Product Information
Asset Management in SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2108
This blog provides an overview of innovations in SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2108 for Maintenance Management and Resource Scheduling as part of the line of business (LoB) Asset Management. Check out also the blog post Environment, Health, and Safety (EH&S) in SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2108 as EH&S is also part of LoB Asset Management.
First, this blog post starts with the table of contents for ease of reference and allows you to navigate directly to the topic you are interested in by clicking on a specific entry:
Maintenance Planning
Lean and Limit Value Services in Maintenance Order
Maintenance Backlog Overview App – Enhancements
Tracking Status of External Procurement Items
Resource Scheduling
Graphical Management of Relationships between Order Operations
Dynamic Date Range in Time Period Filter
Maintenance Execution
Copy Maintenance Request
Collective Time Confirmations
Perform Maintenance Jobs
SAP Maintenance Assistant
Mobile application and user monitoring
Mobile Admin Overview
Material Movement – Issue and Return Parts
Interface Revisions
Extensibility
ODATA APIs
Check out my video highlighting the following release highlights for Maintenance Management:
- Graphical management of relationships between order operations in Resource Scheduling
- Batch-managed and serialized materials in Perform Maintenance Jobs app
- Entry of measurement readings in Perform Maintenance Jobs app
- Extensibility – New ODATA APIs
Video 1: Highlights for Maintenance Management and Resource Scheduling in the 2108 release
Maintenance Planning
Lean and Limit Value Services in Maintenance Order
Maintenance planners now can add services in the Change Maintenance Order app on the Operation Data tab with the following two options:
- Lean services: With this option planner can specify exact quantity of services that needs to be delivered by vendor. Planner can indicate start date and time of service relative to operation of the work order. Planner can indicate time duration needed to perform the service. Planner must use “Item category” N for these items. Item category N is defaulted by system for each service.
- Enhanced Limit value services, Maintenance planner can use these type of services, when exact quantity and price of the services is not available. For such item, quantity of 1 Activity unit would be defaulted by system. Planner can specify duration and relative start time from operation. It is mandatory for planner to specify expected price and limit value price for such services. Planner must use “Item category” E for such items.
Fig. 1: ‘Change Maintenance Order’ app – Lean and Limit Value Services
Maintenance Backlog Overview app – Enhancements
The Maintenance Backlog Overview app provides the maintenance planner persona a single screen view to see the details of the maintenance backlogs (orders/notifications). The planner can view the backlog based on the planning buckets that are selected in the filter section. The next figure shows a few enhancements of the app like the External Procurement Card and the Quick Links Card, as well as the 4 options to group the chart on the Maintenance Backlog Card.
Fig. 2: SAP Fiori app ‘Maintenance Backlog Overview’ – Enhancements
Watch the next video in which my colleague Markus Oertelt shows the enhancements of the Maintenance Backlog Overview app in the system:
Video 2: Maintenance Backlog Overview app – Enhancements
Tracking Status of External Procurement Items
With the 2108 release, you can monitor the external procurement of non-stock components and services in the SAP Fiori apps Manage Maintenance Backlog and Maintenance Backlog Overview.
To allow you to monitor the external procurement of non-stock components, external operations and lean services, the system tracks the completion of several milestones, which correspond to key points in the procurement process:
- Purchase Requisition Created
- Purchase Requisition Released
- Purchase Order Sent to Vendor
- Order Confirmed by Vendor
- Order Shipped
- Order Received in Full
With these milestones planner gets reminded to complete any activities that needs to be finished before due date of the milestone and ensure that follow up for parts and services are done proactively.
Fig. 3: Overview of Due Date Calculation for Each Milestone
In the Manage Maintenance Backlog app, you can see for each non-stock component or service in a maintenance planning bucket which procurement activity is currently pending completion to reach the next milestone. A colored status indicator shows when each activity is due or if the due date has already passed.
Fig. 4: SAP Fiori app ‘Manage Maintenance Backlog’ – Next Procurement Activity
In the Maintenance Backlog Overview app, an analytical card shows which procurement activity is currently pending for how many non-stock components and services in each maintenance planning bucket. From this card, you can navigate directly to the Purchase Requisitions app and the Purchase Orders app.
Fig. 5: SAP Fiori app ‘Maintenance Backlog Overview’ – Analytical card shows which procurement activity is currently pending
Resource Scheduling
Graphical Management of Relationships between Order Operations
In the Maintenance Scheduling Board app, maintenance planners can now create and delete relationships between order operations directly in the chart.
In the next video, Markus will show you in the system how easy it is to
- create relationships between order operations by linking them in the chart and
- delete relationships between order operations in the chart. For this purpose, right-click the relationship that the user want to delete and select ’Delete Relationship‘ in the context menu that opens.
