 Work item analysis Reporting -> Work item analysis
SWI3 Workflow outbox Runtime tools -> Workflow outbox
SWI4 Task analysis Reporting -> Task analysis
SWI5 Workload analysis Reporting -> Workload analysis
SWI6 Object links Runtime tools -> Object links
SWI7 Workflow resubmission folder From Integrated Inbox or Workflow Outbox
SWI8 Error overview Part of administration of workflow runtime system (transaction SWUF)
SWL1 Settings for dynamic columns Customizing, part of ongoing settings
SWLC Check tasks for agents Utilities -> Consistency check -> Organizational assignment
SWLD Workbench for Workflow 4.0
SWLP Copy plan version
SWLV Maintain work item views Customizing, part of ongoing settingS
SWLW Workbench for Workflow 3.0
SW01 Business Object Builder Definition tools -> Business Object Builder
SW06 Customizing object types From Business Object Builder, choose Settings -> Delegate -> System-wide
SWU0 Event simulation Utilities -> Events -> Simulate event
SWU2 RFC monitor Utilities -> Workflow RFC monitor
SWU3 Customizing consistency check Utilities -> Customizing
SWU4 Consistency check for standard tasks Utilities -> Consistency check -> Task -> Standard task
SWU5 Consistency check for customer tasks Utilities -> Consistency check -> Task -> Customer task
SWU6 Consistency check for workflow tasks Utilities -> Consistency check -> Task -> Workflow task
SWU7 Consistency check for workflow templates Utilities -> Consistency check -> Task -> Workflow template
SWU8 Switch technical trace on/off Utilities -> Technical trace -> On/off
SWU9 Display technical trace Utilities -> Technical trace -> Display
SWUD Diagnostic tools Utilities -> Diagnosis
SWUE Trigger event Utilities -> Events -> Generate event
SWUF Runtime system administration Administration -> Runtime system
SWUG Workflow start transactions Definition tools -> Workflow start transactions
SWUI Start workflows From the R/3 initial screen, choose Office -> Start Workflow
SWUS Start tasks Runtime tools -> Start workflow
SWUY Wizard for message linkage to workflow Definition tools -> Wizards -> Create "Call workflow from message"
SWX1 Create notification of absence
SWX2 Change notification of absence
SWX3 Display notification of absence
SWX4 Approve notification of absence
SWXF Form applications: Access point Environment -> Demo examples -> Fill out form
Reports
RSWWWIDE Delete work items
RHSOBJCH to fix PD Control Tables
Tables
SWW_OUTBOX - Lists Workflows in outbox together with status
SWW_CONT - Container Contents for Work Item Data Container
SWW_CONTOB- Container Cont. for Work Item Data Container (Only Objects)
SWWLOGHIST- History of a work item
SWWORGTASK- Assignment of WIs to Org.Units and Tasks
SWWUSERWI - Current Work Items Assigned to a User
SWWWIHEAD - Header Table for all Work Item Types
Reward poits if helpful.
Regards,
Amber S -
Mass Approval for Leave in UWL
Dear Gurus,
we are facing issues in mass approval for leave process in our UWL. we have customized the xml file and added approve and reject columns in the table. this is all in a new custom view that is designed and uploaded with high priority.
when selecting radiobuttons and clicking submit, Task disappears from UWL and moved to outbox in SAP Inbox.
But the document status is "SENT" and not changing to Approved /Rejected. Workflow Status is showing as completed.
Any clue.? Do we need to change the Workflow to accept the user decision via UWL. Any Container/parameters to be updated in addition?
<Action name="approved" userDecision="yes" handler="UpdatingContainerHandler" referenceBundle="com.sap.pct.erp.mss.leaverequest.approve">
<Properties>
<Property name="_WI_OBJECT_ID.STATUS" value="APPROVED"/>
<Property name="_WI_RESULT" value="A"/>
<Property name="_RESULT" value="A"/>
</Properties>
</Action>
<Action name="rejected" userDecision="yes" handler="UpdatingContainerHandler" referenceBundle="com.sap.pct.erp.mss.leaverequest.reject">
<Properties>
<Property name="_WI_OBJECT_ID.STATUS" value="REJECTED"/>
<Property name="_WI_RESULT" value="R"/>
<Property name="_RESULT" value="R"/>
</Properties>
</Action>
Kindly help
Regards,
AnkurDear All,
An Update. although workitems go away from manager's UWL, the leave status of the employee remains "SENT" and does not change to "Approved".
this is because from 3 steps that are allowed in workflow Accept(approved), reject(rejected) and cancelled(error step), the workflow progresses to step 3(cancelled).
