An Introduction to SAP Business Workflow

SAP Business Workflow is a tool to automate complex business processes where there is more than one user involved. SAP workflow maps the position in organization because SAP believes that Positions are more stable than the people.

SAP Workflow is a process tool that is designed to facilitate and automate business processes involving the tasks sequence performed by the users (people in the workplace) and ensure that the right work is assigned in the right sequence at the right time to the right person in the workflow.

The SAP workflow can be linked to other software tools such as Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes. Using SAP Workflow, each step of a business transaction can be easily monitored throughout the initiation and completion of the business processes.

SAP Business Workflow is the R/3 tool for handling the process automation within R/3 or between R/3 systems and other systems involved in the business process. It is flexible enough to handle ad hoc processes such as the circulation of an electronic document.

SAP Business Workflow

Using SAP Workflow, each step of a business transaction can be easily monitored throughout the initiation and completion of the business processes. The SAP Workflow enables the process owners to track deadlines, determine the workload as well as provide statistics on the length of time to complete work processes.

Automatic workflow customizing

Path: ABAP Workbench->Development->SAP Business Workflow->Utilities->Automatic Workflow Customizing-code: SWU3

Creation of business objects

It’s a data with which you want to work in a workflow (e.g. Material, Customer) Objects are created at runtime and are specific instances of defined object types. Many object types are delivered by SAP.

the customer can create new object types or extend SAP objects by creating subtypes (child objects).

New customer objects or subtypes may be desired if the delivered SAP object does not contain all the characteristics (attributes) or processing options (methods) desired.

Hands On An Existing Object Type

Transaction Code: SWO1 for Object type:

b) Enhancement of existing BO (Delegation Required)

Internal technical key of a business object in the Business Object Repository (BOR).

Business objects are identified in the BOR by object type (for example BUS2000270) and a descriptive English name (for example CRM Grantor application). Both identifiers must be unique across all object types.

Also See: What is SAP Workflow?

Interfaces:

Interfaces are a combination of attributes, methods, and events to be used in common among multiple object types.

The purpose of interfaces is to define common functionality in one object type, and to assign that common functionality via an interface to multiple object types across the Business Object Repository.

This avoids redundancy of data and functionality definition.

Key Fields: Key fields are designed to uniquely identify the object type.

Attributes:

Carries the properties for the key field. It provides access to data.

The majority of attributes are data-dictionary fields (for example, the current user status attribute is defined by CRMT_STATUS_INFO-USER_STAT). When you access an attribute of an object, you execute a SQL statement that retrieves the corresponding field in the database.

Creation of Sub objects type

A subtype of an object is another object whose creation is based upon a parent object (see the preceding manager/employee example).

The subtype maintains references to all the attributes and methods of its parent object. This means that any methods and attributes defined on the parent can be executed and accessed on the child object

If a subtype object were merely a copy of its parent, then all the code contained within the parent would be physically copied to the child. This is not the case.

The subtype simply maintains references to its parents methods and attributes. The real difference is that the subtype lets you redefine these methods and attributes.

You can easily add your own business rules to the parent methods by redefining the subtypes method. In the following example, I will show why this distinction is so important.

Create sub business object type:

Path: ABAP Workbench ->Development->Business Object Builder

T-code: SWO1.

Enter standard business object name for which you need to create sub type.

Delegation:

Now that you have implemented a new zrmsfmwfgetdetails method, you need to tell the SAP system to use the defined version of zrmsfmwfgetdetails and not the version that was delivered on the bus2000270 object. This is similar to object-oriented inheritance but the two concepts do have fundamental differences.

This delegation is powerful because it lets you implement your own business logic without modifying any SAP code. As long as the objects are properly delegated, your method will be executed.

Also See: When do you use SAP workflow?