In this blog post series you will follow as I show you the steps for creating your own Situation Handling use case. You will experience the power and freedom you get when you combine developer extensibility with key user extensibility. The first blog post introduced the use case, the 3-system landscape and the part of developer extensibility. The second blog post followed up with the first part of key-user extensibility from the perspective of an extensibility specialist. This third and final blog post deals with the second part of key-user extensibility from the perspective of a business process configuration expert. It shows how the business user experiences situation instances and monitoring of activities.
Next you will use the situation scenario in a situation template.
Create a situation template using key user extensibility
Now continue as Business Process Configuration Expert with the role SAP_BR_BPC_EXPERT. Again, log in to client 100 in the development system. Open the Manage Situation Types - Extended app.
When you choose Create, a combo box appears and you select Create Situation Template. In the popup that follows you enter an ID, such as YY1_CC_BUDGET_THRESHOLD_TEMP_2, and a description. Under Situation Scenario, you reference the previously created scenario and choose Create.
Under Situation Triggers in the subsection Batch-Based Triggers, choose Add and select the previously created trigger, such as the periodical budget check. On the respective page, start by defining the conditions under which a situation is created.
You do this under Conditions by selecting the first item and choosing Edit in the Filters column.
In general, you want to create a situation if the budget consumption is greater than 75%, so you set the condition for the field accordingly and choose OK.
Next come the message texts. In the situation display you select the first item choose Edit. In the text you choose the cost center, g/l account group, and the budget consumption as variables to be shown. You also need to select no aggregation.
The last step in this section is the reference to the previously defined action. Under Navigation Actions, choose Add and select the previously created action, that is, Analyze Cost Center Budget. Choose Apply to finish the Trigger section.
Next, schedule start of the batch run, as required.
As the final step, add a team in the Recipients section.
When you choose Create, your situation template is ready to use.
Finally, you use this situation template to create a specialized situation type.
Create a situation type using key user extensibility
You remain as you are in the Manage Situation Types – Extended app.
When you choose Create, a dialog box appears and you are prompted to select Create Situation Type, enter an ID, such a YY1_CC_BUDGET_THRESHOLD_1010_2, and a description. Under situation scenario, you reference the previously created scenario, YY1_CC_BUDGET_CONTROL_2 and template, YY1_CC_BUDGET_THRESHOLD_TEMP_2. Choose Create.
Your situation type will be a specialized version of the situation template because it includes only a certain company code. This happens in the Situation Trigger / Batch-Based Trigger section by navigating to the Trigger page for the periodical budget check. You simply edit your existing condition by adding a value for the company code.
You can leave the rest as defined by the template. When you choose Create button, your situation type is ready to use. Let’s have a look at the conditions for situation template and situation type.
Now you’re probably eager to see how situations show up for a business user.
Experiencing your situation type as a business user
After the batch run of the situation type has taken place, one or more situation instances are created. You can check this on the manage instances page of your situation type.
Now switch to Sarah logging in as an overhead accountant. You immediately see the red bubble on the ring symbol and by clicking on it the notification on the situation pops up.
Clicking on the notification takes you to the My Situations – Extended app. If an error message comes up, the overhead accountant might not have the role SAP_BR_EMPLOYEE. The administrator can easily fix this. The My Situations – Extended app shows the messages you have defined, and you can check whether the parameter values are correct.
Next, choose Assign to Me, assuming that Sarah wants to deal with the situation. The status changes to In Progress and the processor is shown.
Now choose Analyze Cost Center Budget, which takes you to the Cost Center Budget Report app. You can check to ensure that the filter parameters contain the right values, focusing on the budget component that needs attention.
From there, go back to the My Situations – Extended app and assume that Sarah has solved the situation. Choose Close Situation and select Resolved as the reason for closing.
Monitoring your situation type as a key user
For the last test, log in as a business process configuration expert again. This time open the Monitor Situations - Extended app. In the filter field for situation type ID, enter the ID of the previously created type, YY1_CC_BUDGET_THRESHOLD_1010_2 and choose Go.
The chart shows three activities, and the table shows a grouped entry for the respective type.
You extend the row by clicking on the chevron symbol.
You can verify that activities create, assign, and close a situation instance have been tracked.
Now that you’ve gone from creating a custom CDS view as a developer to analyzing situation data as a key user it’s time for …
A short summary of creating a Situation Handling use-case in a 3-system landscape
The key take-away for you is that the developer extensibility available in 3-system landscapes (3SL) increases your options for creating new Situation Handling use-cases. Key user extensibility alone already provides a huge amount of freedom within the extended framework of Situation Handling. Combined with developer extensibility the possibilities are nearly endless, only limited by the number of public SAP APIs released by SAP with a C1 contract for use in for ABAP Cloud development.
You started the journey as a developer to create a custom CDS view based on a public SAP API with standard source code to aggregate line items and calculate a consumption ratio. As an extensibility specialist you used this CDS view to create a situation object which represents the budget consumption. Then, based on this object you built a situation scenario which defined how a situation is triggered and which actions are provided to the user. As a business process configuration expert, you took this scenario to create a situation template that defines the general conditions for creating a situation, which messages should be shown, and who should be informed. Finally, from this template you set up and enabled a specialized situation type to which you added further conditions.
Finally, you saw how the life of our overhead accountant Sarah has improved by being informed about cost center budgets that need her attention. Again, as a business process configuration expert you got a glimpse of how the Monitor Situations – Extended app could help you to analyze the behavior of the Situation Handling framework and the business process as such.
What you have seen is likewise possible with the public and the private flavor of SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
Want to learn more or refresh your knowledge on Situation Handling?
More blog posts about Situation Handling are available:
- Custom Situation Cases: Configure your own use cases (1/6)
- The Power of Reuse – Custom Situation Configuration
- Fine-Tuning Custom Situations: Closing Behavior of Situation Instances
- Fine-Tuning of Custom Situations: Configure the Layout of My Situations – Extended
- Custom Situation Handling Use Case for Professional Services: Unstaffed Resource Requests
- Monitor Your Custom Situations
For more information, see SAP Help Portal for Situation Handling – Extended Framework for SAP S/4HANA and SAP Community for Intelligent Situation Handling. We welcome your valuable feedback
- SAP Managed Tags:
