External Scheduling 

Purpose

You use the external scheduling function in your company to plan field services using an external system.

Prerequisites

The following prerequisites must be met:

For more information on configuring communication, see the Implementation Guide (IMG) under Plant Maintenance and Customer Service ® Maintenance and Service Processing ® Maintenance and Service Orders ® Scheduling ® External Scheduling ® Configure Communication.

For more information on Remote Function Calls, see the SAP Library under Basis Components ® Basis Services/Communication Interfaces (BC-SRV) ® Remote Communications (BC-SRV-RC) ® The RFC API.

Process Flow

  1. You create an order and have agreed a start and finish date for the order with the customer. It is obvious from the problem description which tasks must be performed. You can maintain the partner manually in the order header. The system uses the partner function that you have maintained in Customizing in the function Maintain Capacity Requirements to propose the technician you want to perform the tasks. If there is more than one partner for this partner function, the system always copies the first partner.

For more information on the settings for partners in Customizing, see Customizing for Partners.
  1. If you have assigned the function modules PM_ORDER_EXTERN_SCHED_DEFAULT or PM_ORDER_EXTERN_SCHED_DIALOG to the fixed values S or D when configuring communication in Customizing, the system finds a suitable date in the external system using the interface. The SAP system does not save the dates at this point. This first occurs when you save the order. The value "Work" is used at the interface for the effort required. Bi-directional communication occurs with the external system.
  1. You schedule the order using Order ® Functions ® Dates ® Schedule. The system updates the order using the scheduling agreements from the external scheduling system and sets the system status EXTM (scheduling by external system). The dates are passed on to reservation, purchase request, and so on.
  1. If you have assigned the function module PM_ORDER_EXTERN_BOOK_DEFAULT to the fixed value B when configuring communication in Customizing, the SAP System transfers the dates to the external scheduling system when you save the order so that the dates are available in both systems.
  1. The SAP System shows you how resources are distributed in the external scheduling system by means of the graphical monitor. This is only possible if scheduling is performed for individual technicians.

Depending on which application component you are working in, choose

The External Scheduling Process from a Business Management Viewpoint

Result

Bi-directional communication between the SAP System and the external system by means of the CS-SDL interface. The external system finds a suitable date and returns it to the SAP System.

The information from the final confirmation that the task is completed is transferred to the external scheduling system as well as to the status information. The final confirmation of an operation, such as order completion for example, causes a reduction in requirements in the external scheduling system.

The SAP System forwards the following system statuses to the external scheduling system:

No distinction is made between technical and business completion. The SAP System sets the status Completed for the function Do not execute order.

The status can be either Created, Released, Completed, or Locked.

You can perform changes to the basic dates of the order and operation dates using the function Change order, as all the information on the order is available here.

Changes to the order data in the external scheduling system are not updated in the SAP System. However, you can display the actual situation of the external scheduling system using the graphical monitor in the SAP System.

If you change and schedule an order, the SAP System displays proposed dates from the external scheduling system for the modified dates.

If you perform changes to the dates in the SAP System or save the dates, the new dates are transferred to the external scheduling system. The dates are posted and any capacity problems displayed in the external scheduling system.