Incident Management and Change Request Management: E-Mail functionality in SAP Solution Manager 7.1
Purpose
With the following document you will determine the available e-mail options for Incident Management and Change Request Management documents in Solution Manager 7.1.
This blog is valid for Solution Manager 7.1, the screenshots was taken from a Solution Manager 7.1 SP5.
News: The content of this SCN doc will be maintained in SCN wiki page https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/x/cxO7Gg
Overview
In Solution Manager 7.1 there are now different ways to trigger e-mails actions from the documents:
– E-mail creation in CRM Web UI
– PPF E-mail actions: the following incident management standard actions are explained in detail
-
- E-mail to Reporter
- E-Mail to Reporter at Status Change
- E-Mail to Message Observer
– PPF E-mail actions using HTML mail forms since Solman 7.1 SP10
We will see also the available smartforms and the way to send e-mail to multiple recipients indicated in one BP.
1. Settings for e-mail creation in the CRM WebClient UI
The Outgoing E-mail transaction type must be maintained in the following customizing:
Go to transaction SPRO -> SAP Reference IMG -> Customer Relationship Management -> Basic Functions -> One-to-One E-Mail -> Assign Transaction Types
Maintain the outgoing e-mail transaction type here:
Define Multipart E-Mail Option and Groupware Integration:
2. How to Configure Outbound E-Mail in the CRM WebClient UI as a follow-up transaction
You can send e-mails as follow-up documents from Incidents and other CRM transactions.
If this does not work, and you have upgraded your system from a previous Solution Manager release, please follow
the instructions in note 1587298 CRM_UI: E-mail not available as follow-up transaction
the instructions in note 1587298 CRM_UI: E-mail not available as follow-up transaction
1. Call transaction CRMC_PROCESS_MA.
2. Select transaction type “0005” and, in the structure tree, select “Assignment of Business Transaction Categories”.
3. Select the business transaction category “Business Activity”and, in the structure tree, select “Customizing header”
4. Select the category “E-mail” (401).
5. In spro go to Customer Relationship Management -> Transactions -> Settings for Activities -> Maintain Categories, Goals, and Priorities -> Maintain Categories.
Ensure that Category “401” (description “E-Mail”) use Class “G Email” from the dropdown list.
6. Also ensure that in spro-> SAP Solution Manager -> Capabilities (Optional) -> IT Service Management->Follow-up Document Creation -> Define Copying Control for Transaction Types
Definitions for the standard type SMIN:
Specify Mapping Rules for Copy Control
The same need to be done for ChaRM transaction types like SMCR,…
Note: If the e-mail button in CRM Web UI is opening an appointment ensure that in spro points under
…. > IT Service Management > Follow-Up Document Creation are also followed for the indicated transaction type:
3. Sending E-mails
You can send E-Mails in several ways in the CRM WebClient UI.
3.1. Function More-> Send E-mail
The E-Mail contains by default the Description text from the Text assignment block. You can change the format (HTML or text), recipient, subject and contents of the E-Mail before you send it.
It opens the Email Editor page.
The email should be linked to the incident, see Reference field and Related Transactions AB.
This function is available for SMIN,SMRQ, SMCR, SMMJ, SMHF documents:
Note: for charm document it could be a BSP error CX_BOL_EXCEPTION when you:
1. click on Send Email in a request for change or normal change document in crm_ui
2. in the following send email screen, click on cancel.
3.2 Incident Management: Delivered E-Mail sending actions in the standard
The following PPF actions are supporting e-mail notifications via Smart Forms:
– Manually created e-mails:
-
- <Action_Profile_Name>_MAIL
- <Action_Profile_Name>_MAIL_PROCESSOR
– Automatically created E-Mails:
-
- <Action_Profile_Name>_MAIL_REPORTER
- <Action_Profile_Name>_MAIL_WATCHLIST
There are special PPF actions to determine the support team automatically. These actions can be customized to send e-mails to the support team that has been found:
- <Action_Profile_Name>_FIND_PARTNER_FDT: Find Support Team Responsible by FDT Rule
- <Action_Profile_Name>_FIND_TEAM_SEND_EMAIL: Find Support Team and Send E-Mail
See note 2050396 – Email to Support Team is not sent: “No recipient available”
(more details in SDN document Incident Management: Support team determination in Solution Manager 7.1 document)
There are special PPF action <Action_Profile_Name>_MAIL_FORM, E-Mail to Reporter with Mail Form, to automatically send an email with CRM mail form
if message status is set to Customer Action or Proposed Solution.
if message status is set to Customer Action or Proposed Solution.
