SAP Business Workflow for Lead Processing by External Partners 

Use

A lead is a business transaction that describes, stores, updates, and manages the potential business interests of a business partner, and the interactions based on this over a period of time. The goal is to provide the “sales” area with the information gained in the lead, in order that it can be used as a basis for deciding whether to create an opportunity.

The workflow “Lead Processing by External Partners” supports the transfer of the lead to an external sales partner. Workflow sends a work item to the responsible sales partner. After checking the lead data, the sales partner can either reject or accept this lead. If the lead is accepted, it then passed onto the sales partner’s worklist for further processing.

Workflow is started automatically, if the processor has set the Distributed to Sales Partner status. If a sales partner has not been entered, or if the lead has not been saved without errors, the status of the lead is set back to In Process.

The sales partner entered in the lead is the one taken to process the lead further. This partner can be determined automatically using partner determination depending on the sales prospect in the lead.

The sales partner has to be assigned to a standard contact person. The log-on user must have a business partner with the role Employee. This business partner who is assigned to the contact person is called sales partner employee.

Prerequisites

The event linkage for the event DistributedToSalespartner for workflow WS10000279 is deactivated as a standard procedure, and, if you wish to start the workflow template, it has to first be activated again in Customizing. The workflow task processors must also be maintained. In Customizing, choose Customer Relationship Management ®Basic Functions  ® SAP Business Workflow ® Perform Task-Specific Customizing.

The workflow template uses the user status SPAC (accepted by sales partner), and SPRE (rejected by sales partner) of the status profile CRMLEADP. If you have defined several user statuses, the data flow for task TS10008154 (set status) must be adapted accordingly. 

Workflow Process WS13100008 (Lead Processing by External Partners)

The workflow “Lead Processing by External Partners” is started when a lead is saved with the status Distributed to Sales Partners. First, the system checks if the lead has been saved without errors, and if a Sales partner with the assignment sales partner employee has been entered. If the conditions have not been fulfilled, the status of the lead in set back to In process, and the processor of the lead is informed accordingly.

If the lead data has been maintained completely, a message is sent to the external sales employee’s inbox to accept the lead for processing. When the lead is accepted, the status is set to Accepted by the sales partner, and the sales partner employee is then entered as the responsible employee for the lead. In this way, the lead reaches the external sales employee’s worklist. If the lead is rejected, its status is set to Rejected by sales partner, and the respective lead employee is informed.

The deadline monitoring for deadlines ensures that the work item is removed from the sales employee after the deadline specified in the lead has passed, and the lead status is set back to In process.

Workflow ends if the status Distributed to sales partner is taken back during the decision process. If the external sales partner changes during processing, the event PartnerChanged in the workflow basic data ensures that the recipient of all workitems that have not been completed is determined again.  

 

Technical Execution

The following information is of technical nature. You need this information if the implementation details are relevant for you, or if you wish to make your own enhancements.

Workflow template

The actual procedure is implemented in the workflow template WS13100008 (CRM_LEADPORT).

Events for the workflow template

The event DistributedToSalesPartner is entered for the object category BUS2000108 (LEAD CRM) as a triggering event for the workflow template. The event DistributedToSalesPartner is triggered, if the system status DistributedToSalesPartner is set. As workflow should only start for leads in the partner portal, the transaction type LDPO is queried using the start condition for the event. The event AttributeChanged is triggered if one of the lead-specific attributes is changed. The event PartnerChanged is triggered if changes in the CRMA_PARTNER table are logged via change documents.

Object types

BUS2000108 (LEAD CRM)