Technical Articles
Flexible Workflow Steps
Dear SAP Friends,
Welcome to another interesting topic, Flexible Workflow
In this blog will see steps on how to activate Flexible workflow. at the end demo video also linked
Just a quick overview of Flexible workflow
1. It’s a Release strategy of PR & PO
2. Easy to maintain & Understand no Transport Requests are required
Note:- TR will be generated when we activate Flexible workflow in IMG and remaining are non-TR based. System wise we can maintain.
3. Only one Release strategy can be used at a time either classic or Flexible Workflow
4. Need to Activate Flexible Workflow
5. FWF is maintained in Fiori “Manage Workflows for Purchase Order”
FWF- Flexible Workflow
Refer SAP S/4HANA Flexible Workflow Overview and Comparison with SAP Business Workflow by Alan Rickayzen
Now let’s see first how to activate FWF
1. Go to IMG → Materials Management → Purchasing → Purchase Order → Release Procedure for Purchase Orders → Activate Flexible Workflow for Purchase Orders
2. Activate which document type you want to have FWF
– It’s based on document type for ex:- NB we can have FWF and UB we can have Classic Workflow
3. Once done save. Transport request will be generated
4. Now open “Manage Workflows for Purchase order” App
5. Choose add
6. Give Workflow name and description for understanding purpose
Even we can set timelines for PO release status
7. Go to start conditions tab
As per business requirement, we can select the precondition to start the workflow
Only if the condition met then only created PO will be coming to workflow or else it will be released automatically
We can have more conditions as per business requirements.
8. Go to step sequence and choose add to maintain more conditions like a responsible person, PO values etc.
9. By default, Step type will be set to Automatic release of PO drop down and change to release of PO
10. Go to Recipient and select Role / User as per business
– User means we can select specific user-id
– Role means, that role has to be assigned to responsible person user-id
Note in order to have responsible persons User ID’s and there Names to be displayed in users list means we need to create Employee and assign to Business partner refer to https://blogs.sap.com/2019/07/17/employee-as-a-business-partner-and-synchronization-with-hr-data/
Select a responsible person from the user’s list
If you selected multiple users for release, we have an option like one of the recipient approval is enough or all approvals is required, we can select as per requirement
11. Go to step condition to add conditions like Currency, PO value, Material group, Company Code etc,
If wanted we can keep or else leave blank as we already maintain precondition in the initial stage.
12. Once done click on add
13. And then save
14. And then activate
Once it’s activated we can’t edit only deactivate or delete
With this, we completed all the required steps
Now, let’s check we maintained all correctly or not.
Will create PO
During Workflow creation we maintained 2 conditions
– Document type = NB
– PO Value greater than 20 USD
Both conditions our PO fulfil’s
PO created
Now if I open PO in change mode will get below information
It triggered FWF.
Now let’s Approve / release PO
Open My Inbox App.
As one PO is in my bucket for approval on tile only we can see notifications ?
We have the following options
– Approve
– Reject
– Show log
– Claim (initiate process)
– Forward
If you feel it must be approved by someone else, not by you, we can do it.
– Suspend (Hold)
Now let’s Approve PO
It’s done
If you are going on vacation like how we keep out of office mail with backup contact person ? same, we can do hear as well
In my inbox app click me area and select manage my substitutes
By selecting planned leave or unplanned leave ? Click add new substitute
By selecting from date and to date
Save
Now whatever PO is create and triggered to FWF it will go to my substitute
If you want to see all the list of POs’ that you approved so far there is an app for that as well
My Outbox
Note:- all above content doesn’t have sensitive info so don’t waste your time for reporting
If the same My Inbox App is configured in mobile means, see the beauty of SAP Fiori
Encourage Fiori and get the most advanced features of it and make life easy and smooth.
Please share, Like and Comment anything else you want to share or add points.
Thanks & Regards
Ruthvik Chowdary
SME – S/4 HANA Manufacturing & Procurement
SAP Ariba P2P
Excellent, its really useful
Thank you Sai Krishna Vallurupalli ?