3.2.1. E-mail to Reporter in detail
Action ZMIN_STD_MAIL: Sends e-Mail to reporter of message, but this action needs to be triggered manually from the document.
Select the option ‘E-mail to Reporter’ from the list.
3.2.2. E-Mail to Reporter at Status Change in detail
Action ZMIN_STD_MAIL_REPORTER
3.2.3. E-Mail to Message Observer
Action: ZMIN_STD_MAIL_WATCHLIST
Automatically sends an e-Mail to the users which have the message in their watch list in case there is a text change in the message.
In the workcenter click on the button “Add to Watch List”
A message saying: “Message added to Watch List” appears in the upper part of the screen
Click on the button Reply and add some text. In a while you will receive an e_mail with a pdf attachment. Check the file attached. The name of the file and the subject of the e_mail are as follows: [Incident ID: Incident Description]
The content of the attachment is showing some details like Priority and Status, Short text and the text you just added (Reply).
3.2.4. E-Mail to Reporter with Mail Form
Action: ZMIN_STD_MAIL_FORM
An E-Mail in HTML format is sent to the reporter of the incident message.
See Personalized E-Mail spro point for details:
See notes:
– 1751307 E-Mail Notification when Information from SAP sent to SM 7.1
3.3 Change Request management: Delivered E-Mail sending actions in the standard
See the content in SCN Wiki page https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/x/lQwCGg .
4. Smartforms
When sending e-mails via actions, you will receive and e-mail, the content of the smartform will be the content of the e-mail or the content of the PDF file attached to the e-mail. This will depend on the settings of scot, SAPscript/Smart Forms PDF or TXT.
In the email action you should maintain these entries:
Mail Settings:
– Form Name: AI_CRM_IM_FULL_DATA_FORM or AI_CRM_IM_SHORT_TEXT_LINK_FORM
When using AI_CRM_IM_SHORT_TEXT_LINK_FORM form you will get an e-mail which contains the link to the document but to the document in the workcenter:
Note: In case of error “Entity could not be determined” please see note 1832463 (don´t forget the manual activities).
When using form AI_CRM_IM_FULL_DATA_FORM you can use the customizing of the text types, call SM30: AICV_TEXT_SFORM (View Texts in Smart Forms is displayed) to define the texts contained in the e-mail.
You can currently only define the text types for this smart form.
With the above configuration you will get and email with this content:
But the link to the message is gone…..
– Processing Class: CL_SDK_DOC_PROC_CRM_ORDER.
– Processing Method: CRM_SRVORDER_EXEC_SF_MMR, this is the standard processing method for email actions in Solution Manager 7.1
Note: CRM_SRVORDER_EXEC_SMART_FORM was the processing method for Solution Manager 7.0, can be used in Solution Manager 7.1 but it is not allowing sending an email to multiple recipients as indicated in section “5. E-mail to multiple recipients”
– Keep Archive Mode: Mail Only unchanged.
Please check this example for getting the link to the document in crm_ui by writing some code in the smartform:
CONCATENATE ‘http://‘
lv_host ‘:’ lv_port
‘/sap/bc/bsp/sap/crm_ui_start/default.htm?crm-object-type=AIC_OB_CMCR&crm-object-action=D&crm-object-value=’
lv_sguid
‘&crm-key-name=GUID&sap-client=001&sap-language=EN’
INTO lv_url.
crm-object-type=AIC_OB_CMCR for *MCR documents
crm-object-type=AIC_OB_CMCD for charm normal change, charm urgent change, etc…
Object action crm-object-action defines if you are in Edit or Display mode when you open the ticket.
