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Author's profile photo Arvind KULKARNI

Implementing Permit to Work with SAP WCM in S/4HANA – Part 3

Permit to Work process is a critical and mandatory process for asset intensive industry such as Oil and Gas, Utilities, Chemicals etc. The process ensures safety of maintenance workers while performing tasks in hazardous environment.

In the SAP S/4HANA world, this topic falls under Asset Management – Environment Health and Safety.

This blog post guides the SAP S/4HANA project team to implement Permit to Work processes using SAP work clearance management (WCM) module. Please note that this is not a detailed configuration guide nor a complete product information document. The focus of the blog post is to take you through a typical business process in oil and gas sector and understand the key configuration aspects to model the business process in SAP and lastly have a brief look at the user experience of SAP S/4HANA version 1809. SAP Work Clearance Management module will be referred as SAP WCM in this blog post.

This blog post is split into following parts:

  • Typical business process for permit to work (covered in part 1)
  • Key SAP WCM Configuration to model the process in SAP S/4HANA 1909 (covered in part 2)
  • SAP WCM User experience with SAP S/4HANA 1909 and beyond (covered in this blog post)

 

SAP WCM User Experience with SAP S/4HANA 1909 and beyond:

It is important to understand that SAP WCM is natively integrated with SAP EAM. Which means, the master data, like functional location, equipment, work center and transactional processes such as maintenance order processing is tightly integrated with the Permit to Work process enabled by WCM. Due to this tight integration, and from the perspective of user experience, it is highly recommended that the S/4HANA project implementation team evaluates the user experience technology used in EAM and try to adapt similar user experience with WCM.

Let’s take a look at the various User Experience options available with WCM:

Option 1: User Experience based on SAP GUI: This is still widely used across customer base. This is applicable for customers using SAP GUI for managing EAM processes. Let’s take a look at real world scenarios for the key UI options available with SAP GUI.

  • User Experience for initiating the permit to work process through EAM work order.
    • As shown in the screen shot, the SAP GUI option for work order includes a button for initiating the permit to work process:

EAM%20work%20order

EAM work order

    • The maintenance team accesses the work order and creates a permit by choosing the button for “Op. Work Permits”:

 

  • User Experience for managing permit to work process. Once the work permit is created, the permit is processed by the operations team with the following options:

SAP%20GUI%20option%20for%20Work%20Permit

SAP GUI option for Work Permit

 

Option 2: User Experience based on SAP WebDynpro ABAP: This is applicable for customers using Simplicity functions (based on webdynpro ABAP). for managing EAM processes. Let’s take a look at real world scenarios for the key UI options available with SAP webdynpro ABAP

  • User Experience for initiating the permit to work process through EAM work order.
    • As shown in the screen shot, the SAP Webdynpro ABAP option for work order offers a intuitive option since the permit process can be initiated by going to the page for permits and simply choosing the type of permit:

WebDynpro%20ABAP%20option%20for%20EAM%20work%20order

WebDynpro ABAP option for EAM work order

  • User Experience for managing permit to work process. Once the work permit is created, the permit is processed by the operations team with the following options:

Webdynpro%20ABAP%20option%20for%20Work%20Permit

Webdynpro ABAP option for Work Permit

 

Option 3 : User Experience based on UI5 / Fiori. This option is not available as of now as part of standard product. However, the next generation user experience could be built on Ui5 / Fiori principles.

Hint: as part of the project implementation, UI5 based Fiori applications can be developed by leveraging the WCM framework and the API’s available as per SAP note: 2136400.

To conclude, this is final part of the blog post series on Implementing Permit to Work with SAP WCM in SAP S/4HANA. The above user experience offers the permit to-work SAP S/4HANA project team members insights into various options and considerations for setting up end to end User Experience initiating from EAM.

 

 

Source of images: all pictures and images created by the author. System screen shots taken from SAP demo landscape. 

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      16 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Dirk De Ridder
      Dirk De Ridder

      Dear Arvind,

      nice blog.

      Are there any new functionalities foreseen in S/4 Hana, for Fiori or the Web Dynpro, such as work lists, manage and search lists ... or do they only exist in classic GUI ?

      Kr

      Dirk

      Author's profile photo Arvind KULKARNI
      Arvind KULKARNI
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Dirk,

      Thanks for the feedback. As of now, list features available with SAP GUI and not webdynpro. THe roadmap is under-progress. Will share updates once it is available.

