When I started to set up Flexible Workflow for Sales prices, it took me 3 weeks to build system. I had to work with multiple component experts of SAP to set system. So, I felt to pen down my struggle findings as one-place solution here through this blogpost. This intends to help across global users for achieving this functionality with ease. Hope you find this blog useful and helpful.
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Using the Flexible Workflow Functionality for Sales Price in SAP S/4HANA 2022
When a salesperson/ an organization wants to offer a lower price or change the pricing for a prospect and needs a pricing approval, the process can face various challenges such as:
- Price approval is a key part of the regular business cycle. Authorities need to negotiate and agree on prices before launching, modifying, or customizing them according to the current market situation.
- Employees send pricing requests through different channels such as email, phone, and others, causing confusion.
- Pricing management is a hierarchical process where pricing decisions must go through multiple levels of approvers before they can be implemented.
- Approvers may overlook an email, misplace a paper, be unavailable, forget to confirm or notify other stakeholders about their decisions to keep the process going.
All these delays can result in a delayed answer, and in the worst case, a prospect losing interest or choosing a competitor that has their act together. This brings focus on importance of quick Pricing decision.
Quick and accurate pricing decisions
- Dynamic pricing is essential for the ever-changing market and allows retailers to change their prices according to different situations. It needs quick reactions to the market situation and effective price changes to demands. Setting prices too slowly leads to lost profits.
- Waiting for all levels of the company hierarchy to approve prices makes even the best pricing decisions irrelevant to the market situation. The longer the wait for the confirmation of recommended prices, the more outdated the data used for price optimization and adjustment becomes.
- Without a timely and proactive response, retailers can face significant reputational risks and market share loss.
Basic price approval requirements
- An approval workflow to direct the requests to different approvers based on a set of pre-defined criteria.
- Condition records created should be available for pricing only after they are approved.
- Only approved prices should be created in the production system.
- For those conditions where approvals are not required, the records can be maintained directly.
- Auditors have a complete record of who, what, when, where, and why price change were made.
- Mobility solution required.
- Friendly User interface.
- Increased Reporting capability
SAP S/4 HANA Flexible Workflow for Sales Prices –
SAP S/4HANA 2022 has a new feature called Flexible Workflow of Sales Prices. This feature allows you to set up pre-defined conditions that will trigger a workflow process when a change in price is detected. The workflow process will automatically route a message to the appropriate people for their approval or rejection.
When a user creates or changes a price, the system will display a message that notifies the user that the change has been submitted for approval. The system will not reflect the new or changed price until all designated parties approve the requested change.
This feature can help to ensure that all changes to sales prices are properly authorized and that there are no unauthorized price changes. It can also help to improve the visibility of changes to sales prices and to make it easier to track the approval process.
Here are some of the benefits of using Flexible Workflow of Sales Prices:
- Improved control over sales prices: By requiring all changes to sales prices to be approved, Flexible Workflow can help to prevent unauthorized price changes.
- Increased visibility of changes to sales prices: The system will track all changes to sales prices and notify the appropriate people of any changes. This can help to ensure that everyone is aware of any changes to sales prices and that there is no confusion about the current prices.
- Improved efficiency: The workflow process can automate the approval process, which can save time and improve efficiency.
The below Visio diagram demonstrate the process as per its flow.
Approval Flow
This blog post will discuss the flexible workflow for sales prices. It will cover the following topics:
- System Setup: How to set up this functionality.
- Addressing additional client-specific queries
- Relevant SAP components for raising OSS messages.
- Workflow related transaction codes, Reports for quick troubleshooting
System Settings –
To achieve this functionality, system set up is needed in multiple nodes.
The activities are divided into two major steps along with its sub-steps.
| Step 1 | Workflow Configuration | Sub-Step A | Workflow Set Up |
| Sub-Step B | Manage Sales Price Workflows | ||
| Sub-Step C | Manage Teams and Responsibilities | ||
| Sub-Step D | My Inbox Notification | ||
| Step 2 | Manage Price Sales (App ID - F4111) | This is the execution part of Sales price approval. | |
Step 1 – Workflow Configuration
Sub-Step A - Workflow Set Up
The necessary workflow customizing in SWU3 must be done to create the SAP_WFRT user and create the necessary RFC destinations which must be done by Basis team.
The role SAP_BC_BMT_WFM_SERV_USER_PLV01 as described in SAP Note #2568271 should be correctly generated in PFCG so that BOTH 'Authorization' & 'User' tabs are green, do a user comparison if necessary.
