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Author's profile photo Yamuna Mathew

Responsibility Management in Flexible Workflow

Purpose

This blog explains using responsibility management to configure a team of purchasing managers to approve Purchase requisitions based on certain criteria.

Overview

Imagine a case where in a purchasing department, purchasers usually create purchase requisitions to buy certain items. Approvers for the different purchase requisitions usually are not the defined roles like Manager, Manager’s manager etc. Usually different group of purchasing managers are responsible for approvals based on criteria like Plant, Material Group etc

We can achieve the above using Responsibility Management by defining different teams based on values of criteria like Plant, Material Group etc as shown below.

PR Approval.jpg

Detailed Steps

Step 1 – Define Teams and Assign Functions in app “Manage Teams and Responsibilities”

1. Login as Business Configuration Expert.

2. Access app Manage Teams and Responsibilities – Procurement under Purchasing Configuration

3. Click on Create.

4. Give the name and description for your new team.

New Team.jpg

5. For Team Type, Choose Operational Purchasing

Team Type.jpg

6. Once you select the team type, you will see the responsibility definitions getting loaded

7. Enter the attributes that the team are responsible for each definition. For example: The new team was configured with the below configuration :

configuration.jpg

Name

Value

Material Group

A001(On Account Billed)

Plant

1010

The above configuration tells the responsibility of the team is for Material Group A001 and Plant 1010.

8. Assign the owners of the team.

Team owners.jpg

9. Assign the members of the team.

Team members.jpg

10. Click on Manage Functions. Map which members are responsible for which functions.

Functions.jpg

11. Click on Save. New Team is created.

Step 2 – Define new workflow based on Responsibility Management

Currently approval based on responsibility management is available only for item level approval of Purchase Requisitions

1. 1. Login as Business Configuration Expert. Create a new workflow using app – Manage Workflow for Purchase Requisitions – New for scenario Release of Purchase Requisition Item

New workflow.jpg

1. 2. Mention Start Conditions

Start Conditions.jpg

1. 3. Choose the relevant function(in this case à Operational Purchasing) in Role.

Role.jpg

1. Start Conditions.jpg

1. 4. Save and activate the workflow

New workflow2.jpg

Step 3 – Check Approvers in Purchase Requisition

If we now create a purchase requisition with an item belonging to Material Group A001 and for Plant 1010, approvers will be picked from the above configured team in Responsibility Management as seen below.

Approvers.jpg

Points to be noted:-

  • The same function associated with the team members shall be used in the step definition of workflow in the section Recipients –> Role. Otherwise, the approval will not be triggered for the step to the relevant team members as highlighted in green in below screen shots.

Functions in Team:-

Functions.jpg

Same Function in workflow step definition:-

workflow.jpg

For more details on managing Teams and Responsibilities please refer SAP S/4HANA Cloud – Responsibility Management

Assigned Tags

      30 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Vijayendra Tiwari
      Vijayendra Tiwari

      Thanks Yamuna for this detailed explanation!

      Author's profile photo Anup Nair
      Anup Nair

      Thanks for Sharing!

      Author's profile photo Sai Giridhar Kasturi
      Sai Giridhar Kasturi

      well presented, thanks for sharing.

      Author's profile photo Josef Lim
      Josef Lim

      How do you create a business partner out of a user to add as a team member or owner?

      Author's profile photo Abinash Routray
      Abinash Routray

      Hello Lim,

      Please follow the links below for creating Business Users (to link Business Partner and SAP User).

      S/4 OP: https://help.sap.com/docs/ABAP_PLATFORM_NEW/88c6b8647c8d40b39eb554e2d7b6bda1/90b56413c4274c9c974988635d757e16.html?locale=en-US

      S/4 Cloud: https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_CLOUD/0bebd08dffca45afa67b1f751199afd0/bcbc2126696f422f844d5c631ff9cc03.html?locale=en-US

      Then the business users can be used as team members / team owners. For team owners, the Business User also should also be a Business Process Specialist as explained in https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_CLOUD/a630d57fc5004c6383e7a81efee7a8bb/4f9ce952ea5c4514a9a1203321fc35b2.html?version=latest&locale=en-US.

      Author's profile photo Jon Amos
      Jon Amos

      In the on-premise version, I can define a new flexible workflow scenario, but there doesn't seem to be an option to create a custom team category. Am I missing it or is that not possible?

      Author's profile photo Abinash Routray
      Abinash Routray

      From OP 2021 FPS02, customers can create custom team category.

      You can refer https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_ON-PREMISE/8308e6d301d54584a33cd04a9861bc52/b883d1f5a097446598e8912bb480a4ec.html?locale=en-US&version=2021.002.

      But the custom team category still can't be used in the out of the box integration with custom flexible workflow scenarios. SAP S/4 Flexible Workflow and Responsibility Management are discussing internally to plan out of the box integration of custom workflow scenario and custom team category, but the roadmap or planned delivery time line is not yet finalised.

      Author's profile photo Farid Azzi
      Farid Azzi

      Excelent blog, thanks for sharing !

      Author's profile photo Ashish Shah
      Ashish Shah

      Hi yamuna,

      Thanks for an excellent blog.

      I have created an approver team with manage teams & responsiblities.

      However that team isnt appearning in the flexibleworkflow as receipients.

      Do you have any suggestions on how to get this role operational purchasing in this recepient list?

      Regards,

      Ashish Shah

      Author's profile photo Alexis Siegel
      Alexis Siegel

      I am in the same situation, did you find an issu ?

      Author's profile photo Andra Egyed
      Andra Egyed

      hello,

      any solution found for this issue?

       

      Thank you!

      Author's profile photo Alexis Siegel
      Alexis Siegel

      Hi Andra,

      rather a bypass I am in 1809, teams and responsibilities is inoperative.
      I created the team structure via PPOME and PP01.

