Workflow in SAP NetWeaver Subscribe

Ginger Gatling Print

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Company: SAPLabs
Posted on Oct. 13, 2006 12:24 PM in ABAP, Application Server,
Beginner, Business Process Expert, Business Process Management,
Business Process Modeling, Composite Application Framework (CAF),
Enterprise Portal (EP), SAP Exchange Infrastructure (XI),
Technologies, Visual Composer

URL: https://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/HOME/Workflow+tools+in+SAP+NetWeaver
Recently Ive received many questions about workflow capabilities in SAP NetWeaver. What options we have, the
difference between the tools, when to use which tool. So, I wanted to share with you a few thoughts on our
workflow tools.
Due to my background, when I hear the word workflow, I immediately think SAP Business Workflow. However,
when other people hear the word workflow, they may think of other SAP tools, or even non-SAP tools that your
company uses to model, design, and implement workflow.
When you hear the work workflow,
do you think of design time/modeling activities, or do you
think of runtime capabilities as well? Whatever you think of, weve got the tool that you
can use to help you in the definition of your workflows. We will divide the tools into the
following categories:
human to human, human to system, system to system, and modeling tools.

Human to Human and Human to System to System

System Integration Process (ccBPM)
SAP Business Workflow
Modeling tools
Guided Procedures ARIS for SAP NetWeaver
Universal Worklist SAP Solution Manager
SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer
Collaboration Tasks
SAP NetWeaver Master Data
Mangaement (MDM) Workflow
OK - a few ground rules:
Each tool will be discussed BRIEFLY. If you are the expert in the tool, please understand I will not
discuss all the awesome things about your tool. Please respond with a link on where people can get more
information or how they can get with you for a deep-dive.

For each tool I will list one to three advantages, implementation considerations, and example business
scenarios. These are all according to my opinion. Feel free to disagree, but be nice about it.

Please respond with how you have used the tools and even how you would like to see our toolset
expand and change in the future.

If the content of this blog interest you, please check it out in the new wiki area: Workflow in SAP NetWeaver. We
are adding detailed FAQ's to each of the topics. We need you to help us keep our new workflow wiki updated.
Please use this wiki to add your comments and FAQ's!! We all own the wiki!!
 SAP Business Workflow

What it is:
SAP Business Workflow is a workflow tool that comes delivered with every SAP NetWeaver Application Server. The
tool enables you to build repeatable business processes that follow specific business rules, including rules for
routing each task to the right person.

Major Advantages:
Many SAP applications deliver workflows as content with the SAP application. ERP, CRM, SRM are
examples of SAP applications that provide ready-to-use workflows.

You can do detailed reporting on the process itself. For example, reporting on how many times each
workflow executed, what was the average execution time, how long did it take people to react to items in their
inbox, etc.

There is a great deal of knowledge available on business workflow. There are more than 5,000 members
in the Americas' SAP User Group. I do not have statistics on how many members are in other regions' user groups.

Implementation Considerations:
You need upper-management support for a business workflow project to be successful. SAP Business
Workflow will change how business processes are executed, for it to be successful you must have appropriate
management support.

SAP Business Worflow works best with functions inside of one SAP system. It can do external calls, and
Universal Worklist can be used to enhance external service calls, however, most customers use SAP Business
Workflow to manage specific business processes that occur frequently in one SAP application.

Example business scenarios:

Approval processes, such as purchase requisition, purchase order, and invoice approval.

Processes that are repeated often and that must follow specific business rules. For example, for each
employee new hire, a specific process must be executed for each new hire.
Another example is business partner creation. After each business partner is created you need to set up addtional
information such as credit limit, contact information, and technical information for data exchange with the
business parter.
Yet another example would be follow-on activities after creating a material, perhaps you need a plant views in
different country. Each plant is responsible to add the relevant plant view information.

Processes that could be audited, or areas where you want proof of execution for Sarbanes Oxley
compliance, or other government or corporate policy regulations.

Where to get more information:

At help.sap.com you cand find great information and tutorials.

Each region offers training classes in workflow. BIT600 and BIT601 are great starting points.

Guided Procedures
What it is:
Guided Procedures is part of the composition tools delivered with SAP NetWeaver. This tool enables you to easily
and quickly build processes that span multiple systems, including both SAP and non-SAP systems.
Major Advantages:
The design time is done via a web browser. No client-specific installation is required for design time
activities.
 It is very easy to build a process that spans mulitple application systems. A guided procedures can
access an external service, SAP ERP functions, and SAP NetWeaver capabilities in a consistent manner. The design
time is consistent even though the various backend systems could be very diverse.

You can easily build processes without writing any code. For example, integrating SAP Interactive Forms
by Adobe is very simple because no programming is required.

