External List management

What is External List Management?

ELM tool enables to flexibly load business partner data and activity data from third party lists into CRM with most of the checks standard delivered such as data mapping, prospect generation and target group generation.

Features are

1. Uploading of large numbers of data records in the CRM system both from  the client server and application server
2. Creation of target groups for marketing prospects (one list =one target group)
3. Campaign execution of target groups created out of marketing prospects (High volume campaigns)
4. Creation of mapping format category Marketing prospects.

What is Marketing Prospects? A New partner type

1. Marketing Prospect is not a business partner
2. Has Leaner structure than the business partner (Only header data and marketing attribute)
3. Can be created only via an external list upload; cannot be created manually
4. Can be deleted
5. Can be searched for

Customizing settings for ELM

Path: SPRO-> IMG->CRM->Marketing->ELM->Define list type

Also under ELM you can define origin, settings for parallel processing and workflow customizing.

A Lead can originate in numerous ways and to create a Lead in SAP CRM may also be done in various ways.In this blog post I will try to create probably the simplest scenario, using the standard CRM functionality , of Campaign to Lead.This would also help in mass Lead creation for a group of target group members.

We all know that Campaigns are of various types.We can create a Campaign type (say Lead Qualification) with communication medium as a transaction type(in this case Lead).

After performing these simple configuration steps,login to the web ui .Click to create a campaign and select the above campaign type.The comminication medium would be automatically populated.A new field Lead Template would also appear.Lead template , like any other template, is a framework or skeletal structure of the Lead.So instead of maintaining the same/redundant data again and again , the lead template can be used.(this is mandatory anyway).Add the target group containing the members for which the Lead is to be generated.

Note: The description of the lead template will be copied over to the individual leads' description.

Once the Campaign is approved by the marketing manager, Release and execute the campaign.Leads would be created for all the TG members.

SAP在40岁之际迎来了事业巅峰，在2011年创下40年最好业绩。公司上下把这份业绩归功于SAP的创新战略：只有为满足客户需求不断创新才能在全球经济衰退、竞争日益激烈的大环境中生存、逆势成长。
于是Innovation成了公司上下提到最多的热词。
但是对一个有40年产品积累，知识积累的公司，如何有效进行创新，在具体执行层面是面临很多挑战的。作为一个Business Suite的产品经理，对我们来说，摆在面前的挑战就是特别是如何让公司的核心产品Business Suite也能够不断推陈出新，不断和HANA（内存计算），Cloud（按需计算），Mobility（移动计算）进行嫁接，推出让客户眼前一亮的产品。

目前我们采取的具体举措是利用增强包的形式，小步快走地方式为客户不断推出更新。自2009年5月推出CRM 7.0以来，迄今已经推出了两个增强包。EhP2增强包预计2012年5月将会正式推出 （个人感觉还是不够快，这种小步快走应该以季度或月为周期，而不是以年为周期）。

在本系列博客里，我将给大家介绍CRM 7.0 EhP2的主要增强。首先介绍给大家的是CRM Marketing模块的Marketing Permission许可。了解CRM Marketing功能的读者应该知道，CRM Marketing可以定义市场营销活动，在执行市场营销活动时，营销人员可以通过各种渠道，比如电子邮件，电话，传统信件等方式和目标客户群进行接触。但是在有些国家和地区，一个公司和客户接触是需要得到客户事先明确同意的，否则会被视为骚扰，甚至会触犯法律法规。为了帮助公司在这方面合规，CRM 7.0 EhP2推出了Marketing Permission (营销许可）。营销许可可以帮助一家公司做到：

1. 符合当地法规，避免了违规的成本

2. 只给明确表示愿意接收市场营销材料的客户发送营销资料

3. 营销许可在以下功能模块中起着重要作用：

。外部清单管理

。市场细分

。营销活动执行

。交互中心

4. 营销许可功能使得SAP的营销流程支持客户自愿参加和自愿退出

5. 当前版本中的‘请勿使用 (Do Not Use)’标识依然可以使用。通过它可以阻止与单个客户的交互，或者集中阻止对所有客户的交互，或者阻止对某一种通信方式的使用。

Update

The channel letter is back! Check out the Note 1573981 - A channel is missing in EHP1. There are correction instructions for CRM 7.0 and 7.0 EhP1. It was hard work to get SAP there and I'm still fighting some problem that I have with the SmartForms.

Original Blog

In the moment I'm managing the upgrade project from SAP CRM 5.0 using PC-UI to SAP CRM 7.0 with the CRM WebUI. We support our sales and marketing department with this CRM Processes:

• Account Management
• Activity Management
• Opportunity Management
• Campaign Management

We have a CRM 7.0 including the Support Package Stack 6 running as a Sandbox System. Here I'm checking if all the current business processes are still supported.

10 days ago I've discovered that SAP had stopped to support the channel letter in CRM 2007 (6.0). I've raised the SAP Support Message 881232/2010 to get a clarification. Unfortunately my observations where proved right. There is no support for the channel letter anymore.