I checked with workflow consultants and they checked everything and reported that this requirement cannot be handled by changing the workflow as enough information is not passed to them to change the status of the particular leave in the tables...
Kindly advice, if this configuration could work, or we need to go for custom development to create a new portal applicaton along with adaptive RFC's? in this case it will be a big and time consuming process in itself.
regards,
'Ankur Agarwal' -
How to share a job with Compressor 4.1?
Can anyone explain how to set up Compressor on two or more computers to share a coding job? I was never successful, neither with the old versions nor the new one. I have connected two computers running Mavericks via Ethernet. They appear in the preferences list of Compressor as inactive and can be selected (with a tick). Starting a job produces no error. Only the little network monitor window shows some activity: "inactive" (in white or yellow), sometimes: "not found" (in red). The computer which sends the job waits endlessly.
I deactivated the firewall, connected the computer with DHCP or fixed IP but no success. What else do I have to do?Hi Steffen, hats off to you for gathering this valuable information! I'm going to title this post:
Setup Distributed Node Processing for Distributed Segmented MULTIPASS Transcoding in Compressor.app V4.1 (2013 version)
Summary:
A quick look at those logs of yours.., Qmaster is having trouble accessing its cluster storage and probably your transcode source and target elements.
This is a bit of a giveaway - looks like the part time helpers at Apple didn’t look at it hard enough
msg="CSwampService::startupServer: servicecontroller:com.apple.stomp.transcoderx couldn't advertise server, error = error: DNSServiceRegister failed: CRendezvousPublisher::_publish"/>
<mrk tms="412112937.953" tmt="01/22/2014 20:48:57.953" pid="1975" kind="begin" what="log-session"/>
<mrk tms="412113195.964" tmt="01/22/2014 20:53:15.964" pid="1975" kind="begin" what="service-request" req-id="D6BAF26C-DD43-4F29-BD72-81BC9CF25753:1" msg="Processing."></mrk>
<log tms="412113209.037" tmt="01/22/2014 20:53:29.037" pid="1975" msg="Shared storage mount failed: exception = CNFSSharedStorage::_subscribe: command [/sbin/mount 127.0.0.53:/Users/steffen/Library/Application Support/Compressor/Storage/21D262F0-BF7EC314/shared] failed, error = 61"/>
Let’s look at this and then propose a clean method of establishing and consolidating your cluster.
Simply the Bonjour service is having a hard time trying to find you and also qmaster been running ragged trying to mount your Cluster 21D262F0-BF7EC314 storage.
Let's fix it.
Basics for the above with Compressor v4.1 and Qmaster.
much has been abstracted from the user to help easy implentation and use. This is good me thinks!
avoid ticking every option that is available on each host , such facilities aggravate and add to the complexity of your workflow environment
isolate the network subnets to use for all host access, file system paths, communication, diagnosis, monitoring and finally data transfer (see later)
use source objects that will develop segments that will be distributed for processing. A 3 minute clip generally won't segment to cause distribution.
review any workflow gains by distributed transcoding: slow node hols up process and additional time to assemble qt segments. A cluster dedicated to an iMac or macpro can often be faster. (Have several clusters defined and submit accordingly (long , most and short )!!)
All elements/objects used in the source and any target folders SHOULD (not must) be mounted and accessible by each Qmaster node. You can use sym links I recall. For reasons of efficiently and easy of diagnosis.
So.. I'd propose you try and test your setup as follows .
Try this and start from beginning. Do your best to perform these work instructions. Try also not to deviate if u can
Simple Architecture Approach:
Your main Macbookpro or main work mac (refered to by you as "master") shall be designated the qmasterd controller that services batch submissions AND that also provides transcode services.
The other macs ("service or slave nodes) will ONLY perform transcoding services and will NOT accept batch submissions. The slaves / service nodes will not be able to send their jobs to your master controller for transcoding for example.
Keep it simple! and please follow these steps.
Step 1: Quiesce your clusters and Qmaster
in Compressor.app v4.1 / Preferences / Shared Computers, stop / disable all hosts (both your macs) from automatic file sharing - tick it OFF (it causes issue u have).. More later
In Compressor.app v4.1 / Preferences / My Computer, stop / disable all hosts (both your macs) stop allowing others to add batches to your host. Slide to OFF
On all hosts, quit or force out compressor.app v4.1
On all hosts (macs) use activity monitor.app or unix ps command to Force Quit ( or kill) any currently running qmasterd task and any compressord tasks if you can.
On all hosts, purge | clean out | delete the Qmaster and compressor structures. This is documented by several of us on this forum but fundamentally you want to preserve your settings and destination templates and delete the rest. Do these sub-steps on all hosts where u intend to deploy compressor/Qmaster for your distributed transcode processing
a. Navigate to /Users/shared/library/Application Support/ and delete the Compressor folder if it exists. By all means use the osx Finder to put it in the trash or just use the faithfully unix rm command to delete it immediately without serialisation : rm -rf /Users/Shared/Library/Application Support/Compressor
b. Navigate to your home directory ~/Library/Application Support/Compressor and move or copy any personalised values to your desktop so we can reinstate them later. Copy these two folders if they exist.
Settings
Layouts
And also copy /move any customised destination templates that u used. These are files ending in ".template"
Now using the Finder or unix command delete your ~/Library/Application Support/Compressor folder and all it's objects such: rm -rf ~/Library/Application Support/Compressor
c. Dismount (+E or drag into trash) any shared file systems you have manually or automatically shared between your hosts. (Your two macs) . Turn off any auto mounts you may have setup in login items for Qmaster and your source and target libraries.
d. After you have done Steps 1a - 1c on all your hosts ,
then RESTART
and log back into your hosts
attempt to delete the trash on each.
6. Check the activity monitor and confirm there are no compressord sub tasks running. Qmasterd might be running. That's ok
Step 2: set up your dedicated network for your transcoding cluster .. Important!
In this step you will isolate your cluster network to a dedicated subnet. BTW ,o DNS is needed unless you get exotic with many nodes!
You will:
use the macs Wifi network as your primary network for NON TRANSCODING work such as email, internet , iChat, iCloud and bonjour (.local) I'm assuming u have this in place
use the Ethernet on your macs as your dedicated Qmaster cluster subnet.
For this procedure will make an IP address range 1.1.1.x subnet and manually assign the IP addresses to each host. Ofcourse you can use a smart DHCP router if u have one or a simple switch and use OSX SERVER.app erver 10.9 ($HK190 , €19) on your MAcbookpro... The later for another time
a). using system preferences/network on your controller mac("master"), configure the built in Ethernet to manual IP address of 1.1.1.1 Yes yes, dhcp would be nice if we also had a dns for this subnet to identify each host (machine name) however we don't. Leave the subnet default to 255.255.255.0, and router to 1.1.1.1 .. It's not escaping anywhere! ( very private LAN for your cluster! )
b) repeat step 2a to set the other "slaves" service node only macs whose built in Ethernet to 1.1.1.2 , 1.1.1.3 and so on
c) connect these hosts (macs) ethernets together in a dedicated hub / zoned switch or if only two macs, just use a cat5/cat6 Ethernet cable
d) on each host (mac) using system preferences/network check for a Green light against the built in Ethernet
e) on each host (mac)system preferences/network to make a new network configuration (so that you can fall back incase of error) : using system preferences/network make a new network location on each mac
- edit the Location listbox, edit and DUPLICATE the current location
- select and over type the name and change it to "qmaster work" or some name u like save and close the dialogue
- back in sys prefs / network select your new location "qmaster work" (from the location list box and "apply"
- now click the gear wheel icon on lower left and Reorder the network interfaces so that the WIfi is top (first) followed by Builtin Ethernet .
- click "apply"
- confirm Ethernet is still green status
Do this on each host (mac) .. The slave/service nodes
f) on each host (mac) verify that you can address each mac over you new subnet. There's many ways to do it however do it simply via the /applications/utilities/Terminal.app.
