How Business Transaction Process becomes easy with SAP CRM

What is a Business Transaction?

• Business Processes in SAP CRM:

• For various processes of a company, business transaction provides business structure and the functions that can be used. Thus a business transaction in SAP CRM represents business interaction of your organization with various business partners
• It enables to use the same interface and processing concepts across the business processes
• It is possible to use various components of the business transactions repeatedly
• Within one transaction items can be entered from different business contexts
• Independent of the Business transaction type, the look and feel of different business transactions in SAP CRM is always similar

  Structure of Transactions

• Any company specific business processes can be flexibly controlled and managed with the Business Transactions in SAP CRM.
• SPRO path -> Customer Relationship Management -> Transactions -> Basic Settings

SPRO path for Business Transaction configuration

• A business transaction in SAP CRM consists of a leading business transaction category.
• Structure of CRM business transaction depends up on leading business transaction category.
• CRM business transaction consists of the header level and the item level (Fig. 2 & Fig. 3).

Header (General) and Item Data representation in a Business Transaction

Header (General) and Item Data representation in a Business Transaction

Transaction Types Item Categories and Category Description

• Transaction Type structure:

• A transaction type defines:
  • attributes
  • characteristics
  • controlling attributes
• In SAP CRM business transaction processing is controlled by a transaction type
• The leading business transaction category in an transaction type controls:
  • specific settings that can be applied on a lower level
  • other business transactions categories to which it could be assigned
  • detailed control of the transaction
• The properties and attributes of a business transaction item are specified by an item category.
• Item category controls how the item is processed.

• First an item category needs to be assigned to an item object type that defines the business context in which an item category is used.

• Similar to transaction types, an item category can be assigned to one or more business transaction categories.
• Specific settings applied to item categories on a lower level depend upon the leading item category (object type).
• In SAP CRM, for processing business transactions, default item categories need to be defined per business transaction category, and item category group.
• Also, it is possible to define alternative item categories which can be entered manually for system default.

• Item Category determination depends upon:
  • Transaction Type
  • Item Category Group
  • Item Category Usage
  • Main Item Category
• Item Category Group is a field in the product master.
• Item Category Usage comes from the programming logic.

  Copy Transaction or Follow up transaction

• A follow-up transaction represents the next business transaction in the current business process
  • For example, from a released Sales Contract, Sales Orders can be created.
  • Thus in this case, Sales Order is viewed as a follow-up document for the Sales Contract
• Also, a business transaction can be copied to create another transaction of same business transaction type
  • For example, a sales order can be copied to create another sales order
• From an existing business transaction it is possible to create a copy or to create a follow up transaction.
• In case, a business transaction is copied:
• transaction type is same
  • header and item data is copied
  • transaction history is not updated
  • no relation to the source transaction is maintained
• In case, a follow up transaction is created from a business transaction:
  • it is possible to configure the transaction type for the follow-up transaction
  • header data is copied
  • you can select items
  • transaction history is updated
  • for this copy control setting should be maintained
  • this flow can be seen in the Transaction History assignment block

Transaction History assignment block of a business transaction[

• Following are the required settings in the copy control settings:
  • Copy control for transaction types
  • Copy control for item categories
  • Settings for target transaction type are maintained
  • Determination of the item category during the copy (optional)
  • Implementation of CRM_COPY_BADI (optional)
• In SAP CRM BAdI definition CRM_COPY_BADI is provided for implementation to write your own data transfer routines.
• You can access the interlink-age between business transactions at header and item level through the transaction history data.
• SAP CRM also provides option Subsequent Referencing, where you can link an activity while it is being created to an existing activity.
• This will make the new transaction a follow up to the existing one (Fig. 4).

  Basic Functions in Business Transactions

• Basic functions in Business Transactions:
  • Text Determination
  • Date Management
  • Status Management
  • Incompleteness Check
  • Partner Processing
  • Action Processing
  • Pricing
• For each business transaction in SAP CRM it is possible to maintain different notes.

• As per the requirement, it is possible to combine a number of text types in the text determination procedure.

• Text determination procedures are used in the business transactions for different relevant texts in the transaction.
• CRM Web UI provides assignment blocks to
  • Create a new text with a particular text type.
  • Display the text in the business transaction
  • Modify the particular text
• With date management it is possible to process the dates that are relevant for the business transaction.
• It consists of:
  • Date type
  • Date rule
  • Duration
  • Date Profile

• This date management system also supports conversion of saved dates to user time zones and considering the factory calendar in business transaction.

• Dates in a business transaction can be entered manually or can be calculated by the system using the date rules.

• Dates in a business transaction can be entered manually or can be calculated by the system using the date rules.

• Status management Allows maintaining user statuses in a status profile for business transactions.
• It consists of status profile which is assigned to a business transaction.
• If status profile is not assigned to business transactions type/item categories, system statuses are displayed in the application.

• Following can be defined in a status profile:
  • Activation sequence of user statuses
  • An initial status/start status
  • Set transaction status connected with user status

    Activity Management

• Activity management is an example of the business transactions in the SAP CRM.
• An activity represents an activity performed by an employee in the organization
• It also covers the scenario where there is an interaction of the employee with a particular business partner involved in the business transaction
• Activities can be linked as follow-up documents to various business transactions like Sales Order, Service Order, etc., provided as part of difference CRM modules like Sales, Marketing and Services
• Technically –
  • Information about interaction with the business partner on a particular date is contained by a Business Activity
  • Information about activities that one or more employee has to complete by a particular date is contained by a Task
• SAP CRM provides different type of activities to cover different channels of communication with the business partners involved in the business transactions
• Types of activity:

• Similar to the other business transaction types, activities contains data related to the processing of the involved business process for example the interaction with a business partner involved in the business transaction
• Structure of activities: