Chapter 8

Workflow Execution: SAP Business

Workflow Run-time System
The SAP Business Workflow run-time system is made up of three logic units:
Workflow Manager
Work Item Manager
Event Manager

Workflow Manager
Any number of workflows can be derived from a Workflow Definition as
run-time instances.
The Workflow Manager is responsible for control and sequencing of the
process. By evaluating conditions through object attributes and taking into
account the results of individual steps, the Workflow Manager determines
the following steps cued for processing.

Work Item Manager

Each workflow comprises a series of work items which represent the individual steps of a Workflow Definition at workflow run-time.
Person

Work Items

Org. Unit

Position

Organization
Task

Role

Reference

WF Definition

Processes

Data
Status
change

Read access

Business Objects

Attributes

Step
Data

Events

Call and
results

Methods

Object

Fig. 8-1: SAP Business Workflow: Architecture

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Workflow Execution: SAP Business Workflow Run-time System

These work items are carried out by operators (dialog work items) or in
the background by the system (background work items).
Dialog work items can only be carried out by employees who have the corresponding organizational authority (possible employees in charge of processing).
The task of the Work Item Manager is to:
process the execution of individual work items (including their
assignment to employees in charge of processing them)
schedule monitoring

Role Decomposition at Run-time

Determining the employees in charge of processing using role decomposition, further limits the number of authorized employees from a business
point of view.
z Role:
Restriction of the
possible agents according
to the organizational model

Customer Names
A-G

FI agent

z Task (definition):
post document
z linked to job:
FI agent
z Role (agent):
posting agent
z role parameters:
Customer
Invoiced amount
z Workitem (activity at runtime):
post document 4712

Customer Names
H-N
Customer Names
O-Z

z Customer - Manley Corp.

Invoiced amount: < $ 50,000

z Invoiced amount $258,300

Invoiced amount : > $ 50,000

Fig. 8-2: Roles

It is critical that information flowing into role decomposition from the workflow environment is always current at run-time.
Additional examples include:
employee responsible for a certain material
sales representative for a certain customer
credit officer for a certain loan amount

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Workflow Execution: SAP Business Workflow Run-time System

Deadline Monitoring by the Run-time System

The run-time system allows you to monitor the deadline for executing work
items and the workflow as a whole. Deadline monitoring is a system function of SAP Business Workflow and is independent of any application functions.
Deadlines (desired start date, latest end date) are always set relative to a
reference point. This reference point can be:
the start time of a workflow or a work item
a date resulting only from the context of the application when the concrete workflow instance is executed (delivery date, latest payment date)

Secondary Methods
Additional information required for processing a work item can be displayed in a separate window, in parallel to actual processing, by means of
secondary methods. This information can consist of, for example, previously
entered original documents.

Fig. 8-3: Extracts From an Archived Document as secondary method

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Workflow Execution: SAP Business Workflow Run-time System

Some decriptions of processing terms:

approve invoice refers to the original invoice
evaluate change in material refers to an engineering drawing
set applicant status refers to applicant documentation

Event Manager
Event Parameters

Events are used to publish status changes in application objects throughout

the system. Events are identified by the object type about which they
communicate something, and by their name. Event parameters contain
information from the context of their creation.
Which responses follow an event is defined outside the standard application.
The consumer of the event can be any appropriate function module delivered by SAP, the customer, or an external supplier.
Events can start tasks (single- or multi-step tasks) or reactivate running
workflows that are waiting for specific events.

Event Manager

The event-consumer link follows a publish-and-subscribe approach:

The event is generated and thereby announced to the event manager
(published). The event-generating object does not need to know anything about potential consumers of the event.
Interested consumers can log into a linkage table (subscribe).
The event manager checks the entries in the linkage table and performs the
assignment.
Generating events for certain status changes of application objects not provided with the SAP standard is easy to do.

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