I hope the part 1; ‘Introduction to S/4HANA for customer management’ was useful to you in understanding the architecture, roadmap, data harmonization, UI framework, extensibility and migration strategy in SAP S/4HANA for customer management.
In the part 2 of this blog series, we will focus on the SAP S/4HANA customer management’s service capabilities implemented for a customer, a large conglomerate in South American region.
It is important to note that the SAP S/4HANA for customer management has adopted the service management capabilities from SAP CRM and is fully integrated across logistics, financial and human resources follow-up processes.
Now let us look at the process flow of the service lifecycle in detail and then will understand some of the customer enhancements in the process.
Business Roles
SAP S/4HANA for customer management provides the following business roles.
These are copied and customized as per the business requirement.
Service Order process flow
Fig.1
Interaction Center
The default business role S4C_SRV_ICAG is copied and tailored to meet the specific business needs of the customer. The customer wanted a lean Interaction Center and integrate to telephony and other communication channels gradually. So, at this moment the Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) or Email Response Management (ERMS) is out of scope in the customer project.
Though both these capabilities are available with SAP S/4HANA for customer management standard solution.
As I have mentioned in my previous blog the Interaction Center is a BSP based application which has adopted the standard SAP Fiori layouts and design paradigms.
A typical Interaction Center layout of account identification is shown below.
Fig.2
Note: Even though the Interaction Center in SAP S/4HANA for customer management is based on the SAP CRM Interaction Center but not all the capabilities of the same are available.
For the detailed comparison please refer to SAP Press’s E-bite ‘Introducing CRM in SAP S/4HANA’ https://www.sap-press.com/introducing-crm-in-sap-s4hana_4811/
Service Request
When the customer calls the contact center for service, the agent creates a service request by manually searching the account/contact and assigns it to an appropriate supervisor for service delivery.
Fig.3
The multilevel categorization and checklists features were included in the service request for the customer. Other key features available are templates, knowledge articles and rule-based dispatching.
The standard transaction type of service request is SRVR and the technical object type is BUS2000223.
Service Quotation
In this specific process the service quotation is created as follow up to service request and issued on demand for their internal approval process. When the customer accepts the quotation a follow up service order is created.
In other cases, the service order is created as follow up to service request and assigned to appropriate technician for the job.
Fig.4
The Service Quotation transaction type is SRVQ and the technical object type is BUS2000116.
Service Order
The agent creates the service order as follow up from service quotation or the service request. The customer data, notes, reference object for ex., equipment are copied to the service order. The agent populates the dates, additional notes, service items, service parts and also classifies the issue using multilevel categorization in the service order.
Fig.5
The transaction type is SRVO and the technical object type is BUS2000116.
Sales Order is created in SAP S/4HANA, for the sales items in service order, which can be seen in the UI. The changes to the sale order are not allowed in SAP S/4HANA.
Depending on whether the service part is already in stock or needs to be procured, different processes (logistics scenarios) are carried out.
The following logistics scenarios for procurement of materials and services are applied:
Fig.6
The following criteria determines the logistic scenario when the items are released in the service order. These entries are maintained in the table CRMC_SRV_LOG_SC.
Fig.7
Forward Integration:
When the sales item(s) are released in the service order they are replicated to S/4HANA Sales document through the Forward Class ‘CL_CRMS4_PROC_SALESDOC_FWD’ which is defined for business object types BUS2000116 (Service Orders. The filter method of this class is used to implement any filter logic for example Sales items which are in ‘Released’ status are considered as relevant for replication
Reverse Integration:
The reverse integration logic to update S4CM service order during various Sales Order cycle are handled through class ‘CL_CRMS4_PROC_SALESDOC_BWD’.
A graphical representation of the process flow:
Fig.8
Service order Template
Alternatively, while creating the service order the agent can also copy the service order template that provides reusable sets of field values and other data that prepopulates the new service order, thus saving lot of time.
Fig.9
Service Order Confirmation
The service confirmation flow has the follow-up logistics and HR processes:
Fig.10
The table shows the class methods that triggers the follow-up Logistics and HR processes in SAP S/4HANA from SAP S/4HANA for customer management Service Confirmation .
Fig.11
Fig.12
When the job is completed, the service technician creates service confirmation as the follow up from service order to record the time spent, service parts used, and any expenses incurred.
Pricing in service confirmations uses the pricing functions of SAP S/4HANA. Pricing can include discounts and surcharges. Service employees can also use accounting indicators to specify the settlement receiver for costs. Multiple service confirmations are created in cases where technicians are required to perform the job more than a day and daily time booking must be confirmed.
Service parts automatically generate goods issues in SAP S/4HANA Materials Management (MM) with a posting in accounting and to the account assignment object in controlling.
When the technician completes the time confirmation the supervisor approves the same in HCM in CAT4 transaction. If there are any discrepancies the supervisor rejects the time and the technician has to resubmit the service confirmation after making necessary corrections. Via CAT6 transaction the time is posted to HR.