From mac #1 whose IP address is 1.1.1.1,
Enter:
traceroute 1.1.1.2 press return and one line should come back.
ping 1.1.1.2 and a continuous lines appear with packets and time is ms. Watch 3-4 then use control+C to stop
Do the same to the other nodes you may have such as 1.1.1.3 etc
Repeat the above from the other hosts. For example from one of the service (slave) macs say 1.1.1.2, t
Test the network path back to your main mac 1.1.1.1: using terminal.app from that slave,
Enter:
traceroute 1.1.1.1 press return and one line should come back.
ping 1.1.1.1 and a continuous lines appear with packets and time is ms. Watch 3-4 lines then use control+c to stop
At this point you should have a solid network path between your hosts over Ethernet on the subnet 1.1.1.x
Step 3: mount all filesystems over the Ethernet 1.1.1.x subnet that are to be used for transcoding source (input | read ) and target (output | to be written )
Simplicity is important at this stage to make sure you know what being accessed. This is one reason for disabling all the automatic compressor settings
You will use the Finder's "Connect to Server" (+k) from each slave (server) node to access the source and target filesystems on your master mac for the transcoding.
These can be saved as favourites in the "Connect to Server" dialogues
Do this:
A) locate the volumes / filesystems and folders on your mac master where your source objects is contained. Do the same for where the final distribution transcode is to be written with you user access.. "Steffen"
B) On each slave mac, use the Finder's "connect to server" dialogue to MOUNT those folders as network volumes on your slave macs
mount the Source folder. Finder / Go / Connect to Server or +K
enter "[email protected]//Users/steffen/movies/my-fcpx-masters. ( choose you source directory path) .
Click connect & password and use the "+" sign to save as favourite
- mount the target folder. Finder / Go / Connect to Server +k
- enter "[email protected]/users/movies/my-fcpx-transcodes. ( choose your target directory path) . Click connect n password and use the "+" sign to save as favourite
Do these for all your slave macs. Remember you are specifying file paths over the 1.1.1.x subnet
Obviously make sure your slaves have read and write access. Yes and you could also mark these folders and Shared in Finder info then everyone can see them ... your choice
C) verify your access: on each slave use the finder to create a ftest older in those recently mounted volumes. Delete the test folder.
So now all your networks and workflow folders are all mounted and accessible by your slave hosts and it's user
step 4: Set up Compressor v4.1 and Qmaster
Care is initially required here NOT to click needlessly on options.
Recall that you purged most of the compressor.app v4.1 state information on step 1. ?
Compressor.app v4.1 will appear new when u start it.
on the master mac 1.1.1.1 , launch compressor.app v4.1
open compressor v4.1 preferences (command+,)
using compressor.app V4.1 preferences:
My Computers tab: turn OFF . Don't allow others to process on this computer
Share Computers tab: UNTICK (disable) automatically share files.
Advanced tab: WHen Sharing My Computer listbox: select Ethernet as the preferred network interface 1.1.1.x). Don't use all interfaces : - trouble
Do not specify additional instances yet! Less to troubleshoot
On each slave mac 1.1.1.2 -1.1.1.x
launch compressor.app v4.1
open compressor v4.1 preferences (command+,)
using compressor.app preferences:
My Computers tab: turn ON (yes ON) to allow others to process their stuff on this slave computer
Share Computers tab: UNTICK (disable) automatically share file
Advanced tab: WHen Sharing My Computer listbox select Ethernet as the preferred network interface 1.1.1.x). Don't use all interfaces : - trouble
Do not specify additional instances yet! Less to troubleshoot !
On the master mac, 1.1.1.1
using Compressor.app v4.1, select destinations and add a new CUSTOM destination and navigate the dialogue to your target folder you specified in step 3b ~/movies/my-fcpx-transcodes as an example.
Use this custom destination on the batch later
in Compressor.app V4.1 preferences/Shared Computers, click the plus "+" sign in bottom left cornet to create a new cluster called "unnamed ".
- click in the name and change the name to "Steffenscluster" (I'm not connected to my network as I do this..)
- tick on the slaves 1.1.1.2 to 1.1.1.x to add the to your new cluster .. assumethee are on the right in a list.
Your cluster "Steffenscluster" is now active!