Implementation Considerations:
It is only available with SAP NetWeaver 2004s. Because of this there is not a great deal of experienced
knowledge available with guided procedures.

You need to decide who should create guided procedures and you need to develop a plan for
maintainenance of the processes once they are developed.

Example business scenarios:

Processes where you need pdf forms and the forms are processed offline. For example, before creating a
material, you do some research and fill out forms, then the material is created.

You want to update existing processes where you currently fill out an excel spreadsheet or pass around
some emails to get information before updating your ERP system.

Processes that span more than one system. For example, you need to access a query in SAP NetWeaver
Business Intelligence, data from Knowledge Management, and external calls to ERP and CRM systems.

Where to get more information:

CAF community in SDN has some execellent tutorials.

Online help has comprehensive help for guided procedures.

At the BPX SDN Community you will find information on how business process experts can use guided
procedures.

Universal Worklist
What it is:
The Universal Worklist enables you to get all your tasks in a single location. This includes Guided Procedures
actions, SAP Business Workflow tasks, Knowledge Management Notifications, alerts from the alert framework,
Collaboration Tasks, MDM workflow tasks, and even non-SAP tasks.
A user needs to be able to work in a consistent manner regardless of the type of task or activity they need to
perform. The Universal Worklist provides a central location for the user to manage SAP and non-SAP tasks.
Major Advantages:
All tasks appear in one location, including SAP and non-SAP tasks. There is a UWL API for non-SAP tasks.
For SAP tasks we support SAP Business Workflow, Guided Procedures, Alerts, Collaboration Tasks, MDM tasks, and
KM Notifications.

You can launch alternative user interfaces for tasks. For example, you have a business workflow task
that displays a screen in an SAP GUI, but you want to launch a Web Dynpro, business server page, URL, or some
other alternative user interface. UWL action handlers enable you to launch a variety of different UI handlers.

Tasks can be customized. This can include user personalization of how they want to work with their
tasks, and customization to provide specific data fields, columns, and behavior for tasks.

Implementation Considerations:
Customers that have a strong history of SAP Business Workflow must understand that UWL is not just a
replacement for the traditional SAP GUI inbox. UWL is more broad in scope and does not exactly duplicate the SAP
GUI inbox.
 Depending on the type of customization you want to do, you may need to do some addtional
configuration and customization settings for your users.

Example business scenarios:

Your users must access tasks from mutliple SAP application systems. They require a central source for all
tasks.

In addition to a central location, your users want to process tasks by the task type, for example, process
all purcahse requisitions for Plant A then find specific purchase requisitions for Plant B.

You need to access non-SAP tasks, such as Lotus Notes or other non-SAP items in UWL.

Where to get more information:

Online help is the best place to get information on Universal Worklist. You can also do a search for blogs and
forum postings at SDN.

SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer

What it is:
Normally I would not discuss Visual Composer in a discussion on workflow tools, but I have received so many
questions on how Visual Composer works with Guided Procedures, SAP Business Workflow, ARIS, that I think it is
important to include it. When I think of a workflow tool, I think of a tool that enables me to build processes,
including looping, condition statements, parallel and sequential processing, and figuring out who each should
execute each step, and hopefully include some reporting on each process instance.
SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer is a tool for model-driven content development that enable business experts to
easily create applications which can be used in the SAP NetWeaver Portal and be based on service calls to back-
end systems.
SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer enables you to build user interfaces that access various applications. The
application that Visual Composer creates can then be used by a workflow tool as a step in the overall business
process. For example, I can create a Visual Composer application, then build a Guided Procedure that uses my VC
application. In fact, in most of the TechEd sessions related to Guided Procedures, Visual Composer was used to
build a component of the overall process built by Guided Procedures. The Guided Procedure handled the process,
while Visual Composer handled the user interface and the call to the application that was being executed.
Major Advantages:
The user interface for Visual Composer is incredibly easy to use. You can go through a tutorial in online
help and you are ready to start creating your own VC applications.

Beginning with SAP NetWeaver 2004s, Visual Composer is delivered with the base SAP NetWeaver
installation. You only need the VCRole assigned to your user ID and you can begin using Visual Composer.

It creates Flash and Web Dynpro user interfaces and it is very easy to create fantastic user interfaces.

Implementation Considerations:
When using Visual Composer with business process tools, Guided Procedures is the tool that has the
closest connection to Visual Composer.

Example business scenarios:

You want to build applications and user interfaces based on existing functions. You would like to have
someone in the business community get involved in creating simple Visual Composer applications.

You are involved in analytics and you need to build powerful user interfaces for your analytic
applications.

Where to get more information:

The SDN Visual Composer Community is a one-stop shop for everything you need to know about Visual
Composer.

Some of our best VC gurus are also BI gurus, so you might want to check out the SAP NetWeaver
Business Intelligence Community at SDN as well.
 Of course, the SDN BPX Community is also a great resource.

