In the SAP S/4HANA 2021 release for on premise edition, there are more than 50 new innovations for Service Management especially in the form of new Fiori apps. In this blog post I’m going to highlight the most important ones that I find interesting.
Enterprise Organizational Management
A new enterprise organizational model is introduced which is now defined in customizing rather than as a master data as in the existing legacy Service model. Also compared to the legacy Organizational models which can be maintained dynamically and linked to the organizational model in Sales only as attributes, the new Service organizations is integrated with the sales organizational structures from SAP S/4HANA Sales and thus easy use of enterprise service organizations and service teams, and also can be arranged in a hierarchical manner similar to the Sales organization structure.
To use this new model, activation of Service Organizational unit in customizing is required in the menu path: Service> Basic Functions >Enterprise Organizational Management> Enable Enterprise Organizational Model
Header Price Agreements in Service Contract
While item level pricing condition types existed for applying service level discounts, a new header condition type DSC3 (discount for service contract) is introduced in the 2021 edition to define price agreements at the header level of service contracts. It can be used to apply additional discounts to the service transaction items for example order items, in addition to item level pricing.
New Fiori App for Issues Monitoring & Analytics
Similar to the already existing Sales monitoring app, now issues monitoring apps are released for both Service order and Contracts in the 2021 edition. Using these cockpits, now you have options to display issues in detail or by country or organization level etc including charts for graphical presentations.
Service Order Issues app -With this app, you can monitor and display issues that may impede the fulfillment of service orders and service confirmations such as Billing Block, Not fully billed or No Confirmation and Rejected items etc.
Service Contract Issues app -Using this app, you can display and monitor a variety of issues in the cockpit that may occur in service contracts in real time, and you get visibility of issues that may impede the fulfillment of service contracts. You can view issues such as Billing Block and Contracts having errors at either header or item level.
Other new Fiori Apps
Service Request Search
You can now use the Enterprise Search tile in the Fiori dashboard to search Service requests. With this feature, you can search for service requests using various search criteria, such as the life cycle status or the sold-to party. You can also combine several search criteria and use filters to narrow down your search. From the search results, you can navigate to a selected service request.
Ad-hoc Billing for Service Contracts
This feature will enable the use of ad-hoc billing plans for service contract items according to an ad-hoc billing plan by defining billing details such as dates. For this you can use the predefined item category SCNB and predefined price condition type PMV1. The subsequent billing process is the same as for a periodic billing plan.
Auto Renewal of Price Adaptation Items
With this feature, you can enable the auto renewal of a service contract item for price adaptation, depending on how the product master is configured. The item is renewed automatically, according to the renewal period and the contract extension that you specify or that has been configured by the product master.
Display of Service Planning History
Another important innovation in this release is the ability to see service history. With this feature, service planners and customer service managers can view the service planning history of a technical object used in recurring service in the Find Technical Object app. This is valid for both including equipment and functional location. The detailed service planning history of a technical object used in recurring service is displayed in the Maintenance Items for Service section or the app, which shows the Maintenance Plan and Service Contract details as you can see in the picture snapshot.
In the Maintenance Items for Service section, you can navigate from a maintenance item to the Service contract.
Output Management – Another feature missing from previous editions was the output features for Service orders. With this being introduced in this edition, this feature enables you to use output functions for the following service objects - service orders, service quotations, and service contracts. You will need to activate output management for the particular service object under Cross Application Components > Output Control > Manage Application Object Type Activation. Once done, output functionalities such as printing, sending e-mail, or editing form templates are enabled for the service components.
Warranty and Repair Fiori apps
The below are the list of important in-house warranty and repair related new innovations released as part of the 2021 edition, in the Manage In-House Repairs app
Integration of Warranty Dates in In-House Repair -You can use this feature to display the end dates for the customer warranty and the vendor warranty for the repair objects if these dates have been entered for the related equipment. In the Manage In-House Repairs app, the warranty end dates are displayed for each repair object under Repair Objects and you can filter for repair objects for which a specific warranty period has not been expired
Filter for Current Customer - This feature makes changes to the Add Repair Objects dialog box in the Manage In-House Repairs app. When adding repair objects to an in-house repair, you can use the filter Current Customer to restrict the repair objects displayed to those pieces of equipment that have been assigned to a specific current customer.
Managing Repair Quotations with Multiple Repair Objects - You can use this feature to process multiple repair objects within a repair quotation. In the Perform Prechecks app, you can add repair objects to a repair quotation that has already been created for the same in-house repair.
To conclude, the most significant changes in this release is the new organizational model, and around Issues monitoring and Analytics. Among the host of new Fiori apps, the ones around the Warranty and Repair is also significant.