Care care! One more thing to do. You SHOULD make the cluster storage for master 1.1.1.1 available to all your slaves. This is important for this test !!
On the master 1.1.1.1, Use the finder to verify that you have these directories built from compressor.app v4.1
/Users/Shared/Library/Application Support/Compressor
and your own home directory: ~/Library/Application Support/Compressor
Dig deeper for the /storage folder in each to see the hexadecimal named folder that represents this cluster "Steffencluster"!
These should be manully mounted on each slave. Recall we DISABLED automatic file sharing.
on each slave mac 1.1.1.2 - 1.1.1.x, mount the masters cluster storage file systems. Do this for verifying access of each cluster Slave
on each slave mac, use the Finder's "connect to server" dialogue to MOUNT those folders as network volumes on your slave macs
mount Qmaster cluster storage folder
Use Finder / Go / Connect to Server or +k
enter "[email protected]/Users/Shared/Library/Application Support/Compressor/Storage
Click connect & password and use the "+" sign to save as favourite
- mount users Qmaster cluster storage folder
Use Finder / Go / Connect to Server or command+k
enter "[email protected]/Users/steffen/Library/Application Support/Compressor/Storage
Click connect & password and use the "+" sign to save as favourite
This you may have 4 new network volumes (file systems) mounted on each mac slave over your dedicated 1.1.1.x subnet!
Step5: submit a job
On master mac 1.1.1.1 launch the new compressor.app v4.1 "Network Encoder Monitor " .. Use +E . new in COmpressor.app V4.1
You should see all your nodes all cluster service points for your master and slaves. Heres you see just one (this macbookair!)
On each host (mac) Launch the activity monitor.app and filter compressord .. There they are on each host!
Nearly there.
On the mac that's the master 1.1.1.1 (controller )
Submit a job:
Use finder to move some footage etc that more than 15 mins for example into your source directory folder from step 3b (eg ~/movies/my-fcpx-masters.)
In compressor.app v4.1 Add this +I to the batch
Drag your custom destination on to the batch
Set your encoding setting (apple devices best)
Open the inspector in compressor.app and select "video" and make sure MULTIPASS is checked. Then change to frame controls at your leisure. Better means slower
Select the General tab and make sure JOB SEGMENTING is ticked!
Now cross fingers and submit it (or +B)
Step 6: Monitoring the Workflow Progress
In compressor.app v4.1 Use the active tab to watch the progress
Open the disclosure triangle and see the segments
Unfortunately u can really see which node is processing. (No more share monitor .. btw for those who care.. thats buried now in /Applications/Compressor.app/Contents/PlugIns/Compressor/CompressorKit.bundle/Contents/Embedde dApps/Share Monitor.app/Contents/MacOS/Share Monitor
Look at the network encoder monitor (cmd + E) to see the instances processing your work
Lots of small and overdetailed steps here Steffen and its worth working through.
Simply all these things need to be availble to get your cluster to work EVERYTIME.
I might update this and post a more detailed disalogue/transcript on my blog and post it here.
Epilogue:
I for one rather like the new compressor.app V4.1. Qmaster is buried and works well when not teased or unintentionally fooled.
I would like the ability to :
specify the location of the qmaster cluster storage rather than have it in the root systems file system - I used to have it on my disk array
compressor to be applescriptable
Post your results for others to see.
Warwick
Hong Kong -
V7 Email Receiver vs. v9 Startpoint
I am upgrading a customer from LC7.2.2 to LC9. The workflow has 7 approval steps that the participants only interact with emailed PDF's. In AdminUI, all inbound email is configured to be received in the "Incoming Email" setup. The form is configured with a send button that opens the participants email client and attaches an XDP that contains a process ID. The participant then needs to hit Send (in Outlook) which goes to a system mailbox. Once received, LC7 then matches up the email via process ID and the workflow progresses. There are no services to send emails to the participants so that is handled by simple assignments steps.
It seems to me this functionality will not work in LC9. Is it true that you must configure seperate Email Startpoints to receive the email? If so, how do I manage matching up the inbound email back to the parent workflow. I presume I'd have to handle all this with subprocesses?
Please help, I'm in a bind.Hi
I'm not sure I understand your use case...it seems like you have tried a bit of everything!
Are you using an xdp or a pdf form? Do you need to submit as xdp or pdf?