Dear Ruthvik,
Excellent document ..keep it up..
Thank you venu gopal Please share with others as well.
Hi,
Nice document. Should the flexible workflow be activated only for one document type?
Hi Ruthvik,
Explained very well.... Thank you for sharing.
Keep it up 🙂
Regards,
Amit
Thank you Amit Sharmafor your support and liking my article please share among those who require knowledge on FWF
Nice document Ruthvik..! Thanks for sharing..
Thank you Pravin Mandgaonkar
Share same with others who has requirement
Hi Ruthvik Chowdary
really nice detailed document of workflows. great effort. ?
I Have a Question can the same process followed for Finance Related Functionality as well?
Same question i have posted as well can you please guide me
https://answers.sap.com/questions/12939024/flexible-workflows-for-finance.html
Hello Lavanya
Thank you, glad you liked my article,
I'm not expert in Finance but i will try to share information as per my knowledge
below Apps are available which i feel are related to finance
Thanks & Regards
Ruthvik Chowdary
Thank you Ruthvik Chowdary for your help
Awesome bro.
Glad you liked my article Follow me to get more
Hi Ruthvik,
Really very good explanation of FWF.
We r lucky... Thanks for sharing ?
Waiting for more to come about sourcing and procurement with new functionality & innovation in 1909
Thank you Vijay ?
Sure you will be seeing soon.
Hello Ruthvik,
Could you let me know, if this functionality is available in on-premise version (perhaps 1909) as well.
P.S: We are currently on 1610 SPS 0 and would be upgrading to 1909 in couple months.
Thanks,
Naga
Hi Naga Seerla
This functionality is available from 1809 version onwards you can get when you upgrade to 1909
Hi Ruthvik,
Thanks for the informative blog. I'd like to understand more about the step conditions and how do they work. Are they different from the Pre-conditions we add on the 1st screen?
Hi Mithun Kumar
Thank you 🙂
Yes Preconditions are different and step condition is different
A precondition is used to initiate the workflow
Step condition is used to determine which document will get for approval process
Thanks Ruthvik Chowdary
During a custom development and extensive debugging, I realized a major difference between how the Pre-conditions and step conditions are evaluated.
During evaluation of a step condition, the code doesn’t get the workflow’s or the workItem’s container at all. So as I was trying to check a “container variable = my condition parameter” condition, it always failed, even when the container has the correct value for that variable. Due to this my step was always 'Skipped'.
However, if the same condition is used as a pre-condition, this evaluation was successful, as the container is being read properly.
Have you noticed the same? Or am I doing something wrong here?
Hi Rithvik,
Thank you!!!
It is excellent and very informative.
Thank you very much
Hi Rithvik,
Thanks for sharing!
I have a question regarding information provided on the approve/reject message.. Up to 1909 version,does it exist any standard setting to provide additional information or the only way is a customisation?
Thanks in advance,
Francesco
Hi Francesco,
It available from 1710 version we can Give Approve/Reject Messages no additional settings are required by default it will be coming
Yes Ruthvik, I was wondering if we can add other information with standard. For example, standard price or last PO price or PO vendor
Yes we can add selection conditions as per requirement
Please do watch https://youtu.be/-iwJw2uyOao
It's a great documentation!!!
Thank you May Li
Hello,
Do you know how to configure the notification that the requestor should receive when a PR/PO gets rejected?
I am not getting them and no idea where to configure them.
thank you very much
Notification in the Sence you need to maintain action task what to do when rejected so the requestor will get notification
Hi Ruthvik,
How to config this ?
HI Rithvik,
Thanks for the document…
These conditions are standard? Cant we add any more Pre conditions..
And Existing Configuration like Release groups, Release codes etc., are not required right?
Thanks,
Prasad
Hi Amba Prasad Bonala
We can add our own conditions as well
old Release groups, Release codes not required to configure if we go with flexible workflows
How can you add your own pre-conditions in S/4HANA On Premise?
