Standard Scenario

The customer has its own competence center, which is responsible for the support of its SAP application. The customer can set up the support in several steps, such as First Level, Second Level and Third Level Support. The support uses SAP Solution Manager for message processing.

If the reason for the message is in an SAP application, and cannot be resolved by the customer's experts, the message is forwarded to SAP Active Global Support for processing.

IT Service Provider (System House) Scenario

The customer has a maintenance contract with an SAP partner, who usually also supplied the SAP solution. The IT service provider is typically responsible for first and second level customer support.

The customer creates a message in his SAP Solution Manager system, or logs on to the partner's SAP Solution Manager, with the SAP Service Marketplace S user.

If the IT service provider staff cannot resolve the message, it can be forwarded to SAP.

In this scenario, you can configure automatic forwarding to SAP. For example, messages with very high priority, outside the service times of the IT service provider, are forwarded automatically to SAP Support. For more information, see SAP Notes 1318787 and 1247502.

Software Partner Scenario

For various special areas, SAP software partners offer their own products as solution enhancements, which are sold by SAP. Software partners are directly behind SAP Support, as Third Level support, in the support chain, or they provide all support levels. This depends on the product.

The customer end users create their messages in the SAP Service Marketplace, or in the IT Service Management in SAP Solution Manager. SAP Support decides how to process the message, depending on its application component. If the reason for the message is a software partner application, the message is forwarded to the software partner, after initial processing, or directly, automatically.

Software partners can create partner notes in the SAP Service Marketplace.

Customers and partners can also exchange messages directly via their help desks, for example via the IT Service Management in SAP Solution Manager, or external help desks.