I hope you find this blog post helpful and please feel free to leave a comment or questions if you have. You can also find my blog post on the new innovations for Sales 2021 : The S4HANA 2021 release – Top innovations for Sales
Enterprise Organizational Management
A new enterprise organizational model is introduced which is now defined in customizing rather than as a master data as in the existing legacy Service model. Also compared to the legacy Organizational models which can be maintained dynamically and linked to the organizational model in Sales only as attributes, the new Service organizations is integrated with the sales organizational structures from SAP S/4HANA Sales and thus easy use of enterprise service organizations and service teams, and also can be arranged in a hierarchical manner similar to the Sales organization structure.
To use this new model, activation of Service Organizational unit in customizing is required in the menu path: Service> Basic Functions >Enterprise Organizational Management> Enable Enterprise Organizational Model
Header Price Agreements in Service Contract
While item level pricing condition types existed for applying service level discounts, a new header condition type DSC3 (discount for service contract) is introduced in the 2021 edition to define price agreements at the header level of service contracts. It can be used to apply additional discounts to the service transaction items for example order items, in addition to item level pricing.
New Fiori App for Issues Monitoring & Analytics
Similar to the already existing Sales monitoring app, now issues monitoring apps are released for both Service order and Contracts in the 2021 edition. Using these cockpits, now you have options to display issues in detail or by country or organization level etc including charts for graphical presentations.
Service Order Issues app -With this app, you can monitor and display issues that may impede the fulfillment of service orders and service confirmations such as Billing Block, Not fully billed or No Confirmation and Rejected items etc.
Service Contract Issues app -Using this app, you can display and monitor a variety of issues in the cockpit that may occur in service contracts in real time, and you get visibility of issues that may impede the fulfillment of service contracts. You can view issues such as Billing Block and Contracts having errors at either header or item level.
Other new Fiori Apps
Service Request Search
You can now use the Enterprise Search tile in the Fiori dashboard to search Service requests. With this feature, you can search for service requests using various search criteria, such as the life cycle status or the sold-to party. You can also combine several search criteria and use filters to narrow down your search. From the search results, you can navigate to a selected service request.
Ad-hoc Billing for Service Contracts
This feature will enable the use of ad-hoc billing plans for service contract items according to an ad-hoc billing plan by defining billing details such as dates. For this you can use the predefined item category SCNB and predefined price condition type PMV1. The subsequent billing process is the same as for a periodic billing plan.
Auto Renewal of Price Adaptation Items
With this feature, you can enable the auto renewal of a service contract item for price adaptation, depending on how the product master is configured. The item is renewed automatically, according to the renewal period and the contract extension that you specify or that has been configured by the product master.
Display of Service Planning History
Another important innovation in this release is the ability to see service history. With this feature, service planners and customer service managers can view the service planning history of a technical object used in recurring service in the Find Technical Object app. This is valid for both including equipment and functional location. The detailed service planning history of a technical object used in recurring service is displayed in the Maintenance Items for Service section or the app, which shows the Maintenance Plan and Service Contract details as you can see in the picture snapshot.
In the Maintenance Items for Service section, you can navigate from a maintenance item to the Service contract.
Output Management – Another feature missing from previous editions was the output features for Service orders. With this being introduced in this edition, this feature enables you to use output functions for the following service objects - service orders, service quotations, and service contracts. You will need to activate output management for the particular service object under Cross Application Components > Output Control > Manage Application Object Type Activation. Once done, output functionalities such as printing, sending e-mail, or editing form templates are enabled for the service components.
Warranty and Repair Fiori apps
The below are the list of important in-house warranty and repair related new innovations released as part of the 2021 edition, in the Manage In-House Repairs app
Integration of Warranty Dates in In-House Repair -You can use this feature to display the end dates for the customer warranty and the vendor warranty for the repair objects if these dates have been entered for the related equipment. In the Manage In-House Repairs app, the warranty end dates are displayed for each repair object under Repair Objects and you can filter for repair objects for which a specific warranty period has not been expired
Filter for Current Customer - This feature makes changes to the Add Repair Objects dialog box in the Manage In-House Repairs app. When adding repair objects to an in-house repair, you can use the filter Current Customer to restrict the repair objects displayed to those pieces of equipment that have been assigned to a specific current customer.
Managing Repair Quotations with Multiple Repair Objects - You can use this feature to process multiple repair objects within a repair quotation. In the Perform Prechecks app, you can add repair objects to a repair quotation that has already been created for the same in-house repair.
To conclude, the most significant changes in this release is the new organizational model, and around Issues monitoring and Analytics. Among the host of new Fiori apps, the ones around the Warranty and Repair is also significant.
I hope you find this blog post helpful and please feel free to leave a comment or questions if you have. You can also find my blog post on the new innovations for Sales 2021 : The S4HANA 2021 release – Top innovations for Sales
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