Hi Paul, did you find a solution? I am looking for it too! Thanks Heiko
Hi Volkmer,
yes. As of 1909 OP you can implement your own preconditions using custom BaDIs BADI SWF_WORKFLOW_CONDITION_DEF and BADI SWF_WORKFLOW_CONDITION_EVAL
BR
Paul
Hi Ruthvik,
Nice Documentation and This helped me during my On-Prem Implementation.
Related to the Approval process in Fiori - Do you have idea on the below;
Thanks.
H nikhil jacob
Attachments we can add-in during approving in my inbox app and the same will be shown in GUI if DMS is installed
Manage Substitutes this option also available in my inbox only please refer above mentioned steps
Hi Rutvik,
Thanks for your Answer.
You mean - if DMS is installed , we can see the attachments in ME23N?
Yes
Hi Ruthvik,
Can we send emails in outlook once workflow is triggered?
Also can we provide option to approve from outlook email (like a link)?
Thanks.
Hi Amruta Kulkarni
I'm Not sure about this but with the help of UI5 Consultant we can do i guess so
Hi Ruthvik,
Nicely explained.
I have one question. How will i re-trigger a purchase order. Generally my while uploading legacy PO those PO are auto approved. Now if i want to re-trigger those Purchase Order, how i gonna do that?
Thanks.
Hi Ruthvik,
Nice blog and explained in detail.
I have a question, if I have created a custom Workflow Scenario and want to trigger it for any particular order type (Let's say 'NB'). So how can I configure this?
Thanks!
Hi Ruthvik,
I am able to achieve all the steps following your document but once Standard PO is created I am getting "workflow instance not found". Can you please suggest.
Thanks!!
Hi Ruthvik,
Thank you for sharing the knowledge on the Flexible Workflow. Was wondering if you could configure the below scenario in Flexible Workflow.
Requirement:
I create a Purchase Requisition for 1000$ and it should go to Approver-1 for first-level approval and then to Approver-2 for second level approval and then be completely approved. If Approver-1 or Approver-2 rejects the PR, then it must come to me so that I can correct it, and resubmit.
In the Exception Handling of the Manage Workflow app, we have set ‘Restart Workflow’.
In the system now, when the Approver-2 rejects the PR, the system is sending the PR back to Approver-1!
Regards,
Yateesh
Yateesh,
I don't think you should set anything in the Exception handling, for your requirement. The system is behaving correctly as per your setting.
Hi Mithun,
I attempted your suggestion, but not setting an exception handling is not an option. 'Do Nothing - Cancel Workflow' is the default, and we cannot remove it (only change it to something else)!
Yateesh
Yes, "Do Nothing" is the option that'd work for you. Cancel workflow is a separate option that you don't want to set.
Hi Mithun,
'Do Nothing' is the only option for the activity, 'Cancel Workflow' is one of the 4 options for the action. We need to select one of those 4.
Ah yes, My mistake. I meant the Cancel Workflow is the option that’d work for you. Since you need the PR to come back to the creator for modification, upon rejection, the WF instance is not required at that point, and should be cancelled.
Once the you make modifications and save the PR again, a new instance of WF is triggered from the beginning.
Here's how all the workflows at our customer is set up:
Hi Mithun,
Upon Rejection the requisition goes to the 'Held' status and cannot be edited. One can only copy that PR and recreate a new one with the requested changes. SAP Note - 2919925
Hi ,
I have maintained all these steps . I have created one Non stock PO document type for PO .
While selecting that document type in flexible workflow it is showing "Not Sent" under Status of workflow . Even in Header Flexible workflow tab is not appearing .
Pls suggest .
Ruthvik Chowdary, do you know if we can add any new exception handling options under the Steps?
Currently for PO, on Rejection is available. But we want to add, for example, "No agent found" under exception handling, so that we can cancel/restart WFL.
Hello Ruthvik Chowdary,
Thank you for your great instruction.
