Dynamically adding *possible* agents to a task
Raju Omkaram
romkaram at hotmail.com
Fri Sep 7 15:13:46 EDT 2001
Hi,
The way I implemented(two years ago) as follows:
Created a 'Z' table (Client did not want anything to do with HR and its
Infotypes) which has a key as plant and all possible approvers for that
plant. We forced an (WF) administrator to be on the routing and
empowered the admn to add and/or delete existing approvers. Depending on
the approval limits and type of requisition, the request gets sent to an
appropriate approver. During the approval process, should the routing
change, the workitem automatically be sent to WF admn. WF admn will add
a new approver in the routing and commences routing. If for any reason,
the workitem is sitting in somebody's inbox and that somebody is not
available, I allowed the WF admn to yank the project from anybody's
inbox. I selected the agent as an expression in the workflow binding.
For all changes in routing, WF will automatically send e-mail
notifications to all the approvers who had approved in the chain.
I found this approach very effective and absolutely scalable. Never did
any requisition get lost in no man's land.
Thanks
Raju
-----Original Message-----
From: SAP Workflow [mailto:Owner-SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU] On Behalf Of
Nicholas Brand
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 8:51 AM
To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: Dynamically adding *possible* agents to a task
Memo from Nicholas N Brand of PricewaterhouseCoopers
-------------------- Start of message text --------------------
Hi,
I posed this question a short while ago and as it generated quite a few
responses I wanted to let people know the method we adopted.
The problem was around restricting forwarding of an approval workitem by
dynamically setting the *possible* agents for a task.
The solution we chose was as follows:
We allow general forwarding of the approval workitem and once the
approval
decision had been executed we capture the user that actually clicked the
button and check that they have the necessary approval limit (stored in
their HR mini-master data as a new infotype). If they do we allow the
workflow to proceed, if not they get a pop-up message and the approval
workitem is recreated and sent to the original manager.
Not an ideal solution but it does give the client what they're asking
for.
Thank you again for the advice.
Kind regards,
Nicholas
"Rickayzen, Alan" <alan.rickayzen at sap.com>@MITVMA.MIT.EDU> on 16/08/2001
14:06:12
Please respond to SAP Workflow Users' Group <SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Sent by: SAP Workflow <Owner-SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
cc:
Subject: Re: Dynamically adding *possible* agents to a task
Hi Frank,
You're correct that this function could help. But in effect you're
reassigning the workitems's agents and NOT the task's agents which is
what
Nicholas was suggesting originally. I think Nicholas wanted to reassign
the
possible agents on the fly to prevent someone forwarding the work item
to
someone who was not on the approval chain. The ideal solution would be a
separate agent assignment rule for forwarding (as opposed to receiving)
work
items. I.e. determining who the work item can be forwarded to at run
time.
Has anyone else required this feature?
Anyway back to the suggestion:
The advantage of using SWW_WI_AGENTS_CHANGE_S would be that no new work
item
is created. The disadvantage is that this function module is not an
SAP_WAPI
module so it is only intended for internal use and may need to be
replaced
in a future release.
There might also be problems with buffering and with whether or not the
work
item is displayed in the inbox if the user is not assigned to the task.
This
will vary from release to release.
If you do use this function you could still call it from the
customer-specific tabstrip (option 3) which would be an elegant way of
providing this "forwarding" option.
I'd be interested to learn which method Nicholas chooses. I suspect a
lot
will depend on how the customer wants the flow to behave (especially
from
the security point of view).
Kind regards,
Alan Rickayzen
-----Original Message-----
From: Frank Reichenbach [mailto:frankreichenbach at dontgotmail.com]
Sent: Donnerstag, August 16, 2001 1:52 PM
To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: Dynamically adding *possible* agents to a task
Hi Nicholas, Hi Alan,
are you really sure that it's not possible to user
function module (I'm on 46c) to change them? I haven't really looked at
this module in detail but it does something related to your question on
a
workitem basis.
Hope this helps...
Regards,
Frank
--- Nicholas Brand <nicholas.n.brand at uk.pwcglobal.com>
> wrote:
>Memo from Nicholas N Brand of PricewaterhouseCoopers
>
>-------------------- Start of message text --------------------
>
>Alan,
>
>Thank you for your swift response.
>I'll now engage the client!
>
>
>Kind regards,
>Nicholas.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>"Rickayzen, Alan" <alan.rickayzen at sap.com>@MITVMA.MIT.EDU> on
13/08/2001
>17:30:25
>
>Please respond to SAP Workflow Users' Group <SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
>
>Sent by: SAP Workflow <Owner-SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
>
>To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
>cc:
>
>
>Subject: Re: Dynamically adding *possible* agents to a task
>
>
>Nicholas,
>That is correct. And don't forget that work items are created
>simultaneously
>so a global change will affect all work items created at that time (not
to
>mention buffer problems...).
>DETAI,
>Alan
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Nicholas Brand [mailto:nicholas.n.brand at uk.pwcglobal.com]
>Sent: Montag, August 13, 2001 6:23 PM
>To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
>Subject: Re: Dynamically adding *possible* agents to a task
>
>
>Memo from Nicholas N Brand of PricewaterhouseCoopers
>
>-------------------- Start of message text --------------------
>
>Alan,
>
>Thank you for those top tips!
>
>Just to confirm my understanding: you seemed to be saying that
technically
>it's not possible to alter the *possible* agents of a task dynaically,
i.e.
>so that each workitem has different possible agents - is this correct?
>(I mean technically possible as opposed to good business practice)
>
>Thank you again.
