Change Processes

You use this function to make changes to existing contracts, usage-based service contracts, or pool contracts. (These different types of contracts are referred to as "contracts" below for simplicity.) Each change process has different effects in the further processing of the contract, both in contract management and in accounting.

You can use process Cancel Last Change Process to undo all changes that the last change process made. This does not work for all change processes, however. For more information, see Cancel Last Change Process.

Prerequisites

You have made the settings for the change processes in Customizing for Customer Relationship Management under Transactions Settings for Contracts Additional Settings for Service Contracts Change Processes . The settings you define here control all the change processes.
You have to have at least one active contract in order to execute the change processes.

Note Note

You can encourage the use of change processes and discourage changes made directly in the contract by preventing entries from being made in certain fields in the service contract, depending on status, by using Customizing activities Define Change Level and Specify Whether Fields Are Ready for Input Dependent on Status.

You can find these Customizing activities in Customizing under Start of the navigation path Transactions Next navigation step Settings for Contracts Additional Settings for Service Contracts Change Processes Readiness for Input of Transaction Fields End of the navigation path .

End of the note.

Features

Time-Driven Execution of Change Processes

The effectiveness of change processes is time-dependent. For example, change process Contract Renewal is only valid at the end of a contract.

Change Processes at Header/Item Level

Change processes are defined either at header level or item level. All change processes that are executed at item level can also be triggered at header level. In that case, the system proposes all suitable items. If a change process causes an item to be copied, and there is a service plan item that is a subitem of that item, the plan item is also copied.

Change processes at header level affect the entire contract.

Change processes at item level apply to individual contract items.

Activities

Execute change processes from a contract
1. Open an active contract and choose Change Processes.
2. Select a change process.
  - If it is a change process for an item, the possible items for the change process you selected are displayed in the assignment block Applicable Items.
    After you select an item, the assignment block Change Process Parameters appears and you can make your changes.
  - For change processes at header level, assignment block Change Process Parameters appears, in which you can now make your changes.
3. Choose Execute Change Process.
Execute change processes from an item
Open your contract and go to the edit mode of an item. Choose Change Processes and select a change process.