       

      Regards,

      Arvind

      Author's profile photo Szabina Anga
      Szabina Anga

      Hello Arvind,

      Thank you for the blog, all 3 part is very usefull.

      Right now I am trying to set up a work permit process in our demo system, and when I try to use WCM via Fiori, I see a different view then in SAP GUI.

      I have created new view profiles for WCM objects, but in Fiori I don't see the same view.

      Could you please give me some guidence, what I am missing here?

      Regards

      Szabina

      Author's profile photo Arvind KULKARNI
      Arvind KULKARNI
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Szabina,

      What you are calling fiori is actually web dynpro ABAP (option 2 in the blog).

       

      View profiles only work for SAP GUI (option 1). If you want to change the layout of WDA screen, you need to do it through the floor plan manager framework in WD.

       

      Regards,

      Arvind

      Author's profile photo Jawwad Ahmed Khan
      Jawwad Ahmed Khan

      Dear Arvind

       

      I liked your all 3 blogs on WCM. It's pretty much clear the complex scenario.

      Will you please guide me that how to add opt. Work Permit Push button in WO and managing permit to work process screen is not displayed in my steps.

       

      Thank you.

      Regards

      Jawwad

      Author's profile photo Arvind KULKARNI
      Arvind KULKARNI
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Jawad,

       

      this is a configuration option

      Master Data -> Architecture -> Configure Work Permits.

      regards,

      Arvind

      Author's profile photo Jawwad Ahmed Khan
      Jawwad Ahmed Khan

      Thanks Arvind for your reply.

      I am implementing WCM and have a similar business process. Will you please share any configuration document  ?? jawwadahmedkhan@hotmail.com

       

      Author's profile photo Faraz Ahmed
      Faraz Ahmed

      Dear Arvind,

      This IMG node Master Data -> Architecture -> Configure Work Permits is not appearing in my SAP S/4 HANA 1909. Is any package needs to be enabled for WCM?

      Author's profile photo Muhammad Haris Khan
      Muhammad Haris Khan

      Hi Arvind,

      The articles are very informative and helpful, can you please guide me how to setup the view profile with respect to WCM in S4 HANA.

      I explored the configuration nodes but did not find the view profile configuration nodes in 1909.

      Similarly the Fiori apps you have attached in the part 3 are different from the standard Fiori apps.

      Please suggest. Thanks.

      Author's profile photo Manohar Kuruva
      Manohar Kuruva

      Hi Arvind,

      Would you please explain what is safety plan in WDA order screen and how to update it.

       

      Thanks in advance

      Author's profile photo Muhammad Sharfuddin
      Muhammad Sharfuddin

      Hi Arvind,

      How can we de activate safety plan tab. Our collogue from SAP audit asked to remove it as our Business owners are not using this functionality currently.

      Author's profile photo Anilkumar Chikgouda
      Anilkumar Chikgouda

      Hi Aravind,

      Document have information in detail . Thanks for the informative document.  Could you please share  S/4 Hana WCM  configuration document .

      Author's profile photo Iñigo Sanchez-Ostiz Chivite
      Iñigo Sanchez-Ostiz Chivite

      Hi Aravind,

      Thank you very much for your blog.

      Question!!

      User Experience for managing permit to work process

      How are you able to put some fields in the right part of the screen ??? I am not able to put anything on there. I am using, the profile view customizing, but I am not alowed to change it at the right.

       

      In the other hand, when creating the work permit from the order (IW32) I do not have the same text  you have. I do not have Op.Work Permit, I do have Create Work Permit.

      Any suggestions please !!

       

      Author's profile photo Iñigo Sanchez-Ostiz Chivite
      Iñigo Sanchez-Ostiz Chivite

      Stupid question by my way.

      The solution was very easy. Just change the width of the dynpro/screen from 85 columns to 172.

       

      Author's profile photo Kumar K
      Kumar K

      Hi Arvind,

      Thanks for such a nice series of documents on WCM.

      As part of Work permit process, we have to also do risk assessment of the work area to ensure there are no high risks related and to ensure safety measure.

      We have SAP S/4 HANA EHS Health and Safety modules (Risk assessment).

      Do we have any integration between EHS system and SAP WCM?

       

      Warm Regards

      Kapil

      Author's profile photo Ranjana Sawakare
      Ranjana Sawakare

      Hi Arvind

      Can we assign multiple orders to single WAP? I have a requirement where business wants to perform maintenance work of multiple order through single permit.