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Action Profiles

Action profiles and determination

Action profiles in SAP-CRM

1.0INTRODUCTION

Actions are important for maintaining and improving business relationships. You can schedule and start predefined processes with theActionscomponent by means of user-definable conditions from transaction and marketing objects.

You can tailor the type and time of actions to the requirements of your customers and the processes in your company. This component enables you to match your service, sales and distribution management, and your campaign management even more closely to customer needs, and, simultaneously, to automate them.

TheActionscomponent also provides the technique of controlling output. It thereby replacesOutput Determination of the SAP ECC System.

Integration

Actions in SAP CRM use the BasisPost Processing Framework(PPF) component as the uniform interface for different processing methods.

Date types and date rules for CRM Date Management are used for time-dependent conditions.

The following components use theactionscomponent in SAP CRM for processing subsequent functions and output:

Sales: Opportunity (Sales Assistant), Quotation, Sales Order, Task, Rebates, Billing, Pricing

Contracts: Sales Contract, Service Contract, Lease

Service: Complaints

Industry Business Solutions: Telecommunication

Marketing: Campaign, Trade Promotion

Grantor Management

Features

You can define actions dependent on conditions so that the system automatically schedules and starts them when the conditions are fulfilled.

With actions you can:

Create follow-up transactions automatically

Execute changes in the transaction or marketing object currently being processed, for example, create new items, or status inheritance by subordinate elements in marketing objects

Output in print, by faxing or e-mail

The system processes the actions automatically. You can, however, also schedule and start actions manually. You can use as conditions the attributes of the transaction type used in the business object. You can create time-dependent conditions using the dates and date rules from the appropriate date profile. You can also define partner-dependent actions, for example, to send a reminder e-mail to the employee responsible.

The system uses different processing types of the PPF during processing. There are various processing types for actions:

Methods (Business Add-Ins)

This is suitable for simpler processes, such as follow-up transactions or creating positions, for example, calling a customer when you have received a cancellation.

Templates are delivered for defining methods. You can use these to create as many follow-up transactions as you require, and to define your own methods.

The Business Add-Ins COPY_DOCUMENT and COPY_ITEM_LOCAL are available in sales, and the Business Add-Ins CREATE_CHILD_OBJECT_FROM_PARENT and CASCADE_CHANGE_STAT are available in marketing.

The copy control is used when processing methods. You can use the BAdIs in the copy control to influence follow-up transactions freely.

SAP Business Workflow

This is suitable for more complex processes, for example, a follow-up transaction that includes an approval process.

Smart Forms

Use this for printing, faxing or e-mailing documents.

Example

Examples of actions in SAP Customer Relationship Management:

Revising Quotations

Two weeks after a quotation has been created, the system generates an activity for the sales employee responsible to call the customer to remind the him or her of the quotation and to answer any questions which may have arisen.

Quotation for a new contract

Four weeks before a contract expires, or, when 80% of the value of a value contract has been reached, the customer automatically receives a quotation for a new contract with the same conditions as for the current product.

Cancellation Notification

The sales manager is automatically notified by e-mail if a contract with a value of EUR 1 million or more is cancelled.

Sub item

When a contract for a switchboard system is completed, a position to install the system free of charge to business partners is created automatically.

Credit Memos

Credit memos are created automatically, without checking, for complaints with a value of less than EUR 10.

Sales Assistant for Sales Employees

Within the frame of sales methodology, you can formulate a plan with recommended activities for each phase of the sales cycle.

Escalation Management

A customer with a maintenance contract is called back according to the reaction times agreed upon when he or she sends a problem message.

1.1 ACTIONS

Actions are used in maintaining and improving business relationships. We can schedule and start predefined conditions with theActionscomponent by means of user-definable conditions from transaction and marketing objects.

Actions use the Post Processing Framework (PPF), a Basis component, which can be automated with the initiation of outputs, follow-on documents or workflows. Using theActionstab page within a business document, you can display a list of actions that can be included in the business transaction.

An action profile is determined from the corresponding transaction type or item category.

Actions are stored as action definitions within an action profile.

You can control action processing using different settings and parameters:

Action changeable or executable in dialog

Action displayed in toolbar (SAP GUI)

Processing time (when saving the document or via selection report)

Partner dependence

Determination technique

Action merging

Processing types (with entry of the desired form name)

1.2 FEATURES OF ACTIONS

You can define actions dependent on conditions so that the system automatically schedules and starts them when the conditions are fulfilled.