Please follow the steps outlined on the right-hand side of the screen in SWU3 to complete the workflow configuration under 'Edit Runtime Environment' in SWU3. Without it, no workflows can be triggered.
Sub-Step B - Manage Sales Price Workflows (App ID - F5525)
- Open the Manage Sales Price Workflows app.
- Create a workflow, give a name (Test Workflow For Price), and set its properties.
- Define the start conditions for the workflow: Condition type is PPR0, and sales organization is 1710.
- Click Create button in steps section for creating step one, name the step (e.g., Approval – Level 1), select the role Sales Price Approver – level 1.
- Save and active the workflow.
Sub-Step C - Manage Teams and Responsibilities (App ID - F2412)
With the Manage Teams and Responsibilities app (role SAP_BR_BUSINESS_PROCESS_SPEC), then use responsibility definitions and member functions to determine members that are responsible for workflows. To create first levels approver, proceed as follows:
- Open the Manage Teams and Responsibilities app.
- Click Create for creating a new team and set the name for new team (e.g., Team for Blog).
- Select Enable for Status.
- Select type SLSPRCMGM1 – Sales Price Management.
- Input Condition type PPR0 in Responsibility Definitions. The condition type in team same as the condition type set in workflow conditions.
- Add team member by selecting existing users. For example, Business partner: 9980000000, Function: SPRCAPRL1(sales price approver – level 1)
- This Business partner can be created via Maintain Employees App (App ID - F2288) and this employee should be linked to a SU01d user.
Please check below note for creation of Business users.
https://me.sap.com/notes/2570961/E
Below SAP help can be referred for further details.
Adding Team Owners | SAP Help Portal
Adding Team Members | SAP Help Portal
Note - One user can`t be both requester and approver, it must be a different person.
Sub-Step D - My Inbox - When approval workflows are set up correctly, if user maintains the price for condition type PPR0 and sales organization 1710 in Manage Prices – Sales app, that triggers workflow and the designated approvers are notified about pending approval requests and receive the requests in the My Inbox app (role SAP_BR_PRICING_SPECIALIST).
Step 2 – Manage Prices - Sales (App ID - F4111)
Processing of Sales price change to initiate the flexible workflow is included in detail into below existing blog.
Pre-requisite - The service CA_FM_FEATURE_TOGGLE_STATUS_SRV should be active so that Request Approval button works.
And thereafter, the similar steps need to be followed as per below blog.
Workflow in “Manage Prices – Sales” APP | SAP Blogs
Some Additional Information
Query 1 - This feature is available in Version 2022. But if there is any client using 2020 version of S/4 HANA then how they can use this. Any additional changes they need to adopt?
Answer: This will not be possible as this functionality heavily depends on other objects (e.g., UI library) which also are not in OP2020.
Query 2 - Workflow for approval is triggered to My Inbox. Is there any way to get this in Outlook. My client is eager to have that feature.
Answer: This is not supported functionality as of now.
Query 3 - Will this approval also work if they change any manual price in order or billing like in transaction level?
Answer: No, it will not trigger any workflow then.
Important SAP Components to reach over OSS for easy problem settlement.
| Component ID | Description | Usage |
| CA-GTF-BUM | Business User Management | Addresses issue during business user creation or assign |
| CA-GTF-RM | Responsibility Management | Addresses issues in Teams and Responsibilities app, agent determination |
| SD-MD-CM | Conditions and Condition maintenance | Addresses issues in Manage Sales – Price App |
| CA-INB-FIO | Fiori UI for My Inbox Application | Addresses My Inbox related issue like if workflow is not triggered to My Inbox |
| BC-BMT-WFM | Business Workflow | Addresses any workflow related issue |
Important T-codes related to Workflow.
| T-code | Description |
| SWI2_FREQ | Work Items per Task (Task - TS01800300, Workflow ID - WS01800208 for this workflow) |
| PFTC | Task Maintain |
| SWF_PROCESS_ADMIN | Flexible Workflow Process Definitions |
| SWU3 | SAP S/4: Automatic Workflow Customizing |
| SWELS | Event Trace |
| SWEL | Display Event Trace |
Reports on Flexible Workflow
Please refer to below KBA for this.
https://me.sap.com/notes/0003191211
Series of KBA for troubleshooting
https://me.sap.com/notes/2523288
Final Note
In conclusion, price changes should be quick and efficient for all parties involved. SAP S/4 HANA Flexible Workflow for Price Change, which includes new approval features, aims to help businesses improve their performance and achieve their objectives without overlooking any details. This means that businesses can stay ahead of the curve and be prepared to react to pricing challenges.
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