I have a question regarding the "Withdraw from approval" function. This function is available in the Fiori in order to "pause" the workflow and edit the PO again. But we cannot find this function in the SAP GUI (t-code ME23N).
Do you know, if this function is also available in the SAP GUI and not only in Fiori?
Many thanks in advance.
Best regards,
Birgit
Hello ,
Nice Document !!
In case of Flexible WF For PO release , is there any settings for the Change PO to trigger a Workflow ?
Hi Saranya,
with release OP2020 a new customizing was implemented.
SPRO -> MM -> Purchasing -> Purchase Order -> Flexible Workflow for Purchase Orders -> Manage Conditions to Restart Flexible Workflow
What's new - Manage Workflows for Purchase Orders
Best regards
Tom
Hi Ritwik,
Nicely Explained, I want to Create fully custom FWF scenario in Tax and Revenue Management module, although I have created one custom scenario but not able to activate and trigger it.
can you guide me or some documentation on custom FWF.
Thanks in advance,
Regards,
Kishor,,
Hi Ritwik,
Very well explained document as well as the demo. Few query regarding the FWF
Yes for both
Hi Ruthvik,
very nice explanation for technical rookies like me.
My question is the following:
Can I use flexible workflows for condition contracts? Where can i activate and setting it up?
As an example:
A Condition Contract is created by a user and after saving a message should appear in managers inbox to reject or accept.
Thank you for your time!
Best regards from Germany!
Hi all,
I am facing a strange problem at one of PR Flexi WFL, which i cannot reproduce.
S4 release 1909, PR flexible WFL on item level ... the problem is that randomly like in the last 3 months around 4 PR's got fully approved ( workflow completed ) but the PR processing status was not updated - is still "In Release" instead of "Release completed", no errors in WFL, no dumps nothing. What can be the root cause ? did anyone experienced something similar ? any hints what should i check ?
Thanks!
Hi Madalin Negrea
i faced the same problem with PO due to system network or some back end even documents are approved it's got getting status updated,
Hi Ruthvik Chowdary ,
Thanks for feedback
Hi Madalin Negrea,
were you able to find the cause for the PR processing status not changing from "In Release" to "Release completed"?
I am facing the same problem. And your blog comment seems to be the only entry on the internet so far mentioning this particular problem.
Best regards
Martin
Hi,
Yes we implemented an snote don't remember right now which one
Thank you for your reply!
I also found another reason for this problem: Technical WF user SAP_WFRT did not have the authorization to change the PR. It worked after adding a suited user role to SAP_WFRT.
Hello Ruthvik
IS outbox app available for onpremise ?
Thank you
Muthu
Yes its available
thanks Rithvik
i could not find it in fiori library
can you share the fiori app id please for s4hana 2020 fs00
thanks
Muthu
Add SAP_BR_MANAGER role this will only bring out box App in fiori
i have approver role and having MY INBox but i could not see MY Outbox in 2020 OP
Add below 2 roles as well and check, because in 2020 FPS00 to FPS02 i can see in my system
SAP_BR_EMPLOYEE
SAP_BR_MANAGER
thanks Ruthwik
Please share the APP ID for outbox
I am also having both roles but i am in FS00
both Inbox and outbox are showing the same App ID strangely when I see in-app details
Hi Ruthvik,
How can we See all the Approvers Name irrespective of Release Status.
Like for levels 1 level is approved and status will show as released with approver name, but Remaining two approvers name not able to see in PO Flexible workflow tab
Ruthvik, this is great. Very clear explanation. Thank you very much. Quick question - can additional workflow conditions be added? Or are we limited only to those conditions that come with the workflow?
Thank you,
Hanna
Thank you Hanna Brecher
Yes we can have additional conditions as well
Hi Ruthvik,
Very Nice, well explained blog !!!
I have couple of questions
Thanks in advance for your support.
Regards,
Sankar D
Hi Sankar Dharmaraj
Thank you for sharing your comments.
Yes, we can use both FWF & Classic but it can be used as Document type only NB can be FWF STO Document can be Classic but not both.