      Alexis

      Author's profile photo Andra Egyed
      Andra Egyed

      thank you, Alexis!

      seems to be the same in 1909...

      Author's profile photo Abinash Routray
      Abinash Routray

      Hello Andra,

      Is the issue still existing?

      Could you please give some details about the workflow scenario ID, the team category and the OP release?

      Best Regards,

      Abinash

      Author's profile photo Sergio Teixeira
      Sergio Teixeira

      Hi Alexis

       

      I tried the same, but without any luck, how did you get the flexible workflow to find next approver and how do you add approval limits to the approvers

       

      Best Regards

       

      Author's profile photo Alexis Siegel
      Alexis Siegel

      Hi Sergio,

      On an S/4 Hana on prem, it depends on what you want to do:

      - In the workflow configuration on fiori, you can create different levels in the sequencing by directly assigning the user login (approver) to the sequence.

      - on the other hand, if you want a role-based logic with different levels of managers (example: manager of the last approver), it will be on the HR side, you define the structure of the managers in PPOME with a PPO1 relationship, the relevant relationships will be A002 managing relationship between positions and/or A012 between a position and an organizational unit.

      from release 2020 you can directly use the teams and responsibilities application on Fiori

      Hopefully it will help you
      Best

      Author's profile photo Abinash Routray
      Abinash Routray

      Hello Sergio,

      Please let us know if the issue still exists and share flexible workflow scenario ID.

      About adding approval limits to the approvers, you can choose different functions(APPR_LVL1, APPR_LVL2 etc.) for different approval limits (refer Functions, Assign a Function Profile to a Team Category) and use conditions in workflow step to choose the right function for the right approval limit. This is the preferred option without any custom code on customer side.

      Or you can create different teams with custom responsibility definition for approval limit level (Define Custom Responsibility Definitions , Assign a Custom Responsibility Definition to a Team Category and if required implement the BADI RSM_BADI_CONTEXT_ATTRIB_CALC to populate the custom responsibility definition for approval limit).

      Best Regards,

      Abinash

      Author's profile photo Abinash Routray
      Abinash Routray

      Hello Ashish,

      Are you using a standard flexible workflow delivered by SAP or are you using a custom flexible workflow?

      Could you please give some details about the workflow scenario ID, the team category and the OP release?

      Best Regards,

      Abinash

      Author's profile photo Devendra Sharma
      Devendra Sharma

      Any Solution? I am having the same issue now.

      Author's profile photo Abinash Routray
      Abinash Routray

      Hello Devendra,

      Are you using a standard flexible workflow delivered by SAP or are you using a custom flexible workflow?

      Could you please give some details about the workflow scenario ID, the team category and the OP release?

      Best Regards,

      Abinash

      Author's profile photo Andra Egyed
      Andra Egyed

      Hello,

       

      Any solution to above problem? I have the same situations with the flexible WF for POs.

      Author's profile photo Abinash Routray
      Abinash Routray

      Hello Andra,

      Are you using a standard flexible workflow delivered by SAP or are you using a custom flexible workflow?

      Could you please give some details about the workflow scenario ID, the team category and the OP release?

      Best Regards,

      Abinash

      Author's profile photo DANAI SKENTZOU
      DANAI SKENTZOU

      Hi,

      Can flexible workflow be used for FI and RE documents?

      Thanks a lot for the support,

      Danai

      Author's profile photo Steffen Mallwitz
      Steffen Mallwitz

      In standard only for parked documents.

      Author's profile photo Abinash Routray
      Abinash Routray

      Hello Danai,

      Please reach out to the SAP FI and RE application teams to integrate with Responsibility Management in their flexible workflows related to other business documents.

      Once they integrate with Responsibility Management, you can take advantage of the out of the box integration.

      Best Regards,

      Abinash

      Author's profile photo Abinash Routray
      Abinash Routray

      Hello Yamuna,

      Thank you so much for writing this blog related to Responsibility Management integration with Flexible Workflow.

      Can you please update the links of Responsibility Management https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_CLOUD/a630d57fc5004c6383e7a81efee7a8bb/a4a31dc3e2824cb1afc7be8eafc07f5c.html?version=latest&locale=en-US (S/4 Cloud) and https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_ON-PREMISE/8308e6d301d54584a33cd04a9861bc52/a4a31dc3e2824cb1afc7be8eafc07f5c.html?locale=en-US&version=2021.002 (S/4 OP)?

      Best Regards,

      Abinash

      Author's profile photo MATIAS BACONSKY
      MATIAS BACONSKY

      Hello Yamuna Mathew

      Thanks for the blog!

      The option 'Operational Purchasing' is not appearing in the Role field in recipients in the step of the workflow. What can I check?

      Thank you!

      Author's profile photo Gaayathri V.L
      Gaayathri V.L

      Hello Matias,

      Could you please tell us the On Premise release ?

      Thanks and Best Regards

      Gaayathri VL

      Author's profile photo Navdeep Agarwal
      Navdeep Agarwal

      Hello Yamuna Mathew

      Thanks a lot for such a detailed blog! When I am trying to create a team, I can't find the 'OPPUR: Operation Purchasing' as an option in the team type. Could you please guide me on this?

      Also, when I assign users for the workflow, and we have an option to use 'one of the recipients' option when we assign multiple users, like the attached image, my assumption is that even if one of the users approves the workflow, it should be gone from other users inbox, but it is still stuck in other users inbox.

      Best Regards,
      Navdeep

      Author's profile photo Gaayathri V.L
      Gaayathri V.L

      Hello Navdeep,

      Could you please tell us the On Premise release ?

      Thanks and Best Regards

      Gaayathri VL