HCM Processes & Forms: Launching Adobe forms, FPM forms or BOTH!

     There have been numerous forum posts clogging up and generally adding to the “noise” of the HCM spaces (yes, people will cross-post or “carpet bomb” posts in places that have nothing to do with HCM P&F….*gasp*) about “I can’t see my FPM process in my process list to start!” or “I can launch FPM processes but I can’t see our old Adobe ones!” and the like. Sooooo I thought I would throw together this quick, short (I promise!) blog about what is going on and where to find what you need.

AIF-based processes ONLY

    For simply launching Adobe Interactive Form (AIF) processes, we have the very old “ASR_PROCESS_EXECUTE” application. It is LONG since replaced. The newer version of this is the confusingly named “ASR_PROCESS_EXECUTE_FPM”. It has nothing to do with launching/starting FPM-based processes. It is just called that because the application itself is Floorplan Manager based. Dangit, SAP….why do you do this crazy naming thing all the time?!?!?! Anyways….THAT is the one to launch Adobe based proceses ONLY.

FPM-based processes ONLY

    At some point later when SAP released the FPM-based form option for HCM P&F, they gave us the application “ASR_PROCESS_EXECUTE_OVP” which in their documentation clearly states “This application is used to start HR processes and load their corresponding forms of type FPM Form”. For some crazy reason though, it seems no one on that product team had the foresight to think “hey, maybe people already have AIF-based processes in place and they would really like to have those processes listed and launched along with these.”. Nope. SAP dropped the ball. If you had existing AIF processes and new FPM processes, guess what? You had to use TWO iViews to “launch” them. Crazy, right?

BOTH (all) kinds together

     Thankfully, SAP rectified their oversight rather quickly. With the release of “HR Renewal 1.0 feature pack 5”, you can see two of the BIG features listed as:

• New start application, which enables you to search for different object types (employee, position, organizational unit, or job) from a single search screen. You can also start both FPM-based and Adobe-based processes for the selected object.
• New process browser application to track both FPM and Adobe-based processes

( HCM, Administrative Services 05 – Human Capital Management – SAP Library )

You can find the new “Start Application” discussed more here => Start Application – HR Administrative Services (PA-AS) – SAP Library

It is actually just “ASR_PROCESS_EXECUTE_OVP” enhanced to handle both (all) kinds of forms. In a nutshell though, if you want this *new* functionality, you must be at least on HR Renewal 10 feature pack 5.

Still having problems?

     If you have checked all the above and are using what you think is the right application but still not seeing your process listed, then you have other issues. This is most assuredly either….

1. Process is not in the correct client (you built your configuration of your process in one client but can not see it in another). This is typical in development and you simply must SCC1 your transport to the correct client to test.
2. Initiator Role is incorrect. You have either incorrectly configured the “initiator role” for your process or on the iView parameters, you are passing/using the wrong “initiator role”.
3. Grouping is incorrect. Another possible configuration error….you set up your process groupings wrong or object grouping/filter. This can happen easily when setting up country specific groupings. I wrote another blog on this one….it is not fun!   ( HCM Processes & Forms: Bug Hunt – Incorrect/Wrong processes in the Process List )
4. Other “process start” configuration…..check other possible issue…..validity dates…collisions…etc.
5. Authorizations. Yep…this is usually what you should check first anyways just to get it out of the way…and be a pain to the security folks. (haha)

There you go. Short and sweet….as promised! Just hope it helps and cuts down on the repetitive questions in the forums.Trying to help as always. Till next time….