Collaboration Tasks
What it is:
Collaboration Tasks enable casual users to collaborate on existing tasks and create new tasks, building individual,
ad hoc processes. Collaboration Tasks initiate from the Universal Worklist, either inside or outside of a
Collaboration Room. Additionally, you can initiate Collaboration Tasks from any application using an API.
Major Advantages:
They are implemented by the user, for the user, so they are very user-centric.

Users can easily create ad hoc processes that include feedback options, approvals, and actions that
should be performed.

You can start Collaboration Tasks from existing SAP Business Workflow tasks, this creates a relationship
between the ad hoc process and the business object, including the object link in the ad hoc task.

Implementation Considerations:
These processes are intended for ad hoc processing. Their purpose is not full-scale repeatable business
processes with complex routing. They are perfect when you need to collaborate with a colleague on existing tasks,
or you want to create a small process for your own personal tasks.

Example business scenarios:

You currently use Collaboration Rooms in the SAP NetWeaver Portal and you need to assign tasks to
room members to complete by a specific date.

You receive work in your Universal Worklist. However, at times you need to get someone to assist you
with the work. You do not want them to do the work, but you want to start a process that will 'lock' your current
task until you have received the feedback you need to act on the task.

Where to get more information:

Online help is a great resource to find out more on Collaboration Tasks.

MDM Workflow
What it is:
MDM workflow is a tool specific to SAP NetWeaver Master Data Management. Within MDM, it enables you to
process activities parallel, sequentially, dealing with tasks, data validations, and approvals that must occur within
MDM.
Major Advantages:
Enables you to create process flows directly in MDM.

Provides a way to deal with a group of records in a consistent manner, enforcing specific validations and
approval paths.

Users can access their MDM tasks from Universal Worklist.

Implementation Considerations:
This tool is specific to SAP NetWeaver Master Data Management.

Example business scenarios:

You have a set of materials that need the same approvals for each material in MDM, the records must be
dealt with in a consistent manner.

Where to get more information:

SAP Service Marketplace and the SDN MDM Community are the best places to learn more about SAP NetWeaver
MDM workflow.
 Integration Process (ccBPM)
What it is:
Integration Processes - sometimes referred to as ccBPM, enable you to orchestrate messages that flow between
systems. These messages go between application systems and between partner systems. You may need to send a
purchasing document to a supplier, wait for a response, then send a message to an external warehouse system,
wait for a response, then package up 10 more purchase orders and send them to the same or another supplier.
Major Advantages:
You can create a business process flow of XML messages between systems. This process can be
modeled at different levels of detail, from a high-level view of the process to a detailed view of the process.

Integration processes enable you to decouple the process logic from the application. Just as a guided
procedure creates a human-focused process that is decoupled from the application, integration processes create a
system-focused process that is decoupled from the various application systems.

Integration processes are based on SAP NetWeaver Exchange Infrastructure, so they are completely
application agnostic. They deal with XML messages in a very consistent manner. It does not matter if the data is
coming from an SAP system or a non-SAP system, the XML message is managed the same way.

Integration process support BPEL (Aka WS-BPEL, BPEL4WS). Additionally, SAP is working with IBM on a
new BPEL4 People standard.

Implementation Considerations:
If you do not have previous experience with Integration Processes, you will need to invest in training.

Example business scenarios:

You have a purchasing process where you need to send data back and forth between mutliple suppliers.
The data exchange needs to happen with a specific amount of time. You can design this process using integration
processes. Once the deadline has occurred you can use the alert framework to start a Guided Procedure to get a
person involved since a deadline has occurred.

Your customer requests that you bundle up orders for a specific contract and send them at one time.
The orders originate in various application systems within your enterprise, they need to be combined, sent to the
customer, you need to get a response, and send the response to several application systems.

Where to get more information:

Start with the great SDN community.
Online help for integration process has some great information on building integration processes.
SAP Education offers training specification for Integration Processes (BIT430) and for all of SAP NetWeaver
Exchange Infrastructure.

ARIS for SAP NetWeaver

What it is:
ARIS for SAP NetWeaver provides centralized administration of process information in a multilingual system tool.
You can use this process information for project documentation, system implementation, end-user projects, and
more.
Major Advantages:
It works with Solution Manager and SAP NetWeaver Exchange Infrastructure for the modeling of
business processes that cross application and enterprise boundaries.

It can be used as goverance and documentation for your business process design.

ARIS for SAP NetWeaver provides modeling capabilities to cater for the process architecture model of
business scenarios, business processes and process steps. A value chain diagram describes the end-to-end
company process map.
 Implementation Considerations:
ARIS toolset is developed by IDS Scheer. In the current release of SAP NetWeaver, ARIS is a separate
installation. However, the installation is very simple and does not require a professional installer.

