Approval system for Project Creation

[misrasuman1]

Hi All,

Our client needs to design a customized form in SAP replacing their current manual forms for approval. They need the project to be set up automatically after the approval process is complete. They also need to have a trail of the approval workflow i.e. who approved, when and pending with whom.

My first option proposed to them is to use SAP Inbox and workflow approval inside SAP through Fiori.

The challenge is most of these approvers will not have access to SAP. So the next proposal from me was to trigger notification through emails, approvals/rejections through emails which should tie back to SAP after all approvals are complete according to the approval matrix.

According to the client this quite old and backward way. They are looking for app based or web-based approval system which is outside of SAP and can still tie back to SAP after approval is complete.

Any suggestions?

[Ken_Melching]

The first question to answer is where is origination of the project request, how much detail is required to gain approval, and what is the approval cycle. Since they want an app built outside of SAP you'll need to use the API's available to connect your app with SAP.

[misrasuman1]

The project request will be a customized form in SAP as the client wants a digitized version of their manual forms which they use at present. It will have quite a number of custom fields along with estimated prices per WBS. The form will also include the WBS structure. They ultimately want the project structure created automatically in SAP with the custom fields, WBS Planned and Budget values from the form once approval is complete.

Approval matrix and the level of approvers will vary across the different business areas.

Challenge is some of these approvers do not practically log into SAP. They are ok to approve/reject through sort of a link over an email by clicking which can open a web page for approval with comments and which can tie back to the SAP Workflow log. The approvers want to know the trail of approval like who approved and when and whom it is pending with.

As Paulo mentioned earlier in our projects we used to use the Appropriation Requests.

If either of the suggestions mentioned above works then it should be ok to consider in the design.

[Paulo_Vitoriano]

Hi Suman,

You are sort of contradicting yourself with multiple requirements. If your client wants a modern system the prerequisite would be ALWAYS a system access with specific user role. The approver cannot sign a paper and expect the system to update a workflow task based on that.

In the "old" SAP this could have been a process for the Appropriation Request approval with a standard workflow.

In the "modern" SAP you can develop similar process with BTP creating Fiori Apps and workflows.

The challenge I see with BTP is not to overengineer such a greenfield solution as the cost can easily "hit the roof". That means you need a detailed Functional specification beforehand in order to make an accurate cost estimation based on that. As a business case it will be difficult to estimate benefits in a monetary form to get into breakeven date.

Regards,

Paulo