Component documentationSAP Business Workflow/WebFlow Locate this document in the navigation structure

 

Using SAP Business Workflow, you can easily structure business processes that are not yet included in the SAP System. These may be simple release or approval procedures, or more complex business processes such as creating a material master and the associated coordination of the departments involved. SAP Business Workflow is particularly suitable for situations in which work processes have to be run through repeatedly, or situations in which the business process requires the involvement of a large number of agents in a specific sequence.

You can either start a workflow manually, or the SAP System starts it as a reaction to an event. Events are automatically triggered by the SAP System if a pre-defined situation arises, for example if particular errors occur during an automatic check. This means you can also use SAP Business Workflow to respond to errors and exceptions in other, existing business processes.

SAP provides several workflows that map predefined business processes. These workflows do not require much implementation effort. For an overview of these SAP workflows, see Workflow Scenarios in Applications.

Integration

SAP Business Workflow uses the existing transactions and functions of the SAP System without changing them. With SAP Business Workflow, you can combine the existing functions of the SAP System to form new business processes.

If you are already using SAP Organizational Management, you can use the organizational structure created there to have the relevant agents carry out the individual steps of a workflow. You can plan for a step to be executed, for example, by a particular position. This ensures that the respective occupiers of the position can carry out the individual steps during execution of the workflow. This means that personnel changes in your organization are taken into account immediately in the execution of a workflow.

Features

SAP Business Workflow/Webflow provides a number of tools for defining and analyzing workflows as well as for monitoring operation. You can also use SAP Business Workflow/WebFlow over the Internet.

With SAP Business Workflow/WebFlow, you can define suitable agents for each step of the workflow while the workflow is being executed. You can use deadline monitoring for the start and execution of all steps, so that each missed deadline provokes an individual reaction. Using an ad hoc workflow, you can quickly create a workflow while the system is in operation.

The end user receives information about the activities that they are to carry out in their Business Workplace. This provides them with a central overview of all the activities that they are authorized to carry out. They can commence the activities from here.

The Workflow Builder is for displaying and making changes to workflows. You can make small enhancements directly to the workflows supplied by SAP, such as carrying out your own agent assignments or changing deadline monitoring.

There are several Workflow Wizards to support you in the definition of workflows, with which you can create specific parts of a workflow. All existing Workflow Wizards are available in the Workflow Builder.

In order to make the functions of the SAP System available to a workflow, you use business objects, which you can define and analyze in the Business Object Builder. You can also use ABAP classes that you have developed yourself. Together with business objects, these classes are made available to the workflow in reusable tasks. The Business Workflow Explorer gives you an overview of all existing tasks.

Several tools are available to the workflow system administrator, with which they can control and analyze the current workflows. The workflow system administrator is notified of problems automatically by the system.