Example business scenarios:

You currently use ARIS for process modeling and you now want to model your SAP processes.

You are a new customer with SAP. You are a business process expert and want a central location to
model your current and to-be processes.

Where to get more information:

Service Marketplace is a good starting point.

SDN BPM community has lots of great information on ARIS.

SAP Solution Manager

What it is:
Solution Manager is the best way for a new customer to see what business processes come delivered in SAP
systems. I meet with many new customers who want to immediately start creating workflows and process flows.
Solution Manager answers the question: "What business processes come delivered with SAP - as part of the
standard application."
Major Advantages:
It works with ARIS in modeling what your business processes should be.

It serves as a 'system of record' for the design of your processes, including documentation,
configuration, and project work completed.

It can be used in conjunction with Solution Composer to see solutions provided by SAP.

Implementation Considerations:
Solution Manager includes both implementations and operations tools. You may want to be sure you
leverage the entire capabilities available with Solution Manager, not only the implementation tools.

Example business scenarios:

You are a new SAP customer and you want to know what processes are delivered with our applications.
You need a tool to help you implement SAP and model what your processses will be.

You are a customer about to perform an upgrade or implement new SAP functionality and you need
implementation assistance.

Where to get more information:

Business Process Expert Community at SDN

Online help

Service Marketplace

Ginger Gatling is a SAP NetWeaver Product Manager

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Comment on this weblog

Showing messages 1 through 8 of 8.

 Titles Only Main Topics Oldest First
confusing infrastructure
2006-11-15 08:58:18 Markus Wissing Business Card [Reply]

Hi Ginger

a good decription for the bundle of workflow solutions. For customers it is hard to understand that there are so
much different solutions. In my consulting projects dealing with esa, BPM, workflow etc. the customers missed the
integration between all these infrastructure components.
They have the following expectation :
- Modelling an End-To-End business process with ARIS including all aspects: Human-to-Human, Human-To-
System,System-To-System, spanning SAP and non-SAP Systems
- One implementition and runtime infrastructure that works for all described aspects.

in this case you will have one process definition an the business level in ARIS, one on the implmentation level and
one overall process instance in the runtime that executes the human-to-system parts of the process and also the
system-to-system parts.

Hopfully their will be some consolidation inside this product bundle.

best regards

Markus

Workflow number 1 and bpel

2006-11-07 22:35:33 Alan Rickayzen Business Card [Reply]

Hi Ginger,
Great to see that your blog is still number one. How many days has it been now?

We did get our bpel glossary podcast out on time so here's the url of the podcast.

All the best,

Alan (Bangalore teched)

example scenario
2006-10-31 16:57:40 Sejoon Ahn Business Card [Reply]

Thanks for your valuable information.

Let me ask you one more.
Could you provide us with some good example scenario?
i understood the each tool's function but cannot imagine example scenario by combining Business Workflow,
Guided Procedures and UWL.

Best Regards.
Sejoon Ahn
o example scenario
2006-11-01 05:20:36 Ginger Gatling Business Card [Reply]
 Hello,
Here is an example scenario where I might combine SAP Business Workflow and Guided Procedures. Of course,
both BWF (business workflow) and GP (guided procedures) send their tasks to UWL - so UWL will be used for both
items.

* You create materials in your ERP system. Once the material is created you start a workflow to add various views,
such as plant views, sales view, etc. Perhaps the material is routed to a contact for each plant to add their plant
view.
* Before you can create the material in MM01, you need to get some information on the material - what type
should be, weight, etc. For this currently you email people or use an outlook form.

So..
1. You create a guided procedure that collects information required to create a material. The last step of the GP
calls a BAPI to create a material.
2. The creation of the material starts a workflow that routes the material to the various plants for the plant view.

You could also use GP to start a workflow directly by calling the workflow API.

Does this example help?

Regards
Ginger
example scenario
2006-11-05 23:11:22 Sejoon Ahn Business Card [Reply]

Hi, Ginger.

Thank you very much for your kind explanation.

It was very helpful to understand. And also, "Introducing Business Task
Management" pdf doc has some helpful example scenarios.

Best Regards.

BPEL podcast to find out more about the SOA aspect of workflow
2006-10-26 09:12:10 Alan Rickayzen Business Card [Reply]

Great blog.
And if anyone wants to know more about BPEL there are plenty of other blogs on how it is deployed and also our
podcast series which kicked of with BPEL in a Nutshell and a second installment tomorrow.
Alan

Excellent weblog
2006-10-13 13:30:34 Ramakrishna Ramisetti Business Card [Reply]

Thank you so much for your comprehensive blog on workflow. Now I got clear idea on workflow. All my doubts
got cleared here.

Ramakrishna Ramisetti