Process Automation
Process automation includes modeling, configuration and the automatic execution of processes. It can involve the following types of processes:
● Embedded processes: processes that are integrated in SAP applications
● Unbounded processes: cross-application or cross-component processes
Embedded Processes
Embedded processes automate business processes within SAP applications. These business processes may be simple release or approval procedures, or more complex business processes such as creating a material master and coordinating the departments involved.
You can define your own embedded processes for business processes that are not yet covered by SAP applications. To do this you define the relevant workflows in SAP Business Workflow. A workflow is an executable embedded process. SAP ships workflow templates that you can adapt and enhance to suit your needs.
Areas of Use
You typically use workflows for the following types of business processes:
● Work processes that are run repeatedly in the same way
● Work processes that involve multiple agents with specific roles in a specific sequence
● Processes that react to errors and exception situations in other business processes
Basics
When a workflow is executed, the system creates work items. These represent either tasks that a user executes or tasks that are executed in the background by the system.
To enable the system to determine the correct users to process work items, you define the enterprise-specific organizational plan and rules for agent determination.
A workflow processes objects. An object is an individual record of an object type. An example of an object type is Material. The Business Object Repository provides an overview of all the object types in the SAP system. You can use or extend the existing object types as well as create new object types.
Attributes, methods, and events are defined for each object type:
● Attributes describe the data that makes up the data record of an object type (such as Materialname, Materialnumber).
● Methods describe the activities that can be executed with the data (for example, create material). In a method, you can call the transactions and functions of the SAP system, as well as your own or other applications.
● Events describe the status changes that an object can undergo (for example, material deleted or material changed). An event can start a workflow, for example.
Required or Optional Installable Units
To use this scenario variant for the automation of embedded processes, you require the following installable units:
System with activated usage types:
● Application Server ABAP (AS ABAP)
● Application Server JAVA (AS JAVA)
● Enterprise Portal (EP)
Other:
● Additionally, you can use ARIS for SAP NetWeaver as the modeling environment.
Integration with Other IT Scenarios
This variant deals primarily with the definition of embedded processes. The business task management IT scenario describes the processing of tasks that are generated by these embedded processes.
IT Processes of the Scenario Variant
This scenario variant for the automation of embedded processes comprises the following IT processes:
Process |
Description |
You define the business process model for embedded processes from a business perspective. You use this as a basis on which you model the required workflows. |
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You adapt the workflows to suit your specific needs and requirements. You define, for example, the rules for agent determination, and texts that describe the tasks to be executed. |
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A workflow can be started in a number of ways, such as manually by a user or automatically by an event. The system creates a work item for each step. A workflow typically consists of work items that the system executes automatically in the background, and work items that are executed by the corresponding agents responsible. This process only describes the steps that are executed by the system. |
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Responsible users process their relevant work items or tasks. For more information, see the Business Task Management IT scenario. |
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You can monitor and analyze the execution of workflows from business and technical perspectives. |
Unbounded Processes
Unbounded processes automate business processes that extend across enterprise and application boundaries. You use unbounded processes, for example, to integrate third-party or legacy systems.
For the technical realization of these unbounded processes you model integration processes. An integration process is an executable, cross-system process that is based on communication using XML messages. In an integration process you define all the process steps to be executed and the parameters relevant for controlling the process.
Using XML messages, the business systems and applications involved are loosely linked and you avoid programmed integrations that demand costly and time-consuming maintenance.
Areas of Use
You typically use unbounded processes for the following types of business processes:
● Cross-system or cross-application business processes for which the communication between the business systems and applications involved can be represented by XML messages
● Processes that do not require any user action
● Processes for which the status of message processing must be saved within the process to allow further message processing. This is required, for example, for the collection and bundling of messages.
Basics
Integration processes are based on the message-based process integration of SAP NetWeaver. Integration processes provide message-based integration with functions for the stateful processing of messages. This enables you to define more complex processing sequences.
In addition to the send, receive, and transformation steps, you also have numerous ways of influencing the control flow of a process. For example, you can define loops, forks, deadlines, and exception handlers.
Using these means, you can specify, for example, the order in which received messages are to be forwarded from the process, or specify that a number of messages are to be bundled into one message and that this bundled message is to be forwarded to multiple receivers.
The Integration Repository of the Integration Builder provides a graphical process editor for defining integration processes. The Integration Directory of the Integration Builder provides wizards for configuration to help you adapt integration processes to suit your system landscape.
Required or Optional Installable Units
To use this scenario variant for the automation of unbounded processes, you require the following installable units:
System with activated usage type:
● Process Integration (XI)
Other:
● Additionally, you can use ARIS for SAP NetWeaver as the modeling environment.
Integration with Other IT Scenarios
If you use this variant to automate unbounded processes, you use tools that are also used in the enabling application-to-application processes IT scenario (see also Enabling Application-to-Application Processes).
IT Processes of the Scenario Variant
This scenario variant for the automation of unbounded processes consists of the following IT processes:
Process |
Description |
You describe the integration strategy in a model. You use this as a basis to model the relevant integration scenarios and integration processes. |
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You adapt the integration scenarios and integration processes to your specific system landscape. |
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The system executes the defined processes at runtime. |
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Monitoring functions are available for integration scenarios and integration processes; you can use them to monitor the processing of XML messages and throughput, in addition to the processing of integration processes. |