Video 3: SAP Fiori app ‘Maintenance Scheduling Board’ – Graphical relationship management
The next figure shows the graphical relationship management capability on the Maintenance Scheduling Board app and the new button to Trigger Order Scheduling:
Fig. 6: SAP Fiori app ‘Maintenance Scheduling Board’ – Graphical relationship management and new button to Trigger Order Scheduling
In addition, the newly available context menu enables triggering of actions for operations or existing relationships (deletion).
Fig. 7: SAP Fiori app ‘Maintenance Scheduling Board’ – Right-click context menu to trigger actions
Dynamic Date Range in Time Period Filter
Using the time period filter you can now set a dynamic date range relative to the current date. To set the range, specify how many days in the past and how many days in the future you want to include in it.
The dynamic date range filter with +/- days selection is now available in the apps
- Manage Work Center Utilization
- Maintenance Scheduling Board
- Assign Maintenance Order Operations.
Maintenance Execution
Copy Maintenance Request
Maintenance Supervisors, Planners, and Technicians can now copy existing maintenance requests that are in the status Submitted, Accepted, or Completed using the Copy option. The new maintenance requests are saved as drafts and you can view them in the Draft
tab. Till you submit the maintenance request, the request remains as draft. When you copy a maintenance request, the information from the existing request is copied into the new request. Long text is not copied from the existing maintenance request so you can use the template to add long text. You can choose one or more drafts and delete them.
Fig. 9: SAP Fiori app ‘My Maintenance Request’ – New Copy button
Collective Time Confirmations
The Find Maintenance Order and Operation app, which lists the orders and their operations in your system, is enhanced to help maintenance supervisor effectively record collective time confirmations. You will see that additional columns order and operation getting downloaded while downloading the template. The additional discerptions will help you to understand the context of the order and operation while filling the confirmation data. This will help in improving the quality of data by avoiding the errors since the reference data will be available in the same sheet.
Fig. 10: SAP Fiori app ‘Find Maintenance Order and Operation’ – additional columns order and operation getting downloaded while downloading the template
Perform Maintenance Jobs
Support batch-managed and serialized materials, as well as for materials with split valuations
In the previous release we have launched the SAP Fiori app Perform Maintenance Jobs’ as the one-stop solution for maintenance technicians which allows them to access the outstanding maintenance jobs and to document the executed maintenance work. Now, the Perform Maintenance Jobs app offers additional support for batch-managed and serialized materials, as well as for materials with split valuations. This improvement is important when the maintenance technician issues or returns components.
Fig. 11: SAP Fiori app ‘Perform Maintenance Jobs’ – Support for batch-managed and serialized materials, as well as for materials with split valuations
Mass Capturing of Measurement Documents across Technical Objects
The Perform Maintenance Jobs app allows the maintenance technician to choose/select the technical object (at various levels) for recording measurements. The maintenance technician will now have more flexibility to select/choose the technical object(s) whose measurement has to be recorded and will be able to access the technical object(s) at the following levels:
- Maintenance Order Operation
- Maintenance Order Object List
- Maintenance Order Header
Fig. 12: SAP Fiori app ‘Perform Maintenance Jobs’ – entry of measurement readings for multiple technical objects
Unplanned Components
The maintenance technician will now have 3 options to search and issue materials from:
- All Material: This is a list of all materials that belong to the same plant as the maintenance order.
- Bill of Material: This is a list of all materials that belong to the BOMs of the technical objects/assembly linked to the order header, operation or object list level.
- History: This is a list of all the materials which have been issued in the past for a similar order type and/or technical object.
Fig. 13: SAP Fiori app ‘Perform Maintenance Jobs’ – 3 options to search and issue materials
Also watch the system demos about the Perform Maintenance Jobs app enhancements which are embedded in my release highlights video at the top of this blog.
SAP Maintenance Assistant
SAP Maintenance Assistant is a mobile solution that enables a maintenance technician to perform daily tasks related to asset management launched first with the previous release (see my 2105 blog). Now, SAP Maintenance Assistant offers few new features:
Mobile application and user monitoring
Administration for SAP Maintenance Assistant
The next figure shows the Collection of SAP Fiori applications for Mobile Administrator to perform the administration of the Mobile Application Integration Framework (MAIF) with their help the admin can get details to assist mobile users resolve issues during data sync, e.g., trigger a re-download of data after resolving client state issue. In addition, the apps provide logs and KPIs to help identify performance optimizations through the configuration of filters and mobile application parameters.
Fig. 14: Administration for SAP Maintenance Assistant
Mobile Admin Overview
The Mobile Admin Overview app provides a Dashboard view of administration application which allows an administrator to monitor
- Active Mobile Users
- Mobile Dependent Object
- Client State
In addition, the app offers search and filter capabilities to explore logins and objects for specific mobile users, as well as chart views of client state and dependent objects to aid troubleshooting.
Fig. 15: ‘Mobile Admin Overview (MAIF)’ app
Material Movement – Issue and Return Parts
Now, a maintenance technician can issue the parts used to perform an operation, and return any unused parts by using the SAP Maintenance Assistant. Serialized parts may be added (or returned) by entering or scanning the serial number.
