SAP workflow customer connection: GOS improvements

GOS – generic object services – is in my opinion a great tool, it can be used almost anywhere in the ECC system, when a team member ask me “can you start a workflow on this?” my first question is usually “do you see the GOS button in the top of the screen? well if you can see it, you probably start a workflow”  go to the archived workflows and you immediately have the object. You can see the workflows for the object in it, and you can manually start a workflow for the object.

Now there have been a few improvements by notes lately, for example, have you noticed that the ‘x’ button on the top of the manual start screen is working! and that the overview screen is bigger.

There are a few improvements that will have make the workflow GOS even better, the first is the refresh, I don’t know how many time have I being fixing a problem, with a user online or next to me, then I want to show him/her that the problem is fixed, it looks o.k in the log and then they go back to the GOS display and nothing changed, here follows a list of explanations: “no! wait! go back and then go back into the GOS workflow overview, it will be fine…” an auto-refresh going back from the log to overview the screen will be a great help.

Also, and I’m sure this has happened to you as well, if there is more then one workflow on the overview, you press the second one, and then the log, only to see that you are in the first workflow log… a quick refresh will be very nice and help a lot of frustrated users…

Now as for the manual start, a great option, I use it for users who what extra data to be add to materials, technical reviews for RFQs, requesting financial data to be add to a customer and the list goes on. although few problems:

No cleat staring point – to make a workflow appear on the GOS manual start, it has to have the same object, general task (workflow) of specifically assigned to the user and no starting event. well, you see, that is the exact definition of a sub-workflow, which can be confusing, if someone accidentally marked it as a general task, it will be displayed for all users. Also, no starting point even means no starting conditions can be set for the workflow, for example I want the workflow to be started only for a specific type of material.  a specific staring point, which can be used in starting condition, and will be displayed in SWE2 will be a great improvement.

Returning to the starting screen after a workflow has been created can be confusing and cause the users to try to restart the workflow oven and oven again… a customizing option to leave the GOS manual start back to the calling transaction will be useful.

Last, maybe is’t just me, but sometimes the workflow overview screen is not sorted by date/time this confuses the users (and me sometimes), and the problem is that there is no way to save a variant on the overview screen.

Hope you liked some of these ideas, is so,  go to the SAP Customer Connection workflow project and support them – just click here.