Hello All,

I would like to explain the process in setting up ‘Digital Signature’ strategy in Process Management to approve/reject documents that are uploaded in the solution.

Digital Signature can be used when the customer wants to have a control & governance for all those documents that is been uploaded in Solution Manager.

There  are two types of Signatures,

1. System Signature with Authorization by SAP User ID & password
2. User Signature with external security product with or without verification

In this blog, I will explain with system signature and related configurations to fulfill the requirement.

To achieve this, we need to configure below settings.

1. Define Signature Object ( Transaction : ELSIG03N)

When the application tries to call the signature strategy, this customization is checked. The signature method ‘System signature with Authorization by SAP User-ID/Password’ is commonly used by
most applications. The user has to enter his/her SAP password during signing.

The two other signature methods ‘User signatures with External Security product with/without verification’ need additional hardware like Smart-card reader etc.

2. Define Authorization Group (Transaction : ELSIG01)

Authorization groups will be used when individual signatures from different user groups (worker, shift leader, QM,plant manager etc.) should be included in the signature strategy. Before an individual signature can be executed, the system checks if the user belongs to the correct authorization group of the individual signature.

3. Define Signature Strategy

Defining your signature strategy is bit tricky when you planned to have multiple approvers. You need to mention the release status (final status after the document been approved) which in turn specifies that Custom statuses are to be adopted for the documents.

I have explained with 2 signature strategy which requires 2 approvers.

Within the signature strategy, you need to assign individual signatures for each approver as shown below

After assigning the individual signature, you need to define the predecessor signature’s if case of multilevel approvals. Here in this case, signature 1 will be the predecessor for signature 2 and it is maintained as below.

4. Define Release Status

In this step, you to need to maintain the status in which the signature procedure ends and the corresponding status the documents changes to.

For this, you need to select the signature strategy and then click on ‘Release status’ as shown below

After doing these configurations, you can find the ‘Sign’ option by right clicking on the document type.

Now the signature block is visible and approver has to provide his SAP User ID and password along with his comments.

Once the document is approved, then its status changes to that of defined release status.

Note: I found that there are below limitations based on my experience.

1. Signature is called only when the document is checked in-out or a new version is uploaded or edited online for which Microsoft Office integration is required.
2. When doing so, you need to change the status so that the documents is locked internally by system
3. Signature gets triggered with a locked status (internal check)
4. There is no standard PPF actions that notify either the approver/document owner for a status change

Helpful Links:

https://blogs.sap.com/2017/09/11/solution-manager-7.2-how-to-use-digital-signature-in-solution-documentation-to-meet-regulatory-requirements/

https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/700495

Thanks,

Vignesh