Re: Re: SCP Workflow question
Dart, Jocelyn
jocelyn.dart at sap.com
Wed May 9 07:29:07 EDT 2018
Hi Andy
I would not be specifically concerned about starting a workflow in that way. We had many workflows that started without business objects in Business Suite. I don’t like them as its a less flexible approach if you need to activate/deactivate or refine the start condition. Of course those might not be considerations with SCP Workflow
Regardless of where you are doing them the real issue is identifying & cleaning up *any* requests that fail.
*** Ask hard questions around the robustness & breadth of SCP workflow admin capabilities vs. cloud database admin capabilities. ***
Making the first request trigger a workflow does not make failures less likely or easier to restart & may make things worse. What happens if the workflow itself fails to start? What happens if it starts but loses some/all the data? They might be better off creating an admin app to retrigger workflows if one doesn’t exist.
Also the size of the data being passed can be an issue depending on the use case as you have to pass all the data rather than just a reference.
Again I’m not that conversant with SCP workflow ... just believe based on experience that the primary concern should be a holistic solution that can be supported & maintained day after day after day.
Too often these decisions are made by people who get the happy path working & then are off to the next project without ever considering day to day realities of keeping the solution going.
For your consideration
Rgds
Jocelyn
Ps While you are at it ask how you introduce a new version of the workflow if you need to make changes later. May as well cover off all scenarios
Sent from my iPhone with many apologies for the spelling, grammar and any other deficiencies
On 9 May 2018, at 8:22 pm, Andy Curtis <abcurtis at gmail.com<mailto:abcurtis at gmail.com>> wrote:
Maybe I am doing a poor job of explaining because we do have a team of experienced mobile people.
We originally said, 'when user presses 'submit' there should be 2 things happen, the 'request' should be saved and Wf should be triggered. They read this as 2 client side actions (1 to send screen data to the server, the second to trigger Wf) and were concerned what would happen if the first action succeeded and the second failed. The answer to that is to have 1 server side service to receive the screen data, create a database record and trigger Wf). But the pushback came that if there was 1 client side action to trigger Wf (server side) passing the screen data to the Context, then Wf could create the database record as the first step.
Thats where my karma is suffering. I believe it is 'right/correct' to have a server side service receive the screen data, create a 'request' on a database and then trigger Wf. Replacing the server side service to receive the screendata and trigger Wf, I think is fundamentally wrong because I have never created a Wf that did not have an business object/Class instance when it started.
Thoughts?
Andy
On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 10:11 AM, <sap-wug-request at mit.edu<mailto:sap-wug-request at mit.edu>> wrote:
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1. Re: ?SCP Workflow question (Dart, Jocelyn)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Dart, Jocelyn" <jocelyn.dart at sap.com<mailto:jocelyn.dart at sap.com>>
To: "SAP Workflow Users' Group" <sap-wug at mit.edu<mailto:sap-wug at mit.edu>>
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Date: Wed, 9 May 2018 09:11:13 +0000
Subject:
Re: SCP Workflow question
Hi Andy
Ok this sounds like the usual non workflow developer mistake of thinking workflow is somehow another pseudo database. With this approach if you lose comms you have an orphaned workflow.... which surely would be much harder to clean up than a single database entry wherever it is held.
Do they have anyone who has actually done offline mobile scenarios before advising them?
To me - and granted I am not an expert in this - it sounds more like what you need is a staging table in the cloud database for the initial request. Then if all details are received that becomes your draft business object trigger for the workflow which then completes the process including identifying if the entry is a duplicate or receiving out of order or whatever & if all is well then updating the real backend database & then ends with cleaning up the draft/staging entry.
That way you know if there is anything outstanding or blocked by checking the staging table contents
Just a suggestion... again really they need to involve someone with offline mobile experience
Rgds
Jocelyn
Sent from my iPhone with many apologies for the spelling, grammar and any other deficiencies
On 9 May 2018, at 6:43 pm, Andy Curtis <abcurtis at gmail.com<mailto:abcurtis at gmail.com>> wrote:
Thanks WUG'ers
I'll add some 'colour' to my scenario. We have a UI5 screen to create a 'request' this screen can be delivered to a user on any device, including mobile phones where comms could be patchy, so loss of comms is a feature that the 'techs' are concerned about. So the proposal from them is to have a single comm from the UI5 when the 'request' data is entered. So, data coming from a screen on a mobile, arrives at the server and something needs to take it and create a 'request' in a database. My opinion is there should be a Service to receive the comms and create the 'request' in the database, assigning a number to it and then triggering Wf passing the 'request' that has been saved on a database.
Their suggestion is, when the data arrives at the server it triggers Wf immediately (before the 'request' is created on the database) and the first step in the Wf is to create the 'request' get back the 'request' nbr and then continue through the approval process. This would be the first time I have ever started a Wf without an instance of the object, (I don't think I could trigger a Classic Wf without an object instance) and it just does not feel right to me. Hence my question to the community to find out if others thought it was good practice to start a Wf without an object instance and have Wf create it.