You might want to change to object type for different documents (incidents or change documents) and the object action defines if you are in Edit or Display mode when you open the ticket.
Charm document example:
Please see SCN doc from Raquel:
Note: Form name AI_CRM_IM_FULL_DATA_FORM is giving a dump when using with processing method CRM_SRVORDER_EXEC_SF_MMR:
The following error text was processed in the system:
Function call of /1BCDWB/SF00000001 failed; the obligatory parameter FORM_NAME
Exception Class CX_SY_DYN_CALL_PARAM_MISSING
Error Name
Program CL_SDK_DOC_PROC_CRM_ORDER=====CP
Include CL_SDK_DOC_PROC_CRM_ORDER=====CM004
ABAP Class CL_SDK_DOC_PROC_CRM_ORDER
Method CRM_SRVORDER_EXEC_SF_MMR
Line 425
Long text The call of the function /1BCDWB/SF00000001 failed: the required parameter FORM_NAME was not filled.
The only solution here is to copy the class CL_SDK_DOC_PROC_CRM_ORDER to Z* and to adapt the method CRM_SRVORDER_EXEC_SF_MMR, so it calls the Smart Form with the parameter FORM_NAME, see KBA 1831361 – Solution Manager – Changing status of an Incident in
CRM_UI gives BSP error – CX_SY_DYN_CALL_PARAM_MISSING
See also note: 1854961 Link to incident in smart form opens with wrong language, in case of issue with the languague of e-mail the receiver receives.
5. E-mail to multiple recipients
1. Maintain the partner e-mail addresses in /nbp
2. Maintain the field Correspondence language on the address tab:
3. Choose the tab Address, section Communication. Select the yellow arrow in the field E-Mail. A screen named Maintain internet mail addresses appears.
Add a new line and enter an e-mail address. Repeat this action if needed and confirm with the green checkmark button.
When running action ZMIN_STD_MAIL, for example, two emails are sent.
Currently sending mails to multiple receivers is only available for personal BP (for example, reported by, processor), but not for organizational BP (for example, sold-to party, support team).
Note: HTML Mail forms does not support multiple recipients.
6. HTML Mail forms
Please see SCN wiki page HTML Mail forms in https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/x/tBKGGg .
Related Content
Related Documentation
SCN Blog: Sending E-Mail from Support Message
SCN Blog: Pep Up Your ChaRM – Part 1: HowTo Create a Smart e-Mail Action
SCN Blog: Pep Up Your ChaRM – Part 1: HowTo Create a Smart e-Mail Action
Related Notes
Please check notes:
– 1609682 Smart form does not work for request for change
– 1751307 E-Mail Notification when Information from SAP sent to SM 7.1
Hi Dolores
Thanks for sharing this information 🙂 . Love the amount of details.
Best regards
Tom
Always looking forward for your resourceful blog on solman. Thanks.
Hi, Dolores.
Thank you for this very usefull information!
But could you help me with getting the link to the document in crm_ui?
I've copied this part in my smartform:
But nothing happens. No link.
How I should define a place in the smartform, where link will appear?
Hello Dolores,
very good guided procedures! I have configured 5 E-mail to multiple recipients for 3 persons as recommended, but email only reached by the first entry of the recipient list...:-(.
Can you give an advice?
Thanks
Johannes
Hi Johannes,
You should call method CRM_SRVORDER_EXEC_SF_MMR instead.
Thanks,
HL
Delores,
Thanks for the informative blog.
One question: How does the &STATUS_CHANGE& parameter (flag) get set to the value 'X' in "Schedule Condition" tabs in Sections 3.2.2 & 3.2.4?
Thanks,
Mani
Delores,
I found the answer to my question above. Please disregard my question.
&STATUS_CHANGE& flag gets set in the method IF_EX_CONTAINER_PPF~MODIFY_CONTAINER (Implementation: CHECK_STAT_CHANGE, CLASS: CL_IM_CHECK_STAT_CHANGE, BAdI CONTAINER_PPF).
