Working with the Development Environment 

Purpose

The development environment for workflows provides all the tools you need to define, configure and monitor work items, in addition to the tools required to define the corresponding tasks and objects.

Workflows: Workflow Builder

The Workflow Builder is the central tool for defining, configuring and monitoring workflows. It enables you to model workflows graphically. You can insert the required steps, define the data to be processed in containers, and specify the binding.

See also: Workflow Builder

Tasks: Business Workflow Explorer

You can display and edit tasks in the Business Workflow Explorer. The Business Workflow Explorer is a part of the Workflow Builder.

See also: Business Workflow Explorer

Object Types: Business Object Builder

You use the Business Object Builder to create or edit object types. The Business Object Repository contains all the information about the object types. The definition and runtime components of SAP Business Workflow can address the object types that are defined in the Business Object Repository.

See also: Business Object Builder

Organizational Plan: Organizational Management Tools

You create the organizational plan using the tools from the Organizational Management component.

Process Flow

       1.      Analyze and model business processes (ARIS for SAP NetWeaver)

You analyze which business processes you want to automate using the workflow.

To do this, you can use ARIS for SAP NetWeaver. For detailed information about ARIS for SAP NetWeaver, see the vendor documentation.

       2.      Specify organizational plan (organizational management)

The enterprise-specific organizational plan depicts the organizational assignment of employees. You define the organizational plan on a client-specific basis.

However, in each client you generally only map those sub-areas and organizational structures of your enterprise, in which you also coordinate business processes using SAP Business Workflow.

If you use SAP Business Workflow and an HR application in the same client, then you can also use the HR organizational plan in SAP Business Workflow.

       3.      Select or define objects and object types (Business Object Builder)

You identify all objects involved in your business process. You analyze which business functions you want to depict and which attributes you want to access for control purposes.

You check whether the relevant object types and their corresponding methods, attributes and events are defined in the Business Object Repository.

You can either use object types without changing them, or extend or define your own object types.

       4.      Select or define tasks (Business Workflow Explorer)

You identify the tasks involved in your business process. You establish which object method the task is to execute and who is responsible for executing it. You then define the tasks by specifying object type and method, and determine the possible agents of the tasks. During the development and test phases, you can define all tasks as general tasks, so that all users can execute and start them.

You check whether all required tasks are already defined, and define new tasks if needed.

       5.      Define rules for agent determination (Workflow Builder)

You can define rules for determining agents. These describe who are assigned as agents from business and functional perspectives.

You do not need rules in the test and development phases.

You check whether you can use existing rules, and define new rules if required.

       6.      Analyze and activate events (SAP application, Business Object Builder, Workflow Builder)

You identify the events required to initiate and control the workflow and check whether these events are defined for the relevant object types.

If you require an event that is not incorporated in the standard version, you must add the event to the relevant object type definition and ensure that the event is created.

       7.      Define the workflow (Workflow Builder)

You create a representation of the business process. This involves defining the required steps and data to be processed. To specify the data and how it is processed, you define the steps and data as container elements and specify the binding between them.

You can use SAP workflows as templates for your own developments.

       8.      Start and monitor the workflow (Workflow Builder)

You start the workflow and use the workflow log to monitor its execution.