With actions you can:

Create follow-up transactions automatically

Execute changes in the transaction or marketing object currently being processed, for example, create new items, or status inheritance by subordinate elements in marketing objects

Output in print, by faxing or e-mail

Actions are displayed in transaction documents that support actions and to which an action profile is assigned. You can display a list of actions scheduled for the document on theActionstab page of a transaction document. The following information is displayed in the list for each action:

Status (action scheduled, action processed)

Description (purpose of action)

Conditions (settings for action definition and conditions are displayed)

Creator, Creation date

There are various processing types for actions:

Methods (Business Add-Ins)Methods are Business Add-In (BADI) implementations. You can define your own BADI implementation to adapt actions to your processes and needs. (EXEC_METHODCALL_PPF is the relevant BADI.)Examples for standard methods include the following:

1. COPY_DOCUMENT (create a follow-up document)

2. COMPLETE_DOCUMENT (set status completed within document)

3. CREDIT_MEMO (create credit memo item)

4. REPAIR_ITEM (create a repair item)

5. 1O_EVENT_CREATE (create a workflow event)

SAP Business WorkflowThis is suitable for more complex processes, for example, a follow-up transaction that includes an approval process.

Smart FormsSAP Smart Forms must be used to print, e-mail or fax documents such as an order confirmation. You can use the graphics tool,SAP Smart Forms, to design the layout of output forms. SAP delivers several Smart Forms for outputs in SAP CRM:

1. Form CRM_ORDER_CONFIRMATION_01 (suitable for faxes, letters, and e-mail)

2. Form CRM_ORDER_LEASING_01 (suitable for faxes, letters, and e-mail)

3. Form CRM_OPPORTUNITY_01 (suitable for faxes, letters, and e-mail)

SAP Smart Forms offer the advantage of adapting forms without requiring programming knowledge, thanks to a completely graphical user interface. When you request a printout of a form, the application program obtains the relevant data to be used and prints it on the form. Data retrieval and form logic are separated from one another. SAP Smart Forms replace SAP-Script forms (migration from SAP-Script forms to Smart Forms is supported).

2.0HOW TO CREATE AN ACTION2.1STEP-BY-STEP PROCEDURE2.1.1 Enter into any SAP-CRM Server and move to Transaction SPRO.

2.1.2 Press SAP Reference IMG -> Customer Relationship Management ->Basic Functions -> Actions -> Actions in Transactions.

2.1.3 To create an Action Profile - Click on CREATE ACTIONS WITH WIZARD. First read the documentation.

2.1.4 Now Press the Execute Buttonto start creating an Action Profile.

2.1.5 Click CONTINUE. Enter the Details to create Action Profile.

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2.1.6 Click CONTINUE. Enter the Details to create Action.

ZACTION_TEST72.1.7 Click CONTINUE. Enter the Details to set Action.

In the Processing Time Details, there are 3 Options.

Processing Using Selection Reportgets started after a selection report is executed if the start condition has been fulfilled.Immediate Processinggets started as soon as the start condition is fulfilled.Processing when saving a Documentgets started when the document is saved*.*

2.1.8 Click CONTINUE. Enter the Details to Set Up Partner Determination.

Partner Dependentmakes this Action as dependent on Partner. The partner you choose is the one, for which the action triggers. It first checks whether that Partner exists or not. If not, it throws an ERROR.

2.1.9 Click CONTINUE and select the Processing. The processing that we select is the one on which we want the Action to work on.

2.1.10 Click CONTINUE and Enter the Workflow Number that you want to assign with this Action.

2.1.11 Click CONTINUE and Enter Action Description.

2.1.12 Click CONTINUE and assign Schedule Condition.

Schedule Conditiondecides whether an action should be scheduled for processing or not. An action is therefore generated only if the schedule condition is met. It is not mandatory to assign a schedule condition.

Select anyone that suits your requirement and proceed further.

2.1.13 Click CONTINUE and assign Start Condition.

Start Conditionis checked before an action is executed. The Action is executed only if the Start Condition is satisfied.Here you won't be able to assign a Start Condition; there is another tab in Actions where we can assign Start Condition.

2.1.14 Click CONTINUE and Action Configuration is complete.

Click CONTINUE and save it in a Transport Request.

2.1.15 To assign Start Condition -> Go-to step 2.1.2 -> Click on Change Actions and Conditions -> Define Conditions.

In Scheduling of Actions, find your Action - Test an Action Profile.

It shows you the entire Action that you created till now.To assign start condition, Click on Start Condition Tab.

Click Edit Condition to enter a condition.

Enter a Condition.

Click 'v'.

Click on SAVE. Save it in the same Transport Request as Earlier.

And hence, this completes your Action Profile Creation for a Workflow.Similarly, we can create Action Profiles for other processing also.

