Flow Builder Plus - benefits, basic details, configurations, etc

[Vibha_Tiwary]

Hello and welcome to the blog post for Flow Builder Plus.

This blog post provides an overview to configure the flow builder plus and some basic details consolidated in one place. It's more of a collection of Notes and blog posts already created by our colleagues. This blog post may not provide accurate solution, but it will guide you in case of some doubts. For any issues you can always connect to SAP by the various options provided in SAP for ME.

This blog post provide some details on:

	Topic Name
1.	Flow builder plus benefits
2.	The basic configurations required for the Flow Builder Plus
3.	Some common issues faced in flow builder plus
4.	Some changes from old flow builder

 

1. Flow builder plus benefits:

First of all, why flow builder plus? Flow builder plus provides many benefits over the old Flow builder and you can find some of the details below:

• It provide huge performance improvement and ensures zero 'Out of memory' error, you can find the details in the blog posted by hongjun.qian on Flow Builder Plus: the technical highlights | SAP Blogs.


• It also provides many benefits from business point, check the blog posts by hongjun.qian for Business insights of Flow Builder plus.

 

2. The basic configurations required for the Flow Builder Plus:

How to enable the Flow Builder Plus?

You enable the Flow builder plus by switching the option 'Optimized data model and algorithm'. The path to it in SPRO is: 'Financial Supply Chain Management -> Cash and Liquidity Management -> General Settings -> Define Basic Settings'. For details on how to switch to Flow Builder Plus you can refer to the note 3303428 - Central KBA for Flow builder plus ( S/4 Hana Cash Management 2021 ).

 

2.a. Configurations: Financial Supply Chain Management -> Cash and Liquidity Management ->

	Path	Settings Required	Cash / Liquidity	Table/View	Transaction code
a.	General Settings -> Define Basic Settings	Follow note 3111810 -> A	For both		S_ERW_11000326
b.	Cash Management -> Data Setup -> Activate Individual Source Applications	Activate for all the Source Application and Company code you need. Eg: FI and BKPF for Accounting Documents BS of you do for Bank statement MM for Material Management	All that needed	FQMC_ACTIVATION
c.	Cash Management -> Data Setup -> Define Runtime Parameters for Flow Builder	Follow note 3111810 -> B.	If no Company Code added, then valid for all Company Code.	FCLM_FB_CHN_STP	S_ER9_11001869
d.	Cash Management -> Data Setup -> Define Source Application Accounting	Follow note 3111810 -> B	As required for both Cash and Liquidity management or only one.	FQMC_ACT_FI	S_ER9_11002114
e.	SWETYPV (workflow linkage is activated?)	For background job execution follow note 3303428 -> 3
f.	Define Default Liquidity Items for Liquidity Analysis	Follow note 3111810 -> C -> 7		FCLM_FB2_CONFIG	S_ER9_11002115
g.	Cash Management -> Data Setup -> Define Jobs for Flow Builder -> Activation of Scope-Dependent Background Job Definitions	For background job execution follow note 3303428 -> 3	You can define your own variant for background job execution.		S_ER9_11002301
h.	Exit Class in flow Builder	Follow note 3111810 -> D
i.	Moving from Flow builder lite to Flow builder plus	Follow KBA 3327731

 

3. Some common issues faced in flow builder plus:

1. Sometime even if all configurations are done the flow is not generated when fclm_flow_builder is executed. Check if the BSEG_FQFTYPE is in table VFCLMFLOWLVL-FLOW_TYPE.  If not, implement the Note  3212172 - Flow Builder Plus: Bug Fixing Note 4


2. Sometime data of Cash Position and Material Management is not generated automatically, refer Note 3193587 - One Exposure: Data of Cash Position and Materials Management is not generated automaticall...


3. For flow type issues, see KBA 3265676

 

4. Some changes from old flow builder:

1. See note 3111810 -> E, this provide details on flow builder exit.


2. Report name in old flow builder: fclm_flow_builder and report name in flow builder plus: fclm_flow_builder_2


3. Delta tables(FCLM_BSEG/MM_DELTA) changes to Staging tables(FCLM_FI/MM_STAGING) in flow builder plus.


4. Two types of flows:
   
   
   
   • In FCLM_FI/MM_STAGING -> STAGING flows updated with value 3 for Liquidity Analysis and Flows generated in table FQM_FLOW with 9007*
   
   
   • In FCLM_FI/MM_STAGING -> STAGING flows updated with value 2 for Cash Position and Flows generated in table FQM_FLOW with 9008*
   
   
   
   


5. Some fields are not updated in the flow builder plus. The reason for removing those technical fields to maximize the data compression purpose. This is because these fields are not used for business but for technical usage: origin_system_rl, origin_application_rl, origin_document_id_rl, origin_transaction_id_rl.
   
   
   
   • Instead of these fields, you can use the fields origin_system, origin_application, origin_document_id, origin_transaction_id.
   
   
   • It is recommend to adjust your solution which relies on those _rl fields, you shall use those fields without _rl fields.
   
   
   
   


6. Flow Builder Plus adopted the concept ‘Classification of G/L Account’ in Liquidity Planner, check out the details in the blog Go through document chain like Liquidity Planner.


7. When you use chain step as 0 in Flow builder plus there is no need to explicitly schedule background job. Instead a workflow event is raised, for detail refer Note 3128064 - Flow Builder: Technical Changes in S4CORE version 106


8. There are some changes in the Nodes in SPRO: From release 2020 onwards, the 'Rebuild Flow Types in Accounting Documents' and some other options are available in SAP Menu. Please find the below path on how to navigate to it.
   
   
   
   • SAP Menu Path -> Accounting -> Financial Supply Chain Management -> Cash and Liquidity Management -> Tools -> One Exposure from Operations -> Data Setup -> Rebuild Flow Types in Accounting Documents.
   
   
   
   

 

Hope after reading this blog post it will provide some useful insights about the Flow Builder plus. Feel free to provide your feedback, suggestions, questions in comments below and follow mit07tiwary for future posts.