This implementation is available only as of SolMan 7.1 SP 5.
Thanks,
Mani
Hi Dolores,
Thanks for your useful guide!
I have a request to send email notif to many people. I follow your instruction in point 5) Email to multiple recipients. But I've got an error.
1) In business partner, I maintained 2 email addresses.
2) In action profile ZMIV_VAR_MAIL, I keep as standard settings:
- Form AI_CRM_IM_SHORT_TEXT_LINK_FORM
- Class CL_SDK_DOC_PROC_CRM_ORDER
- Method CRM_ORDER_EXEC_SF_WL ==> To send email to multiple addresses
But email cannot be sent. Below is the action log:
Successful - Name of the Smart Form: AI_CRM_IM_SHORT_TEXT_LINK_FORM
Successful - Processing class: CL_SDK_DOC_PROC_CRM_ORDER
Successful - Processing method: CRM_ORDER_EXEC_SF_WL
Successful - Activity is not relevant; authorization check is not implemented
Error - Error when sending to xxx@yahoo.com
Error - Action could not be successfully executed
If I call method CRM_SRVORDER_EXEC_SMART_FORM, only one email will be sent to the standard email of the business partner.
Could you help to unblock me for this point?
Thanks very much for your support,
HL
Sorry Dolores, I called a wrong method. It should be CRM_SRVORDER_EXEC_SF_MMR for multiple recipients.
Thanks,
HL
Hello Huong,
thanks for your hint, but I tried already CRM_SRVORDER_EXEC_SF_MMR and it does not work.
regards
johannes
Hi Johannes,
The business partner needs to be a Person business partner, not an Organization.
Regards,
HL
Hi Huong,
in PPOMA_CRM I have maintained an organisation CAB with a person bp with three email recipients but only the first one recieves an email. Can you assist?
Regards
Johannes
Hi Johannes,
I implement the same concept from Dolores to SolMan 7.0 and it works too.
Could you try firstly with the standard action of sending email to Requester (i.e. ZMIN_STD_MAIL)? Then you maintain 2 email addresses in Communication data of this person bp. Let's see the result.
Please let me know your current settings so that I can assist you further.
Regards,
HL
Hello Huong,
in the meantime there were urgent issues so I cannot pass this issue. Now, I have maintained my bp as Dolores wrote and put in the standard form AI_CRM_IM_SHORT_TEXT_LINK_FORM like your mail. Always when I execute the action send mail the first person in the communication list receive the email, but not second and third with Method CRM_SRVORDER_EXEC_SF_MMR. Any hints??
Best regards
Johannes
Hi Houng:
You can still use a BP organization or group and even though they are not an employee, you can bridge them to a external BP who is an actually an employee. That way the organization will receive e-mails, as well.
We connected the two BPs via External BP Name (The group BP to the employee BP via External BP Name). Once that reference exists, we are receiving e-mails using the BP type group or organization in ChaRM.
The screenshots can be found in the link if you need more details. http://scn.sap.com/thread/3394526
Regards,
Juan
Hola Dolores,
Thanks for sharing ¡
Hi all,
could you please tell me the configuration to create CR from incident ticket.I am using solution manager 7.1
Thanks
Sajin TS
Hello Sajin,
The creation of a change request is configured by defining Request for Change as a valid follow-on document type from the transactions you wish to create the change request from, for example, incident and problem.
To access this configuration in Customizing, choose SAP Solution Manager → Capabilities (Optional) → Change Management → Standard Configuration → Transaction Types → Define Copying Control for Transaction Types.
Additionally, to define which data is copied from a source transaction type to a target transaction type, in Customizing, choose SAP Solution Manager → Capabilities (Optional) → Application Incident Management (Service Desk) → Follow-Up Document Creation → Specify Mapping Rules for Copy Control.
