Actions 
Actions are important for maintaining and improving business relationships. You can schedule and start predefined processes with the Actions component 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.
The Actions component also provides the technique of controlling output. It thereby replaces Output Determination of the SAP ECC System.
Integration
Actions in SAP CRM use the Basis Post 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 the actions component 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.
Subitem
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.