Workflow for Audit Management (AM) : A complete walkthrough

OVERVIEW:

Workflow implementation for Audit Plan in SAP Audit Management involves both Customizing and Development work. Following blog takes you through the  process of Audit Management Workflow definition for Audit Plan. There are not much relevant information available related to the workflow so we implemented the same from scratch.

REQUIREMENTS:

The workflow needs to be triggered at the time user saves a new Audit Plan. Following Tcodes are provided for the purpose: PLMD_AUDIT(For creating New Audit Plan, Question List, Audit, etc.) and PLMD_AUDITMONITOR (for edit/display exisiting objects).

User creates a new Audit Plan (Tcode PLMD_AUDIT) with Contact Person Tab filled with Roles:

50 for Approver

51 for Person Responsible

65 for Auditee

Relevant Business Partners needs to be created/assigned to the Roles for triggering workflow. Details of Business Partner maintenance will be discussed below.

The workflow goes to the inbox(Business Workplace, SBWP) of Audit Plan Approver. Approver can either approve or reject the Workflow.

Once approved, user has to enter the mandatory approval comments on the screen. The screen looks like :

The workflow, along with the comments, goes to Auditee for its acceptance.

When accepted, an acceptance mail get triggered informing all involved personnel of the acceptance of Audit Plan.

Status of Audit Plan changes to Approved.

OBJECTS PROVIDED BY SAP:

Following Business Objects are available by SAP related to Audit Management module:

BUS20300 – Audit Plan

BUS20350 – Audit

BUS20360 – Question list/reply

BUS20370 – Corrective actions

Business Object BUS20300 is the most suitable in our case as it is related to Audit Plan where we want to trigger our workflow  We can either develop the scenario using this object or can also develop from scratch. We developed it independently for more flexibility and control.

STEPS IN DETAILS:

(A) Customizing / Functional steps:

1.Maintain Identification Tab with Personnel Number(Employee Number/PERNR) in Business Partner Role BUP003-Employee (Tcode used here is BP). This is used to identify the SAPID of personnel for workflow triggering and mailing.

(B) Workbench / Developer Steps:

1.BADI PLM_AUDIT_STATUS implemented (Method GET_PERMITTED_CHANGES) for triggering Workflow event. It is the initiation point of the workflow. [Code attached below]

2.Create custom table for storing rejection reasons(say, ZFA_WF_REASON_DE). The fields can be anything, depending upon your data capturing requirements.

3.Create Custom Business Object or delegated business object (with Key fields, methods, Events; lets say ZBUS20300N).[Program attached below]

4.Custom Workflow to be triggered. [Workflow XML attached below]

Custom Workflow gets triggered from the new BADI Implementation. Event EVE_CREATOR of Business Object ZBUS2030N is triggered passing on the parameter IV_OBJNR (Type PLMM_AUDITPLAN-GUID).

Lets walk-through some of the important steps in this workflow development:

(a) From BADI PLM_AUDIT_STATUS implemented above, the data Object IV_OBNJR is passed to the Workflow calling Workflow Event (EVE_CREATOR). Binding is done as shown below to pass the Audit Plan details.

(b) A While Loop is created for checking whether the Audit Plan is released or not. If released, it marks the Workflow completion. If Rejected, it is sent back to Initiator for corrections.

(c) Get Audit Plan Details Task – used for fetching Audit Plan details based on data IV_OBNJR. The binding includes passing IV_OBJNR to the task and calling Method GET_DETAILS in Background of Object Type ZBUS20300N and returning all relevant data ( like AUDITPLAN, PARTNER, STATUS, AUDITPLANS, RETURN,  APPROVER,  AUDITEE, APPROVER_NAME, AUDITEE_NAME).

(d) User Decision Step (for Approver) – used to capture the user decision of Approval or Rejection made by the Approver (Agent Determination is from local variable passed fetched from last step). If Rejected, mail gets triggered to Initiator for necessary corrections.

(e) Enter Approval / Rejection Remarks Tasks – used to capture Approval and Rejection remarks of the user. It uses Method RECORD_REMARKS_LOG of ZBUS20300N. Remarks can either be saved in a custom table or can be send as a comment in the subsequent mail or both.

(f) Approver Updation Task – The task is used to update the status of Audit Plan in background. The status changes from Being Created / To be Approved to Approved. We have to update relevant System Status by passing Status Indicator flag, and calling FM CRM_STATUS_CHANGE_INTERN for the updation. In binding it takes the input IV_OBJNR. Relevant System Statuses and texts are shown below in the blog.

(g) User Decision Step (for Auditee) – Similar to UD Step of Approver. The decision step goes to Auditee (retrieved from step c) for Acceptance or Rejection. Based on Auditee decision, the Workflow first captures the Approval and Rejection comments. It then updates the Audit Plan status (back to ‘Being Created / To be Approved’ in case of Rejection and ‘Complete’ in case of Auditee Approval).

(h) Container Operation – for setting RELEASED flag, so that the looping condition set in step (b) can be skipped and workflow gets completed after final approval.

(i ) Mail Step – both on Approval and Rejection of Audit Plan. The mail notification is sent to the Initiator in both cases, informing about the final action taken on the Audit Plan.

On Rejection, the whole progress gets triggered again (due to while loop), asking the initiator to make necessary changes in the Audit Plan. Once changes are done, the same steps gets repeated following all the necessary approval steps.

NOTE: For this example, it is a two step approval process that can be scaled as per your requirement and customer directives.

[[ System Statuses for module Audit Management :

I1800			AM00	Being Created
I1801			AM01	In Process
I1802			AM02	Released
I1803			AM03	Completed
I1804			AM04	Locked
I1805			AM05	To Be Archived
I1806			AM06	Archived
I1807			AM07	To Be Approved
I1808			AM08	Rejected
I1809			AM09	Approved
I1810			AM10	Deletion Flag
I1811			AM11	Canceled
I1812			AM12	Unplanned Audit(s)
I1813			AM13	Question List(s) Assigned
I1814			AM14	Download Completed
I1815			AM15	Confirmed
I1816			AM16	Report Created
I1817			AM17	Signature Provided
I1818			AM18	Outstanding Actions
I1819			AM19	Actions Completed
I1820			AM20	Completed w. Outstanding Actns
I1821			AM21	Created
I1822			AM22	Outstanding
I1823			AM23	Forced Completion
I1824			AM24	Valuation Executed
I1826			AM25	Signature for Completion Prov.
I1827			AM26	Part. Signature for Completion
IP012			AMEN	Amended

]]