EBPro Workflow

[Dart, Jocelyn]

Hi Casey,
It's not going to be that simple - the service entry sheet in SRM/EBP is held in a completely
different way to the service entry sheet in R/3.  There is no conversion from R/3 format
to SRM/EBP format - but there is automatic conversion in the other direction.
Plus there are very few BAPIs to help with service entry sheets on the R/3 side as well - so
not much flexibility there for such a scenario.
 
The best approach to avoid too much pain is:
1. Enter the original service entry sheet in SRM/EBP instead of in R/3.
2. Use the SRM/EBP provided workflows and workflow tools to approve the service entry sheet in EBP.
3. The service entry sheet is automatically sent from SRM/EBP to R/3 once approved.
 
This is a clean approach and makes maximum use of the new EBP functionality which includes the approval preview to see what is happening in workflow and nice easy-to-enter screens.   You could even set up some code to call your approver determination in R/3 and use that to find the EBP approver (yes you need to check that the userids will be the same in both systems and use BAPI_USER_GET_DETAIL to check that the R/3 user exists in the EBP system.).
 
Note that when the service entry sheet is sent to R/3 it is already accepted.
 
Any other approach would have to be extremely simple as even user decisions cannot be guaranteed to
work in the EBP inbox without some effort (it's a release/OSS note thing - best not to go there if you can help it).
 
I have actually done it the hard way at one site and in my opinion its just not worth the pain. We ended
up creating the service entry sheet in R/3, sending the details in an email to the user which asked the user
to reenter it via EBP and then cancelled the original service entry sheet in R/3, while waiting for the user
to create their version ...  truly hideous, but necessary as we had some other requirements we couldn't avoid.
 
Better to train your existing people to use the EBP service entry sheet transactions for the initial entry.
 
This of course means they have to enter some entry sheets in EBP and some in R/3 ... if it's for certain
purchasing groups only you need to check whether this is workable - e.g. are certain people responsible for certain purchasing groups and can be dedicated to doing this, or is it certain vendors that are affected?
 
Regards,
Jocelyn
 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: SAP Workflow [mailto:Owner-SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU] On Behalf Of Smith, Cassaundra
Sent: Tuesday,27 January 2004 7:02 AM
To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: EBPro Workflow
 
 
All,
 
We are on release 4.6C.  We have an accounts payable workflow using IXOS where
we process service entry sheet creation/approval/rejections.  This workflow
currently resides in our SAP 4.6C system.  Our customers have requested that we
come up with a solution where some of the service entry sheet acceptances take
place on the EBPro side.  What they are envisioning is our current SAP R/3
workflow would work accordingly, but for certain purchasing orgs, after the
entry sheet has been created on the R/3 side, somehow we would need to route an
email/workitem to EBPro users who will either approve or reject the entrysheet
on the EBPro side.  This approval or rejection would then be routed back to the
R/3 side where the workflow over on that side would continue based upon either
the approval or the rejection.  I am assuming, based on my limited knowledge,
that webflow would be used here.  Maybe a single step task would need to be
created on the EBPro  side where the approval or rejection would take place.
And then this approval or rejection would just be routed back to the R/3
workflow via an XML document.  Some questions I am coming up with are:
 
Will the workflow log show what is going on the EBPro side with the
approval/rejection task on that side.  Like if a valid user on the EBPro side is
not a valid user on the R/3 side, will this pose a problem for the workflow log?
 
 
Have any of you guys attempted anything like this??  IF so, how did you go about
accomplishing it and has it proven successful.
 
Casey