Do you specifically need to customize your email messages on each task? ("Include Form Data in Email" tells me that you are creating custom email templates.) You could also use the main template in adminui and turn on Form and Data there and get a generic email with attachment for each task.
I have never seen an issue with "Include Form Data in Email" causing deploy problems. I suspect there is some other cause. The server and workbench logs may give you a hint.
The "Submit via Reader" on the startpoint and user service are only used in cases where you have no submit button on your form and you are using reader 9.1 and later to submit a form. It's a very specific use case....I don't think you need this.
By setting it to "Submit as PDF" you would require a document variable not an xml variable. My guess is that this created your deploy issue.
Try this simple use case from scratch to understand how things work:
1) Create an application.
2) Create a form xdp (or pdf) with the Process fields (checking the "Through email" checkbox on the wizard drops on the process fields.)
3) Create a new process and choose "When a user submits a task in Workspace" as the startpoint and choose your form. Follow the rest of the wizard.
4) On the startpoint, the wizard automatically picked that xdp/pdf as the Asset and set the Default profile and xml variable. (Don't select reader submit.)
5) Add a user service and on the Presentation & Data tab, pick the same asset, action profile and variable. Pick you user on Initial User Selection tab.
6) Deploy the app.
7) In the adminui, turn on Task Assignment email notifications with form and data attached.
When you submit the startpoint, the user at the next step will receive an email with form attached.
Reader Extensions is not required.
Diana -
Incorrect split in partial shipments
Hi all,
When a partial shipment is done, OM splits the lines in oe_order_lines and in wsh_delivery_details. That's ok. However, sometimes, both lines in wsh_delivery_details (the one shipped and the one with the balance to be shipped) point (source_line_id) to the line in oe_order_lines that has been just shipped. This way, when I try to ship the balance, I get an error informing that ship_confirm is not a notified activity in line <closed line line_id>. Has anyone already gone through that?
Thanks for your help,
Ketter OhnesI have not encountered this error. Try doing the following
- Check the workflow for the line items and then rewind the workflow to the first active state
- Clear the ship sets in the order lines and if you want to ship them together create a new ship set for both the lines
- Run the workflow background process (concurrent request), since you have rewound the workflow
- Progress the line items separately, if your line items are configured items, this should create discrete jobs. Complete the jobs then pick release the order.
- After releasing the order you should be able to ship confirm the order.
Aarti -
Workflow status "In progress" remains after everything has been executed
Hello,
I'm running into a problem with visual studio workflows I'm using in my solution. It appears that some workflows randomly don't finish while the same workflow finishes just fine for an other listitem. So I got a small test envoirment which creates 30 listitems
and starts the same workflow (with 1 task inside) for all those items. After that I got some custom code which alters every task to be finished. So when the problem appears the task inside the workflow is finished, but the workflow itself remains "In
progress".
Only 3 - 5 out of 30 workflows usually remain "In progress" and sometimes every workflow is finished, so I'm wondering what the cause could be here? Sometimes a single workflow also remains "In progress" so the heavy load due to many
workflows being finished at the same time can't be the reason in my opinion.I got a follow up question, which might lead to a solution for my problem. I'm trying to figure out how to terminate a workflow programmatically. I've found severals ways to cancel a workflow but since that's not the result a user might expect, after everything
went fine, I'm looking for a piece of code to end the workflow as it would normally do.
I understand why there is no api for this code, since a workflow normally should stop by itself, but as I pointed out in my first post that's not always the case for me.
Maybe you are looking for
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Abap+java stack, users not mapping to portal role.
We have the ABAP+java add-on install. The UME is by default ABAP engine. From Portal: 1 I create a portal user, it ALWAYS creates ABAP user in ABAP stack of WAS. 2. I create a portal role, it creates a role in the Portal. 3. When I assign the user th
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How to validate for a unique constraint?
Hi all, Below is my stored procedure that updates the well name from the VIEW_TABLE1 into the WELL_HEADER_TABLE after comparing the apinumbers present in both the tables . I need to put a condition in which the apinumber should be checked and validat
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To put validatition check on date
hi there is data being loaded from a flat file i want to input check on date format as yyyymmdd format only please suggest how to put this check regards arora