Setup a group workflow?

[Former Member]

I am new SAP user, so I will apologize in advance if I am asking a trivially obvious question.  I want to know if it's possible to setup a workflow that acts as a 'pool' of work available to a group of workers.  For example, our business has a process today where a Supplier sends to us a request to start work.  The approval/denial of this request is generated by a workpackage traveling through SAP workflow to/from various parties such as buyers, qa approvers, metallurgists.

Today, the Supplier sends the request and supporting data to us via an email box.  A quality 'coordinator' checks this box, picks up the request, 'logs' it in SAP, and then assigns the various tasks to various people in the chain of events.  It appears in the first person's SAP mailbox.  When this first person completes the task in SAP, it goes to the next mail box.  This continues until the 'approval' is complete, at which point the Supplier receives notification via SRM.  For a number of reasons, this has proven completely unsatisfactory.

What we would like to do is:

1.  Receive the initial email into the box.

2.  Coordinator logs the package into SAP.

3.  The 'work package' goes into a pool visible to all the appropriate workers for 'task 1'.  Let's call this first task "Doc Review"

4.  The first available worker pulls the package from the pool and works it.  We'd like to be able to set prioritization rules:  FIFO, first due, dollar impact, etc.

5.  When "Doc Review" is finished, we would want SAP to route the package to the second 'work pool'.  Let's call that "metallurgy".  The first available metallurgist would pick that up, complete the approval, and on this would go through all the tasks.

Additionally, today all tasks are in serial because as we understand SAP they have to be.  But, in the real world, there is no compelling reason why, for example, 'doc review' cannot happen in parallel with 'metallurgy'.  So we would like to be able to define what things must happen in series, what can happen in parallel, and have the package appear in the workpools accordingly.

Is this kind of setup possible in SAP R/3?

[former_member185167]

Hello,

This sounds ideal for SAP Workflow.

"The 'work package' goes into a pool visible to all the appropriate workers for 'task 1'."

You can send a workitem to any number of people, e.g. everyone in a specific position or organizational unit. It will appear in all of their inboxes. As soon as one person grabs it, it will disappear from all other inboxes (unlike email).

A workflow looks like a flowchart so you can do tasks in parallel if it makes sense.

You might even be able to automate step 2 as well.

regards

Rick

[former_member186746]

Hi,

Sounds a lot like workflow to me. There are powerfull standard reporting tools with which you get an insight and control on your processes (SWI5).

Plus there is a thing called deadline monitoring where you can control how long a single workitem should take to complete and use escalation to control this process to adhere to any SLA's you might have.

So I would research a bit on SAP Business Workflow to find out how to fit the requirement in SAP.

Kind regards, Rob Dielemans