Action Profiles and determination

Within SAP CRM, actions arepieces of logicthat arerelated to a transaction.They areexecuted conditionally, either automatically or manually. Examples of actions are: sending out an order confirmation after saving the order, creating a follow-up task when a certain status has been set, or completing an order after a period of time. These actions are all available in the standard system, but you can easily create your own actions and assign them to your own pieces of logic (called: action method) and conditions. Besides giving a quick overview of what actions are about in this blog, Id like to share some expert tips and tricks that Ive learned over the years, including action profile determination, a relatively new and little known functionality that was introduced in CRM 7.0. In this blog, I'll focus on action profiles and action determination. In the next blog, you'll read all about action conditions.

Action profilesActions are defined within an action profile, which in turn is linked to a transaction type or an item category (see also the next paragraph on determination). In the action, you can set up a number of parameters, including:

1. When the action should be executed (manually/automatically, for instance)

2. Whether the action is partner dependent or not (and, if so, for which partner function)

3. How often the action should be executed

4. What should the action do? Options include:

a) send out a mail/fax/print

b) execute a method (either standard or self-made)

c) trigger an alert

Example of action details

Common profilesIf you want to reuse action profiles you can setup a common profile and assign it to other profiles. This can be very helpful if you have some (but not completely) overlapping action requirements for similar objects. Maybe an example clarifies this:

In a quotation youve set up two item categories. In both cases, youd like a follow-up task to be created in case the item status is set to Lost.

In only one of the item categories, youd also like to setup an additional action send out an e-mail too.

You shouldthencreate one common profile with the follow-up task action, and create two action profiles in which this common profile is linked. In one action profile, you also set up a second action for sending out the mail. Advantages of such a setup with a common profile include:

1. unique actions can be maintained more easily, and

2. Additional requirements can be made available with less effort (think of a third item category with yet another combination of actions).

Setting up common profiles

In the picture above you see how to work with common profiles. Creating a common profile is simple: you create an action profile and flag the Common Profile-flag. You can then select the profile for use in a normal action profile.

Hint:conditions are setup for the 'complete' profile, i.e. a combination of the actions from the used common profile andthe actions of the normal action profile. So: you can reuse a common profile in several action profiles and still have flexibility in the prerequisites (conditions)!

Action profile determinationIn older versions of SAP CRM, you could simply assign an action profile to a transaction type or an item category. Once linked, every new object would include all the actions of the profile that is linked to it, and that's that. Being quite rigid, this sometimes necessitated the creation of another item category or transaction type, only because you needed more flexibility. This has been overcome by the introduction of action profile determination.

Where to find action profile determination in IMG

The principle is quite simple: instead of linking an action profile directly, you can opt to link an action profile determination procedure to a transaction type or an item category. It works exactly like a price procedure: you can use fields from the field catalog to set up condition tables and you set up a number of access sequences to find the correct action profile(s). Please note the (s) in the last sentence: it is possible to find multiple action profiles, or to both assign a profile directlyandhave one found through the determination. This can easily be called a small revolution in action customizing in CRM: it is now no longer required to put all the actions you need in one single action profile! Companies can use action profiles in much more flexible ways by combining the action profiles they need in specific scenarios. I've used this determination technique to be able to have one single item category with different action profiles based on the product that was entered. In the example below you see how this was done. Please note that in this case, we put the product ID directly into the condition, but you could also use product groups or hierarchy levels to set up this functionality. Because a field catalog is available, you can use any of the fields you use in pricing to determine action profiles.

Example of determination

The picture above shows how action profile determination works. As usual within SAP CRM, the logic at runtime needs to be configured the 'other way around':

1. Create or re-use one or more condition types

a) You can create your own condition tables

b) Do not forget to link the condition type(s) to a (new) condition maintenance group

2. Create the conditions

a) This can be done via general condition maintenance

3. Setup an action determination procedure

4. Assign the procedure to the transaction type or item category

Action ConditionsSo, actions have been created and correctly linked (or determined) via the profile. Time to focus when to execute them. This is done with action conditions. You can base them on attributes from the transaction or item at hand. Probably most often used are attributes like user or system status, priority, or a milestone.

There are a few tips and tricks here that I'd like to share, but let's start with the difference between the two types of conditions that are available in SAP CRM.

Schedule vs start conditions

Schedule conditions define when an action is put on the list of executable actions within the object. Once it is put there, it will be executed as soon as the start condition is met.

By not assigning a schedule condition, the action will be added to the list of executable actions automatically or manually.

By not assigning a start condition, it is possible to execute the actionautomatically or manually.

This seems quite straightforward, but there's more to it:

1. Once an action is scheduled, it will be considered during a (background) run of the action selection report. This impacts performance of the jobs you plan to use.