The CL_CRMS4_PROC_SRVCONF_FWD class creates the CATS entries and goods movement for the service items.
If there are any errors during creation of S4 documents like Goods Movement/CATS, the S4 documents will not be created and the status of Service Confirmation will be reset to “Open”.
Billing
The service order contains the service items and the spare parts. When these items are released for billing they are transferred to SD billing as billing document request (BDR).
The integration of Customer Management service items to SD Billing are achieved via Billing Document Request (BDR), these are the documents created to hold billing request items which are treated as source for SD Billing Document.
Billing for Sales order is in SAP S/4HANA and these sales orders (along with subsequent deliveries) can then be billed together (converged) with service items and spare parts items to produce combined customer invoices.
Fig.13
Customer Enhancement to Service Order
In the standard data exchange framework when sale item in service order is released the forward class generates only one sale order in SAP S/4HANA with the same number range as the service order in SAP S/4HANA for customer management.
The standard data exchange framework does not support to generate another order for the same service order.
This was a limitation in addressing a customer specific requirement and had to be addressed through customer enhancement. In our customer process there was a specific requirement to return the parts which remain unused during the service. The part to be returned to warehouse would be added to the service order by the technician with a different item category. When a custom status for ex., ‘Return’ is assigned to this item and saved a return order would be created in SAP S/4HANA. Later the standard return process in logistics will follow. This is achieved by the following enhancement:
Fig.14
A new order for return of the unused parts is triggered from the service order with a different order id and replicated to SAP S/4HANA via customer enhancement. The return process is carried out in SAP S/4HANA.
Fig.15
The customer management add on provides data exchange framework to facilitate the creation of sales order in SAP S/4HANA synchronously. This data exchange framework allows to inherit the standard class and adapt the custom solution.
The required business logic was built in the custom data exchange class to realize the above business requirement. The class CL_CRMS4_PROC_SALESDOC_FWD is replaced with an inherited class and redefined to serve the purpose of custom design. The standard classes are maintained in the table CRMS4S_EXCH_FCTR.
The customer specific entries are maintained in the table CRMS4C_EXCH_FCTR. If an entry is found in this table, the custom logic is executed.
For detailed Service Management capabilities in SAP S/4HANA for customer management please refer SAP Press’s E-bite ‘Introducing CRM in SAP S/4HANA’
https://www.sap-press.com/introducing-crm-in-sap-s4hana_4811/
In the part 2 of this blog series, we will focus on the SAP S/4HANA customer management’s service capabilities implemented for a customer, a large conglomerate in South American region.
It is important to note that the SAP S/4HANA for customer management has adopted the service management capabilities from SAP CRM and is fully integrated across logistics, financial and human resources follow-up processes.
Now let us look at the process flow of the service lifecycle in detail and then will understand some of the customer enhancements in the process.
Business Roles
SAP S/4HANA for customer management provides the following business roles.
These are copied and customized as per the business requirement.
- The technicians are assigned to the Service Employee business role who create and maintain the customer accounts, service requests, service quotations and service confirmations.
- The contact center agents are assigned to the Service IC Agent role who search for the customer, create service requests, search for customer product/equipments and create follow-up service orders.
- The Supervisors mainly create and maintain the service order templates and user assignments via Service Professional business role.
Service Order process flow
Fig.1
Interaction Center
The default business role S4C_SRV_ICAG is copied and tailored to meet the specific business needs of the customer. The customer wanted a lean Interaction Center and integrate to telephony and other communication channels gradually. So, at this moment the Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) or Email Response Management (ERMS) is out of scope in the customer project.
Though both these capabilities are available with SAP S/4HANA for customer management standard solution.
As I have mentioned in my previous blog the Interaction Center is a BSP based application which has adopted the standard SAP Fiori layouts and design paradigms.
A typical Interaction Center layout of account identification is shown below.
Fig.2
Note: Even though the Interaction Center in SAP S/4HANA for customer management is based on the SAP CRM Interaction Center but not all the capabilities of the same are available.
For the detailed comparison please refer to SAP Press’s E-bite ‘Introducing CRM in SAP S/4HANA’ https://www.sap-press.com/introducing-crm-in-sap-s4hana_4811/
Service Request
When the customer calls the contact center for service, the agent creates a service request by manually searching the account/contact and assigns it to an appropriate supervisor for service delivery.
Fig.3
The multilevel categorization and checklists features were included in the service request for the customer. Other key features available are templates, knowledge articles and rule-based dispatching.
The standard transaction type of service request is SRVR and the technical object type is BUS2000223.
Service Quotation
In this specific process the service quotation is created as follow up to service request and issued on demand for their internal approval process. When the customer accepts the quotation a follow up service order is created.
In other cases, the service order is created as follow up to service request and assigned to appropriate technician for the job.
Fig.4
The Service Quotation transaction type is SRVQ and the technical object type is BUS2000116.