Purpose type only determines whether it has to send to approval or approve it automatically
Hi Ruthvik,
Thk you for your sharing,
And I have a question that: if I use flexible WF and then can we see wf in this function?
Yes you can see
Hi Ruthvik Chowdary,
After finishing all configuration for flexible workflow ok and created po fine there are message like this ( po 45xxxxxxxz is in approval , you can only display it , not edit it.
So in this case what if I need to make some changes in this po ? Before / after Approval
Thanks
Hi Nagy Farag
Until you Approve the PO you cant make any changes to that particular PO
Do you know of any way to transport changes to the steps defined?
This is creating issues with Audit as changes are made directly in the environment.
There are different ways to configure and transport workflows to productive system (on premise)
-> Depends on the release
Hi Tom Käser
As you mentioned above,
So what Workflows settings we maintain in Fiori App Manage Workflow for Purchase order those settings will be moved to the P System?
Hi Ruthvik Chowdary
Could you please state your question in more detail?
You maintain the workflow settings via corresponding fiori app on the D system and then transport (workflow by workflow) to Q and P system.
Best regards
Tom
Hi Tom Käser
Yes I maintained settings in Manage Workflow for Purchase order App and now those selection condition settings i need to move in SAP S/4HANA 2020/2021 how and in which way i can do it can you explain more detail
Hi Ruthvik Chowdary ,
please have a look at the SAP Help link. Then scroll down to 'procedure' and follow the steps.
Hope that helps!
hi Ruthvik,
Thank you for the blog.
I created a flexible workflow for a Stock transfer order(STO) but workflow is not getting triggered.
When I check the log for the events triggered after creating a PO, it is not triggering the class based event. Can you please help where we need to check the setting.
Hi Prasanth Kasturi
you can go to PO and check the flexible work flow tab to see the log of that STO PO you can understand why its not triggered
hi Ruthvik,
Thank you for the response. the workflow tab is empty and It says Workflow instance not found. The workflow is not getting triggered as Event is not getting triggered.
I have posted a question also, please check the below link
https://answers.sap.com/questions/13589353/flexible-workflow-event-for-po-does-not-trigger.html?childToView=13589613
Hello Ruthvik and Team,
We have configured Flexible workflow on document type level no other specific conditions. Post PO creation , it's states workflow skipped and there is auto email stating PO approved to outlook from an email id to user who created the PO but the sender email id is not at all linked to the PO BP Master or User profile SU01. On further checking the sender email id is totally a different BP Master and has no linkage like partner function or all to the BP for which PO is created.
Please let me know if you forsee where else we can check on this....and if any further details needed on the issue faced.
Regards,
Ashish Gaurav
Document is simply superb but i had few question if you can clearify.
if we add multiple user in step 10 as explained by you which user will get WF 1st how we are going to control over that?
And if we are using Net value as step criteria and PO is created in other currency will it be auto converted in currency set in manage workflow step and PO Release strategy will trigger accordingly or we have to set condition of each currency separately.
There seems all condition as And is there option to enter or conditon there?
Hi Dear Ruthvik Chowdary
Just a doubt , Can I activate FWF for GL Document type? Accounting Type + Cost Center? it is apply for this scenario?
Dear Ruthvik Chowdary
After release, PR/PO still can be change, so how to configuration to prevent change after released ?
Thanks.
Dear Ruthvik, when I create my PO after customize the workflow, an error message appears when I save:
An exception has raise Message class SY530. Would you please help me?
Thanks
Check SAP note
3021489 - Message SY530 "An exception was raised" occurs when creating purchase orders
OB08 inform missing currency conversions.
I couldn't find step type: Release of Purchase Requisition Item.
Can any one help?
in Flexible Work flow for PR in that begning only you need to select which type you need PR Release for header or PR release for line item
Hi - I activated Flexible workflow for PR but now I need to restricts the Price and Qty field. Once the PR is approved so then no one can edit these two fields. How to achieve this?
Thank you,
Sanan Afridi