2. If you want to trigger actions based on a milestone (e.g., contract end date has passed), you should use a Start Condition: schedule conditions are only checked if there is a change in the transaction and this means that the contract end date has long passed before the transaction is 'touched' again and the action is finally executed.

3. You can assign both a schedule and a start condition to one action. In such cases, the start condition is only considered if the action's schedule condition was fulfilled.

As these points show, there is a conflict here: using too many schedule conditions may impact performance, but only using start conditions disallows you to plan actions based on milestones. Later, we will look into the solution that SAP provides for this, and milestone-based actions in general. Let's first discuss setting up conditions in general, and running a background job.

Setting up action conditions

When you click on Define Conditions in the customizing, you will see the following screen:

Action Condition Maintenance

I won't go into all the details of this screen, but I would like to highlight a few elements:

With theTechnical Names-button you can switch between the description of the action and action profile to the technical names. This can be very handy if you have non-unique descriptions

Setting up conditions is done with an editor in which you link attributes to values with help of expressions.

You can reuse conditions after you created them (you can get an overview of all conditions by clicking on the schedule ConditionsorStart Conditions-buttons).

a. Reusing conditions is particularly useful if you are usingcommon profiles. As highlighted in my blog on action profiles, common profiles can be used to reuse actions in various action profiles without having to configure them again and again. Theseembeddedactions' conditions need to be set upper action profile that uses them. By reusing these conditions, you can easily do this.

b. Please note that reusing conditions is only possible within:

i. the same type of condition (schedule / start)

ii. the same item category

c. As a general rule of thumb you should consider a naming convention for your conditions (e.g.: [item category] [description of condition]). Too often you see condition names that tell more about the action that they are linked to, than what they actually check. Reusing them will then be quite hard!

If you want to setup an action without any conditions, you should still add it in this screen (right top corner). If you forget this, the action will not work.

Executing actionsNow that the action profiles, its actions and conditions are set up, it is time to see how actions are executed. As you recall, there are three moments on which actions are executed:

Immediate processing: As soon as the action should be executed (either by an automatic or a manual trigger), it will be executed. Typically, an end user is working in the transaction when this occurs.

This option will lead to wait time for the end user. Therefore, I would only advise it if user feedback is required or if the action is highly time critical.

Processing when saving the document: When the user or a background process saves the order, the action is executed.

This option may also impact the end user's experience.

Processing using selection report: During order processing, the action(s) will only bescheduled. Execution will be done by running the action processing program (transaction code: CRMC_ACTION_JOB).

Within action customizing you can allow end users to execute the action directly, so they don't need to wait for the program to run.

Let's look into the action selection report with some more detail.

Action selection reportThe selection report can be run once or periodically, both in the foreground and the background. If you plan to run it periodically in the background, you should use set the Processing Settings accordingly

'Processing without dialog': if set, the selected actions are executed directly. This should be set in case of a background job.

'Restricted Log': will prevent a spool to be created. The action processing logs (that can also be found in SLG1) will still be filled.

You then save these entries as a variant and create a new job via SM36 (program = RSPPFPROCESS). Basically, this sums up how to set up actions. Now I'll focus on some more specific topics: milestone-based actions and the optimization rule.

Milestone-based actionsSetting up an action that should be executed after a period of time can seem quite tricky at first. This is because a number of elements should be correctly setup before the action is actuallyscheduled at the right moment. These are the things you should get straight:

1. Set up a date profile to calculate your milestone

1. Hint: give different names to the date types and date rules, even though this is not required

2. Be sure to include the standard date rule TODAYTIME in your profile (this will always give the current date+time when executed; we will need it in the next step)

2. In action condition maintenance, create astartcondition that checks whether TODAYTIME is greater than or equal to the datetype

Start condition with milestone

The picture shows an example of a start condition in which a milestone is checked. Please note that TODAYTIME is shown as &Current Date + Time& when you do not show technical names.

Now let's assume we want to run a hourly background job that executes actions. This would have to check all start conditions with milestones again and again, even if the milestone will not be reached within another 6 months! That's why optimization rules were introduced.

Optimization rulesWith help of optimization rules, you can have the background job calculate when the start conditionwill be met. In the example above, in six months time. The system will write this in a table and, the next time the job is executed, simply skip the start condition because it already found that this condition is not yet met. This functionality improves performance and requires two configuration activities:

1. In the action condition maintenance, select the date type that you want to use as an Optimization Rule. If you look at the previous picture, you can already see that an Optimization Rule was linked.

2. In the action job, be sure to flag the Use Optimization Rules option.

1. Note: typically you run this report in a background job. Make sure to set up the variant attributes like in the picture below. It ensures that each time the job is run, the current date and time are considered.

Using Optimization Rules in action processing