Service Order
The agent creates the service order as follow up from service quotation or the service request. The customer data, notes, reference object for ex., equipment are copied to the service order. The agent populates the dates, additional notes, service items, service parts and also classifies the issue using multilevel categorization in the service order.
Fig.5
The transaction type is SRVO and the technical object type is BUS2000116.
Sales Order is created in SAP S/4HANA, for the sales items in service order, which can be seen in the UI. The changes to the sale order are not allowed in SAP S/4HANA.
Depending on whether the service part is already in stock or needs to be procured, different processes (logistics scenarios) are carried out.
The following logistics scenarios for procurement of materials and services are applied:
Fig.6
The following criteria determines the logistic scenario when the items are released in the service order. These entries are maintained in the table CRMC_SRV_LOG_SC.
Fig.7
Forward Integration:
When the sales item(s) are released in the service order they are replicated to S/4HANA Sales document through the Forward Class ‘CL_CRMS4_PROC_SALESDOC_FWD’ which is defined for business object types BUS2000116 (Service Orders. The filter method of this class is used to implement any filter logic for example Sales items which are in ‘Released’ status are considered as relevant for replication
Reverse Integration:
The reverse integration logic to update S4CM service order during various Sales Order cycle are handled through class ‘CL_CRMS4_PROC_SALESDOC_BWD’.
A graphical representation of the process flow:
Fig.8
Service order Template
Alternatively, while creating the service order the agent can also copy the service order template that provides reusable sets of field values and other data that prepopulates the new service order, thus saving lot of time.
Fig.9
Service Order Confirmation
The service confirmation flow has the follow-up logistics and HR processes:
Fig.10
The table shows the class methods that triggers the follow-up Logistics and HR processes in SAP S/4HANA from SAP S/4HANA for customer management Service Confirmation .
Fig.11
Fig.12
When the job is completed, the service technician creates service confirmation as the follow up from service order to record the time spent, service parts used, and any expenses incurred.
Pricing in service confirmations uses the pricing functions of SAP S/4HANA. Pricing can include discounts and surcharges. Service employees can also use accounting indicators to specify the settlement receiver for costs. Multiple service confirmations are created in cases where technicians are required to perform the job more than a day and daily time booking must be confirmed.
Service parts automatically generate goods issues in SAP S/4HANA Materials Management (MM) with a posting in accounting and to the account assignment object in controlling.
When the technician completes the time confirmation the supervisor approves the same in HCM in CAT4 transaction. If there are any discrepancies the supervisor rejects the time and the technician has to resubmit the service confirmation after making necessary corrections. Via CAT6 transaction the time is posted to HR.
The CL_CRMS4_PROC_SRVCONF_FWD class creates the CATS entries and goods movement for the service items.
If there are any errors during creation of S4 documents like Goods Movement/CATS, the S4 documents will not be created and the status of Service Confirmation will be reset to “Open”.
Billing
The service order contains the service items and the spare parts. When these items are released for billing they are transferred to SD billing as billing document request (BDR).
The integration of Customer Management service items to SD Billing are achieved via Billing Document Request (BDR), these are the documents created to hold billing request items which are treated as source for SD Billing Document.
Billing for Sales order is in SAP S/4HANA and these sales orders (along with subsequent deliveries) can then be billed together (converged) with service items and spare parts items to produce combined customer invoices.
Fig.13
Customer Enhancement to Service Order
In the standard data exchange framework when sale item in service order is released the forward class generates only one sale order in SAP S/4HANA with the same number range as the service order in SAP S/4HANA for customer management.
The standard data exchange framework does not support to generate another order for the same service order.
This was a limitation in addressing a customer specific requirement and had to be addressed through customer enhancement. In our customer process there was a specific requirement to return the parts which remain unused during the service. The part to be returned to warehouse would be added to the service order by the technician with a different item category. When a custom status for ex., ‘Return’ is assigned to this item and saved a return order would be created in SAP S/4HANA. Later the standard return process in logistics will follow. This is achieved by the following enhancement:
Fig.14
A new order for return of the unused parts is triggered from the service order with a different order id and replicated to SAP S/4HANA via customer enhancement. The return process is carried out in SAP S/4HANA.
Fig.15
The customer management add on provides data exchange framework to facilitate the creation of sales order in SAP S/4HANA synchronously. This data exchange framework allows to inherit the standard class and adapt the custom solution.
The required business logic was built in the custom data exchange class to realize the above business requirement. The class CL_CRMS4_PROC_SALESDOC_FWD is replaced with an inherited class and redefined to serve the purpose of custom design. The standard classes are maintained in the table CRMS4S_EXCH_FCTR.
The customer specific entries are maintained in the table CRMS4C_EXCH_FCTR. If an entry is found in this table, the custom logic is executed.
For detailed Service Management capabilities in SAP S/4HANA for customer management please refer SAP Press’s E-bite ‘Introducing CRM in SAP S/4HANA’
https://www.sap-press.com/introducing-crm-in-sap-s4hana_4811/
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