Workflow Agent Determination Customization

[Former Member]

Objective

The object of this document is to detail the process of customizing the Agent determination of a standard workflow.

Pre-requisite

The reader must the aware of the basic workflow design terminologies.

Scenario

Customer has requested for a change in the agent determination of a standard workflow such as Purchase Order Workflow or Purchase Request Workflow or leave workflow.

When the request is only specific to the customization of agent determination, it is not advisable to design a copy of the standard workflow. As this would require us to completely re-configure the workflow settings of the new workflow.

Illustration

There are two possible approach to customize agent determination of a standard workflow, which are as follows,

·        Customizing an Existing Agent Rule

·        Making a copy of the existing rule

Customizing an Existing Agent Rule:

For explanation purpose let us consider the standard Purchase Order workflow (WS20000075). The below steps details the process of customizing the existing rule.

• To identify the Rule linked to the Workflow click on the task which determines the rule as shown below.

• In the Task Display screen which pops up, select the default rules tab. A line Item with “Type of Rule” as “Agent (Default Rule)” refers the default rule associated with this workflow. In this case the PO Workflow standard rule is 20000027 as shown below.

• The rule is computed based on the Function Module linked to it. To check on the function module linked with this rule, double click on the rule number. For the PO workflows FM: ME_REL_GET_RESPONSIBLE is responsible for rule determination.

• SAP follows a standard enhancement routines in case of Rule’s Function Modules and places a User Exit in each of the Function Module. In this case User exit “EXIT_SAPLEBNF_005” is provided by SAP to implement the customer requirements.

• Implementing them will enable the Customer required design to be implemented.
• In this case SAP has configured this customer exit to be triggered only when the “Role resolution for workflow” is set to ‘9’. Which has to be maintained for Release Group/ Release Code Combination in the release code table T16FC(Also maintainable through SPRO)

Making a copy of an existing Rule:

When rule customization is not sufficient to achieve the requirement. Then a copy of the existing rule can be made and required design can be implemented. The process is as follows.

• To create a copy or a new rule the path Tools –> Business Workflow –> Development –> Definition tools –>Rules for Agent Assignment –>Create/Change/Display is used as shown below

·        Create a copy or design your own function module and link the same to newly created Rule as shown below.

·        Once the new rule is designed and tested the same can be linked to the Agent Determination Task as shown below.

References: 

http://help.sap.com