In the incident you must select 'Create Follow-Up', This will show a dialog box with a selection of follow-up documents. Select Request for Change of transaction type ZMCR, or of your own making. This creates a follow-up document immediately and puts you straight into the new Request for Change document.
Sure advise if I can assist you further.
Kind regards,
#solman71today
Thank you Cesar It is working now.
Really? how Sajin!
Great to know!
Regards,
César
Hello Dolores,
Regarding about the More -> Send Email button from a Request for Change, I see that it is not a 'work-alone' button, but must necessarily have a follow-up document inside the 'Related Transactions' Assignment block, is it right?
I mean, I can probably modify actions and conditions of that button to make it work as a stand-alone button if I wished, right?
Kindly advise,
and much life too you! 😀
Always with my admiration, and sincere respect,
Fine regards,
César
Hi Dolores,
you were great again! No news 🙂
Thank you very much for your very informative blog.
I had the error you mentioned when using the smartform AI_CRM_IM_FULL_DATA_FORM but at that time I did not have time to solve it, so I used another form. I will try to use it in my current project and do the change you mentioned, and see if it works. Do we still have the dump in SP8?
Best regards,
Raquel
Hi Raquel,
Yes, this is happening also in SP08.
Please see KBA 1831361 to see how to modify the method CRM_SRVORDER_EXEC_SF_MMR.
Best regards,
Dolores
Hi Dolores,
Thanks for your blog.
I was wondering if anyone knew if it was possible to add a link to the CD/CR when you create an email from the Web UI?
I can see that this functionality would be available if I created an action to send an email, but would rather manually insert a link.
Cheers,
David
Hi Dolores, nice blog!
What is it that controls the email from the UI (the one-to-one function) ?
For the same user,if I use the SOLMANPRO Profile parameter, no problem...but if I use a Z....profile, no mail 'client' is opened and no doc is created, although a new entry shows in related transactions (without a doc number)
Cheers, Guy
I found the answer (but thanks anyway). For me, it was the linkID assigned to the navigation bar profile.
Hi Dolores:
Very useful your contribution, which is redundant to say, but thanks once more.
About item 5, e-mail to multiple recipients, I am planning to test that out today, though it seems people trying to work it out have not been lucky, so far.
In any case, my only comment would be that then it is kind of extra work having to update all user accounts with other e-mail addresses, specially thinking, e.g. that if you would like to send the same e-mail to CAB, also, then you will have to add the same e-mail account to all users or BPs in each address tab, as explained by you.
I tried something different that it is not working, but maybe you can shed some light to tell us why or what to do to make it to work.
In CRMC_ACTION_CONF, we took our action definition for the e-mail notification, and in the Processing Selection, the Assigned Processings already shows an entry smart forms mail with and empty e-mail address in the section Details of Selected Processing's Recipient tab. We guess eventually that address gets populated with the actual BP email when the action starts definition meets the start condition, to then deliver the email to the correspondent recipient.
Well, in that same screen, there is a create button in the same processing selection section mentioned above, and we used it to create a new similar smart forms mail. Then, in the Details of Selected Processing, we added the CAB e-mail address there in the Address field, with recipient type U Internet Address. So, we have 2 smart forms mail: one with empty email address and the other one with CAB's.
We though the action definition was going to process the 2 smartforms mails, as it is kind of logic if the section is called assigned processings, that if there are many entries there, they will be processed one by one, but so far we have not been able to do the processing to the second smartforms mail.
I can not add the screensshots here due to restrictions, but they were added in http://scn.sap.com/thread/3394526, which is being moderated as I type. I guess the content is going to be approved soon.
We thought in CRMC_ACTION_DEF > Action Profile > Action Definition > of our e-mail action definiton, in action determinmation and action merging > Action Mergind = Set Highest Number of Processed Records, was going to resolve that, but it did not.
Thanks,
Juan
Greetings:
We started publishing our approach for multiple recipients using SAP Workflow. It also contains a bit of HR Evaluation Paths, BRFPlus and Funtion Modules.
http://scn.sap.com/community/it-management/alm/solution-manager/blog/2014/01/21/sap-crmsolman-charm-multiple-target-agents-via-sap-workflow--minimal-abap-development
Regards,
Juan
Will be very useful in future for me.