>
>
>Kind regards,
>Nicholas
>
>
>
>
>
>"Rickayzen, Alan" <alan.rickayzen at sap.com>@MITVMA.MIT.EDU> on
13/08/2001
>11:25:19
>
>Please respond to SAP Workflow Users' Group <SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
>
>Sent by: SAP Workflow <Owner-SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
>
>To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
>cc:
>
>
>Subject: Re: Dynamically adding *possible* agents to a task
>
>
>Hi Nicholas,
>
>I always treat the possible agents as those people having the necessary
>skills to perform the tasks. It is the role resolution that determines
who
>gets the work items according to the run-time data. In other words work
>items are assigned via a role according to skills related to the
particular
>data being handled.
>Looking at it this way, forwarding is not the answer to your
requirements.
>
>The cleanest way of handling your scenario is to add an option in your
>workflow task to "reroute" the work item to another manager. In other
words
>the manager would select a manager from the list of managers up the
chain.
>The original work item would be completed and the next work item
assigned
>to
>the selected manager (probably via a container element). This also
ensures
>that substitutions will work.
>
>You will have to decide how to add this additional step to your
workflow.
>This could either be
>1.> an additional generic decision
> (cumbersome if it is only used in exceptional
> circumstances) or
>
>2.> a function that is called directly from the
> approval transaction (e.g. reroute instead of approve) or
>
>3.> the customer specific tab-strip of the work item display
> or preview display (neat but make sure the managers know
> about it and make sure they will be using the SAP inbox,
> otherwise you must use option 2).
>
>Having said all that, a cheap solution would be to include the names of
the
>Manager's to whom the work item can be forwarded in the work item text
(via
>an attribute). Lists in the work item text are supported in you
Release.
It
>is up to your manager to forward it to the correct manager according to
>this
>list. You could even combine this with option 3 above.
>
>Kind regards,
>
>Alan Rickayzen
>http://service.sap.com/webflow
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Nicholas Brand [mailto:nicholas.n.brand at uk.pwcglobal.com]
>Sent: Sonntag, August 12, 2001 10:37 AM
>To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
>Subject: Re: Dynamically adding *possible* agents to a task
>
>
>Memo from Nicholas N Brand of PricewaterhouseCoopers
>
>-------------------- Start of message text --------------------
>
>Thank you for the swift response.
>
>Unfortunately, roles don't affect the possible agents of a task, only
the
>responsible agents of a workflow activity and hence the selected agents
>(the union of the possible and responsible agents).
>
>I'm looking for a method or an apporach whereby I can dynamically
change
>the *possible* agents of a task. This is needed in order to restrict
who
>the receivers of the workitem can forward it to.
>The list of people a workitem can be forwarded to is based on the
possible
>agents of the underlying task.
>
>Are the any top tips out there?
>
>BTW we're on v4.6C and there will be an org structure in place using
>PD-Org.
>Thanks again.
>
>
>Kind regards,
>Nicholas
>
>
>
>
>
>
>"ASSY, SOSTHENE" <S.ASSY at AFDB.ORG>@MITVMA.MIT.EDU> on 10/08/2001
17:48:41
>
>Please respond to SAP Workflow Users' Group <SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
>
>Sent by: SAP Workflow <Owner-SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
>
>To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
>cc:
>
>
>Subject: Re: Dynamically adding *possible* agents to a task
>
>
>Hi Nicholas,
>
>
>
>* You can use different roles 168 (for superior) of the staff
who
is
>travelling etc...
>* You can also create a new role SUPERIOR OF SUPERIOR
>
>NB : check if the reporting structure is good.
>
>
>Mr. Sosthene Assy
>African Development Bank
>Tel : 20-20-53-03
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Nicholas Brand [SMTP:nicholas.n.brand at uk.pwcglobal.com]
>> Sent: Friday 10 August 2001 16:18
>> To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
>> Subject: Dynamically adding *possible* agents to a task
>>
>> Memo from Nicholas N Brand of PricewaterhouseCoopers
>>
>> -------------------- Start of message text --------------------
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Here's an interesting problem:
>>
>> I'm building a travel expense approval workflow.
>> Up to 3 managers may have to approve a claim.
>> We want to restrict the people to whom each manager can forward the
>> approval workitem to those managers ahead of him in the approval
chain.
>> This will obviously vary with each claim.
>>
>> I've found that the group of users that a workitem can be forwarded
to
is
>> based on the *possible* agents of the task (as opposed to the
responsible
>> or selected agents).
>>
>> Here's the question:
>> How can I dynamically set the *possible* agents for a task?
>>
>> I've found various function modules that allow me to set the selected
>> agents or to retrieve the possible agents of a task, but not one to
*set*
>> the possible agents.
>>
>> Any clues or suggestions either on this approach or an alternative
way
>> that
>> you may have used?
>>
>> Thank you for you time.
>>
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Nicholas Brand
>>
>> --------------------- End of message text --------------------
>>
>> The principal place of business of PricewaterhouseCoopers and its
>> associate
>> partnerships is 1 Embankment Place, London WC2N 6NN where lists of
the
>> partners' names are available for inspection. All partners in the
>> associate
>> partnerships are authorised to conduct business as agents of, and all
>> contracts for services to clients are with, PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The
>UK
>> firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers is authorised by the Institute of
>Chartered
>> Accountants in England and Wales to carry on investment business.
>> PricewaterhouseCoopers is a member of the world-wide
>> PricewaterhouseCoopers organisation.
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>> The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity
to
>> which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged
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>> taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or
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contracts for services to clients are with, PricewaterhouseCoopers. The
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PricewaterhouseCoopers is a member of the world-wide
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