Our current process for trade fair invitations

Since our CRM 4.0 implementation 5 years ago we do also use the Campaign Management. It allows the channel mail (printed letter) where a Mail Form generated in the SAP GUI transaction CRMD_EMAIL could be inserted. We used this possibility to send out a letter with a complimentary ticket for the light + building trade fair. The next image visualizes the campaign automation that we setup to do this:

When the Campaign is started we've sent out 5942 E-Mails and 12872 Letters. The E-Mails contained a personalized link that pointed to the survey. If our customer flagged the checkbox "Send me a complimentary ticket" then the process "Letter Voucher" was triggered and in total 1139 letters where printed in our advertising material warehouse. The person working there had only to pickup the letter from the printer, get the ticket and put that into an envelope.

This was possible by specefying the Campaing Element "Letter Voucher" with the Communicaiton Medium "Mail with activity creation", the Mail Form Letter and a Print Profile as you can see in the next screen shot:

This process was triggered by the Survey that was evaluated according to the following rules:

Status with SAP CRM 2007 (6.0) and 7.0

According to the Upgrade Master Guide SAP CRM 7.0 SR1 (Page 38) SAP CRM has now the following restriction: "Letter is no longer supported as a direct channel; sending letters should be performed via export channel."

Drawbacks

With that our campaign automation process which is successfully used since 5 years will fail when we execute our planned SAP CRM 7.0 upgrade! The provided workaround isn't a real alternative. The suggestion is to use the export channel. So I had to:

• Create the export
• Open that in Excel
• Create a Mail Merge in Word
• Print the Letters using Word

That would lead to a much higher manual, costly, error prone process.

Solution

As it seems that the SMARTFORMS based functionality can't be used anymore due to architectural changes SAP had to provide a replacement solution based on Adobe Forms.

I need your help

Do you have implemented similar processes using the channel letter? Make SAP aware of that and vote for the Idea I've created on SAP Idea Place: Bring back channel letter (print) in Campaign Management for CRM 7.0. Unfortunately the Idea there looks bad due to problems with the editor.

This is a shameless plug for my SAP TechEd 2006 session proposal. It’s also named “Advanced Campaign Automation in MySAP CRM 4.0” and you can vote for it. Here I give a brief overview of the business requirement and the main topics of the solution.

Business requirement

• Invitation to trade show as a personalized letter
• Registration for the event via the corporate website
• Display of responsible sales representatives
• Phone number to arrange appointment
• Presence of sales representatives at the booth
• Survey
  • Visit date
  • Request call back
  • Request voucher
  • Request information material
  • No interest

Get sales representatives presence

Before we could start with the marketing campaign we first had to solve the problem how we can gather information about presence of sales representatives at the trade show booth. First I thought about a special Z database table. But later I got it right: We could use marketing attributes. All sales representatives are already also available as business partners in CRM. This is needed to use them as partners in business transactions.

Create Marketing attribute

Fist we start creating a new marketing attribute in transaction CRMD_PROF_CHAR:

Assign attribute to an attribute set

Attributes could only be used when they are assigned to an attribute set. This is done in transaction CRMD_PROF_TEMPL.

Attribute maintenance via survey

This attribute set can now be assigned to the sales representatives business partners. Because we use PC-UI with a special BSP application to maintain marketing attributes we had to find another solution. We found it by using a survey which is send as a personalized link in a marketing campaign. Surveys are maintained in transaction CRM_SURVEY_SUITE. In a survey a PBO and PAI function can be maintained. We’ve implemented our own fuctionality as described in SAP Note 638320.

The campaign uses a mail form created in CRMD_EMAIL. Including a personalized link to the survey:

Customer registration

Our customers got a personalized invitation as a snail mail letter. The target group was created using a special marketing attribute in segment builder transaction CRMD_MKTSEG.

Campaign Automation

This target group was then assigned to a campaign in CRM_MKTPL. To enable follow up processes we’ve used campaign automation using a survey. Here you see the process model:

The rule set in the decision node is rather complex:

Connecting paper with the internet

In a E-Mail campaign it is fairly easy to include the complex link to a survey. But via paper this is impossible. So we solved this problem by using the customer partner number and it’s ZIP code as the password. This authentication was built as a custom RFC enabled function module. We call the function module as a Webservice from PHP with the PEAR SOAP package. The Login is integrated into the special micro website for the fair:

When partner number and password where entered correctly the user gets the information when his contact partners are available. This is the information maintained in the internal E-Mail campaign:

Using a IFrame we include the survey coming directly from the CRM Server using the SAP Web Dispatcher configuration I’ve described in my Blog: Setup SAP Web Dispatcher with URL Filter on SuSE Linux 9.0:

Follow up process

When the check box “Please call me to arrange a appointment” is checked, then a open activity in CRM is created. Using the BAdI “COM_PARTNER_BADI” we’ve defined our own partner determination rule which automatically finds the person responsible for the used customer.

Reporting

In transaction CRM_SURVEY_SUITE it is also possible to get a overview what the customers entered in the survey. Unfortunately here the translation of the survey is not used:

Conclusion

Marketing in MySAP CRM 4.0 is an advanced tool which can be extended to a smooth solution using some custom programming. When you think that this application could be useful for you, please vote for my SAP TechEd 2006 session proposal “Advanced Campaign Automation in MySAP CRM 4.0”. I will provide the whole source of the application when my proposal is selected.