Thanks and Regards,
Himanshu
Thanks Dolores for this detailed and useful blog.
Kind regards,
Dirk
Hi Dolores,
I just found out this very helpful article today and thanks a lot for that. Only I have one question and I think it's shown in the image of generated URL inside the email.
The generated URL has been cut by line, so the hyperlink isn't working. I have the same issue, do you know how to force the whole URL to be inside on the hyperlink?
Thanks a lot,
Best Regards,
Achmad
Hi Dolores,
I really appreciate your entry of the blog " http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-35291".
Do you have any update on the SP10.
regards
Lkanth
Good Efforts.. and nicely put in words.
Hi Dolores,
We are using SAP R/3 4.6C, but for incident management we are using SM of our SAP Support partner. I asked them if there is an opportunity to send an email to SM with incident number in the subject and this way to communicate with SM from external organisation. The answer was that this is not implemented yet and SM doesn't allow this! Now I am getting info or whatever needed and paste it in SM and vice versa, thus playing the role of a SAP connector between SAP users and SM.
I am relatively new for SAP and I have no rights to do any customization in SM, but I'll forward your advice to the technical support guy in SAP Support partner to see your comments.
Regards,
O.Nikolov
Hi Dolores,
Thanks for very useful guide!
BG,
Zavdat Ganiev
Hi Dolores,
This guide helped us a lot.
But one question is still open.
I'm referring to section 6.2, where you mention to replace the server URL with our correct server url.
Our problem is, that development system and productive system have two different URL's.
Is there an attribute to set the URL dynamically?
I found the system ID (attribute id="%SAP_SYST-SYSID"), but how do I set host, etc.
Thanks,
Jan
Hi all, concerning mail form for ZMHF (urgent change), the link for zmhf document="http://xxxx:8000/sap/bc/bsp/sap/crm_ui_start/default.htm?CRM-OBJECT-TYPE=CAIC_OB_CMUC&.... does not work:-> An object type with the name CAIC_OB_CMUC was specified that doesn't exist in Customizing.
Where and how to customize, I found CRM ->UI Framework -> UI Framework Definition -> Design Layers, but for CAIC_OB_CMUC there is nothing maintained. SOLMAN is on SPS10, all required switches in SFW5 are active. It works with AIC_OB_CMNC, link to change request document -> but we need a link for the tester form urgent change... Cheers, Volker
Found it, my mistake, object type is AIC_CMUC, not CAIC.... strange 😕
Hi Dolores,
I find a problem in Option 6.2 - Mail form definition.
In my case, those variables like "SAP_CRMS_SRQM_GEN_FIELDS-CRM_SRQM_DESC" is blank on the email.
Did you know how can I fix it?
Thanks,
Rex
Hi Dolores,
Please help us to figure this as i am facing same issue in Solman 7.2 sp4
Is there any implementation we need to replace Values dynamically .
Regards,
Mahipal.
Good day Dolores,
Regarding 3.2.2 of your document, we would like to enable email functionality when the Urgent change status is changed and we have tried to follow the steps provided, however it is proving difficult as we are not familiar with the required transaction to be used and steps to taken. Could you please assist with some much needed guidance?
Kind Regards
Sean
Hello Dolores
,
I hope someone can help me.
I created some new queues (oragnizazzioni) with the TX PPOMA_CRM and up to here everything is ok.
when I go to open a TT and assign it to the new queues, he does not see them, he only sees those already existing.
Can someone help me?
Thanks
Hi ,
I need help, I am using ITSM on solman, at each change of status of the TT I receive an email, but I would like it to arrive only when I forward the TT.
How can I change it?
Thanks
Hi Dolores I have a problem , yes ITSM when I open a incident I received a double mail.
because ?
could you help me?
Thank you
Hi dolore
help me pleaseeee !
how can i enable this actions to a specific user
Great blog entry. Thank you!
Related to