Fig. 16: SAP Maintenance Assistant – Issue and Return Parts
Interface Revisions
For confirmation entry fields the technician can see Planned Effort time and input Remaining Work value when confirming operations.
The side-swipe for contextual actions allows the user easily to access common action(s) with a side swipe on object cells, e.g., start an operation, set time confirmation.
Fig. 17: SAP Maintenance Assistant – Interface Revisions
Extensibility
ODATA APIs
The next figure provides an overview of enhanced and new ODATA APIs in Maintenance Management:
Fig. 18: Overview of enhanced and new ODATA APIs
For further information read the What’s New Document (chapter 3.2.4. to 3.2.10) and check out the SAP API Business Hub.
Thanks for reading this blog post. Stay tuned!
You will find a collection of my SAP S/4HANA Cloud release blogs here:
Recently, my colleague Markus Oertelt has started an interesting blog series about
Discrete Industries in SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, check out the following links:
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud release info here
- Jan Gilg SAP News Center article here
- Sven Denecken’s SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2108 Release Blog
- Latest SAP S/4HANA Cloud Release Blogs here and previous release highlights here
- Product videos on our SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA YouTube playlist
- SAP S/4HANA PSCC Digital Enablement Wheel here
- Early Release Webinar Series here
- Inside SAP S/4HANA Podcast here
- openSAP Microlearning for SAP S/4HANA here
- Best practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud here
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud Community: here
- Feature Scope Description here
- What’s New here
- Help Portal Product Page here
- Implementation Portal here
Follow us via @SAP and #S4HANA, or myself via @GerhardWelker and LinkedIn
Looks like these are all the features we found lacking after evaluating RSH in 1909, exciting news. Any idea on when these will be coming to on-premise?
It is planned to ship all RSH innovations which were made available with the SAP S/4HANA Cloud releases 2011, 2102, 2105, and 2108 also in the upcoming SAP S/4HANA On Premise release 2021 in October 2021.
Just an FYI: as S/4 HANA 2021 has been released on October 13th, I would like to confirm that we did exactly that. All features and updates of the above-mentioned cloud releases for RSH have been made available on-premise.
Hi Gerhard,
Any chance of adding "Display Maintenance Notifications" app details in this blog ?
Thanks,
Hanniel.
Hi Hanniel,
Thank you very much for your question which gives me the opportunity to add the details of the new SAP Fiori app "Display Maintenance Notifications" here:
With this app, you can view details of a maintenance notification such as scheduling, malfunction, related maintenance items, maintenance tasks, status, attachments, and so on. You can also view history of changes that were made to the maintenance notification.
To view all apps that are related to this app, you can choose Related Apps button on the top right side of the page. To view details about the technical object associated with the maintenance request choose the technical object. If the priority for the maintenance notification was selected by assessing priority, you can view the details by choosing View Assessed Priority.
Unfortunately I cannot described all innovations in my blog otherwise the reading time of a blog post will be too long. Due to the fact that the "Display Maintenance Notifications" is a variant of the "Find Maintenance Notifications app (F2071)" I did not mention this new app in my blog post. But in the What's New Document it is described in detail. We are offering the "Display Maintenance Notifications" app variant of the "Find Maintenance Notifications" app due to customer wishes. Please consider that the "Display Maintenance Notifications" app does not allow you to update notification or perform any action. In this app, you can only view details of maintenance notifications.
Best regards,
Gerhard
Hi , we are using 2108 cloud version but not seeing these apps and have all the EAM scope activated . Is there anything that talks about activating the apps
Hi Jeya,
which apps do you miss?
Resource Scheduling and SAP Maintenance Assistant requires additional license.
But apps like 'Maintenance Planning Overview', 'Perform Maintenance Jobs' or 'Maintenance Backlog Overview' should be available for business role 'SAP_BR_MAINTENANCE_PLANNER' if you have activated the scope items 4HH, 4HI, 4VT, 4WM. If you want to use Resource Scheduling, you have to activate scope item 43R.
If you do not see an app on the Fiori lauchpad, please use the search field and search with the app name.
Hope this helps, best regards,
Gerhard
Hi Gerhard, thanks for your valuable post.
Considering MRS is not available anymore, if work center leveling is performed in RSH, then which solution would you recommend to assign specific Personnel number to an operation?
Thanks!!
Hi María,
thanks for your question, which I would like to try and answer:
Best regards,
Markus
Markus, really appreciate your quick response!!!! Thanks for the info.
Sorry for "killing" MRS, you are so right, it is still available. But... if you are already in S4, using RSH, MRS does not seem to be very practical (in my point of view, of course!).
Regarding RSH functionality to assign a person responsible, great!! Though seems to be available only for S4 1909 version or higher. Good to know, though!
Thanks, I'll get back to you!!!
Regards
Maria