Testing some of the new features in SAP CRM EhP1, EhP2 and EhP3

As described in my blog post SAP CRM EhP3 Upgrade I recently performed a upgrade of a customer system from SAP CRM 7.0 EhP0 to SAP CRM 7.0 EhP3. In this blog I want to collect the configuration step necessary to enable some of the interesting features available in the SAP CRM EhP0 to EhP3. As my customers mainly are in the utilities sector I'll focus features that are relevant in the utilities sector. However, some of the features should also be relevant across different industries.

Overview

An overview of the enhancement available in the different enhancement packages is available here:

• SAP CRM EhP1: Business Functions for SAP Customer Relationship Management - SAP Library
• SAP CRM EhP2: Business Functions for SAP Customer Relationship Management - SAP Library
• SAP CRM EhP3: Business Functions for SAP Customer Relationship Management - SAP Library

WebUI Framework Enhancements

With EhP1 and EhP2 quite a number of notable enhancements to the WebUI framework as well as usability features where delivered. These enhancements are bundled in the business functions UI_FRW_1_DOCU and UI_FRW_2_DOCU respectively. The list of the enhancements contained in the different business functions are available in the help portal:

1. UI_FRW_1_DOCU contents: UI Framework Documentation - Business Functions for SAP Customer Relationship Management - SAP Library
2. UI_FRW_2_DOCU contents: WebClient UI Framework Documentation - Business Functions for SAP Customer Relationship Management - SAP Library

To enable these business functions use transaction SFW5.

Tab Order Definition

One of the smaller features that improves usability of the web client a lot is the possibility to define tab orders. This functionality is enabled in the personalization settings of the user Personalization ->Personalize Settings -> Tab Order Definition Mode (see screen shot below).

When the tab order definition mode is enabled an additional icon is visible in all overview pages. Clicking on this icon start the tool that enables the definition of the tab orders for each overview page.

As the tab orders are personalization they need to be individually defined per user. However, once a tab order is defined it is stored in table CRMC_PERS_VIEW and can easily be copied to other users. The main issue with tab orders is IMHO that they are only available on overview pages. Consequently it is not possible to define tab orders in IC scenarios (e.g. for the user role UTIL_IC).

The second personalization possible regarding tabs is the exclusion of value helps from tab sequences. This is especially useful in IC scenarios where it is now possible to jump between input field using just tab. Again, this setting is a user dependent personalization stored in table SPERS_OBJ. In contrast to the tab orders it is easily possible to create a global configuration for all users by simply adding the the following values to table SPERS_OBJ:

Navigation for Mandatory Fields

The navigation to mandatory field is a really nice usability improvement, especially combined with an expended message area. With SAP CRM EhP1 clicking on the error message, that is raised when a mandatory field is not filled, automatically positions the cursor in that field. This simplifies the data entry for complex input forms and reduced the need to manually select missing input fields.

Custom Filter for Tables

With the business function UI_FRW_1_DOCU and UI_FRW_2_DOCU quite a few usability features relate to tables in the WebUI are deliverer. One of them is the possibility to define custom filters for the columns of tables in the WebUI. This enables you to filter result tables similar to the filter functionality available in MS Excel.

Context Menus

With SAP CRM EhP1 it is possible to display context menus in BOL trees. While the functionality to define different actions depending on the UI objects in the BOL tree was available in earlier releases, these actions could not be displayed as a context menu but rather as a pop up window. With EhP1 it is now possible to display a context menu inside the BOL tree:

To enable the context menu in the BOL tree two steps are necessary:

1. Enable context menu actions for the BOL tree profile
2. Define context menu action for the UI object types

In order to enable the context menu actions for a tree profile go to SPRO -> Customer Relationship Management -> Industry-Specific Solutions -> Utilities Industry -> Settings for User Interfaces -> General Functions -> Define Object Hierarchy and Object Attributes. Here you simply enable the context menu for the relevant tree profile:

Next you need to define the context menu action in SPRO -> Customer Relationship Management -> Industry-Specific Solutions -> Utilities Industry -> Settings for User Interfaces -> General Functions -> Define Context Menu. The following screen shot shows the context menu customizing for the context menu show above:

BOL Browser & Editor

Prior to EhP1 extending the BOL model was a quite cumbersome task. It required the creation of entries in several costuming tables. With EhP1 the BOL browser (transaction GENIL_MODEL_BROWSER) has been extended into a BOL model editor simplifying the creation of custom BOL models as well as the enhancement of the exiting BOL models. Sumeet Gehlot has written an nice blog demonstrating how to use the BOL editor to create a custom BOL model: Creating a Custom Genil/Bol object Model.

While playing around with the new BOL model browser I noticed another cool feature. The new BOL browser allows to automatically generate UML diagrams for a component or a BOL object. The following screen shot, for example, show the UML diagram for the BOL object IsuDevice in the component ISUMD.

Utilities Data Import Tool

The Utilities Data Import Tool is a tool for importing either account or POD data into the system. This is a scenario quiet common for energy retailers in the B2B domain. In the B2B domain new customers usually request a quotation based on a list of possibly hundreds of PODs not available in the system. Creating these PODs manually in order to enable the creation of a quote is quite cumbersome. The Data Import Tool focuses on exactly this use case by enabling end users to create PODs based on a CSV file containing the PODs.

An example input file for the Data Import Tool could look something like this:

Metering Code;Grid Level;Country;Post Code;City;Street;House Number

DE00014545768S00XXY12304561100001;NS;DE;52159;Roetgen;Hauptstr.;1100

To import this data into the system navigate to Technical Data -> Utilities Data Import Logs. In the next screen click on "New" to create a new data import:

In the first step of the guided procedure you specify the upload file and the upload file format:

Next you create the mapping from the input file format to the target format. Note that these mappings can also contain mapping rules like e.g. constant values. Furthermore, mappings can be stored for later reuse.

Finally, the data import is trigged in step 4. The data import runs in a batch process in the background.

In order to enable this functionality the two business functions CRM_UT_ER_1 and CRM_UT_ER_2 need to be activated using SFW5. The list of the enhancements contained in the different business functions are available in the help portal:

• CRM_UT_ER_1 content: Energy Retailer - Business Functions for SAP Customer Relationship Management - SAP Library
• CRM_UT_ER_2 content: Energy Retailer 2 - Business Functions for SAP Customer Relationship Management - SAP Library.

Next, temporary technical objects need to be activate in the customizing: SPRO -> Customer Relationship Management -> Industry-Specific Solutions -> Utilities Industry -> Technical Objects -> Maintain Settings for Management of Temp. Technical Objects. Here, you simply need to activate the check box "qTO Management active".

In addition to the necessary customizing I also had to implement the following SAP Notes in order to enable the Data Import Tool:

• 1951299 - Adding points of delivery to a premise using the DIT
• 1957672 - ICWC; DIT - Field PD_GRID_ID is not saved in database

Summary

I have only shown some of the new features available in the different enhancement packages for SAP CRM in this blog. I mainly focused on the usability enhancements in the WebUI. Especially for the utilities industry there are quite a few interesting features available that I haven't mentioned in this blog:

• alternative business partner for quotations and contracts at the item level
• the Utilities Check Cockpit (UCC)
• the Check Repository in the process framework
• the Product Modeling for Utilities (PMU) and the Product Finder and Configurator (PFC).

I'll write about those features in a subsequent blog.

Chrisitan