@Kjetil, in a create vendor account process, would the first step be a user in XK01 creating a Vendor account? When saving the transaction it creates a vendor record and triggers Wf to start the process. The vendor nbr would exist before Wf was triggered and an instance of the vendor object would exist. Or maybe you have a Form and you want to start a Wf to create a vendor master
@Mark, I started to think SAP Cloud was the new R/3 and prepared to catch a new wave,
Andy Curtis
On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 12:55 AM, <sap-wug-request at mit.edu<mailto:sap-wug-request at mit.edu>> wrote:
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Today's Topics:
1. SCP Workflow question (Andy Curtis)
2. Re: SCP Workflow question (Kjetil Kilhavn)
3. Re: SCP Workflow question (Mark Pyc)
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From: Andy Curtis <abcurtis at gmail.com<mailto:abcurtis at gmail.com>>
To: "SAP Workflow Users' Group" <sap-wug at mit.edu<mailto:sap-wug at mit.edu>>
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Date: Tue, 8 May 2018 18:08:44 +0100
Subject:
SCP Workflow question
WUG'ers :) (longtime no see)
I am graduating to SCP Workflow and have a question, I wonder if anyone can help me out.
I have always built Classic Workflows triggered after an object has been created in a database, or SAP always saves the object and then sends the Wf triggering event. I would say thats best practice and it also fits with my other narrative about keeping process and application logic separate.
In SCP it is possible to trigger a SCP Workflow without an Object, but is that a good idea? The thought it to trigger SCP Wf and have a step that calls a task to create the object, so the Wf is basically generic to start with, then becomes instantiated after the first step. Would anyone else think this is a good idea? I don't, I think a Wf should have an object before being started but I am having a hard time arguing the case, so really looking for other informed opinion.
Anyone got one?
Andy Curtis
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From: Kjetil Kilhavn <list.sap-wug at vettug.no<mailto:list.sap-wug at vettug.no>>
To: sap-wug at mit.edu<mailto:sap-wug at mit.edu>
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Date: Tue, 8 May 2018 22:03:13 +0200
Subject: Re: SCP Workflow question
What is an object? If the workflow is "Create Vendor Account" and takes a bunch of input parameters for the new vendor, then why not let it start before there is an LFA1 record in the database? You have an object, it just isn't complete yet, it is a draft for a vendor record. Sort of like FIPP objects.
But the way you describe it it may also be a workflow that doesn't have a clue what is about to happen, so any type of object can be created etc. I suppose it could still be a valid use case, but it's a bit harder to imagine. How would one for instance identify agents for the first step if you don't even know what is going to be created.
Den 08. mai 2018 19:08, skreiv Andy Curtis:
WUG'ers :) (longtime no see)
I am graduating to SCP Workflow and have a question, I wonder if anyone can help me out.
I have always built Classic Workflows triggered after an object has been created in a database, or SAP always saves the object and then sends the Wf triggering event. I would say thats best practice and it also fits with my other narrative about keeping process and application logic separate.
In SCP it is possible to trigger a SCP Workflow without an Object, but is that a good idea? The thought it to trigger SCP Wf and have a step that calls a task to create the object, so the Wf is basically generic to start with, then becomes instantiated after the first step. Would anyone else think this is a good idea? I don't, I think a Wf should have an object before being started but I am having a hard time arguing the case, so really looking for other informed opinion.
Anyone got one?
Andy Curtis
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Kjetil Kilhavn
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From: Mark Pyc <mark.pyc at gmail.com<mailto:mark.pyc at gmail.com>>
To: "SAP Workflow Users' Group" <sap-wug at mit.edu<mailto:sap-wug at mit.edu>>
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Date: Wed, 9 May 2018 09:50:14 +1000
Subject: Re: SCP Workflow question
Agree with Kjetil and agree it's a lot like a FIPP to BKPF or maybe more so like BUS2105 to BUS2012. Thing is LFA1 doesn't have such an obvious 'requested' phase. I've done similar things before but I end up creating a request application which assigns a GUID to the request, and that's the object that the WF operates on. Now you _could_ use the WF instance id as the request number and capture all the data into containers rather than custom tables but, in non-cloud at least, that would seem to me to be a lazy hack that would cost you in the long run - think about reporting and monitoring.
The cloud... hmmm don't get me started on the cloud, or least SAPs endeavours in that space... it might seem easier to use the WF as the request DB but again I still think it's lazy. I started typing thinking I might have a different attitude given the cloud but I don't
Create a "Vendor Request" application (if you don't want to use MDM requests and WF - not sure of cloud availability) and then build WF with a known instance as you always would.
My 2p / 2c / 2 lowest units of your desired currency.
Have fun,
Mark
On 9 May 2018 at 06:03, Kjetil Kilhavn <list.sap-wug at vettug.no<mailto:list.sap-wug at vettug.no>> wrote:
What is an object? If the workflow is "Create Vendor Account" and takes a bunch of input parameters for the new vendor, then why not let it start before there is an LFA1 record in the database? You have an object, it just isn't complete yet, it is a draft for a vendor record. Sort of like FIPP objects.
But the way you describe it it may also be a workflow that doesn't have a clue what is about to happen, so any type of object can be created etc. I suppose it could still be a valid use case, but it's a bit harder to imagine. How would one for instance identify agents for the first step if you don't even know what is going to be created.
Den 08. mai 2018 19:08, skreiv Andy Curtis:
WUG'ers :) (longtime no see)
I am graduating to SCP Workflow and have a question, I wonder if anyone can help me out.
I have always built Classic Workflows triggered after an object has been created in a database, or SAP always saves the object and then sends the Wf triggering event. I would say thats best practice and it also fits with my other narrative about keeping process and application logic separate.
In SCP it is possible to trigger a SCP Workflow without an Object, but is that a good idea? The thought it to trigger SCP Wf and have a step that calls a task to create the object, so the Wf is basically generic to start with, then becomes instantiated after the first step. Would anyone else think this is a good idea? I don't, I think a Wf should have an object before being started but I am having a hard time arguing the case, so really looking for other informed opinion.
Anyone got one?
Andy Curtis
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Kjetil Kilhavn
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