Currently one of our current customers is setting up a new interface between SAP ECC and a third party solution, where as a result purchase requisitions are transferred to SAP SRM. The side effect of this process in earlier releases of SAP SRM, is that workflows aren’t available for purchase requisitions which are transferred to SRM. The shopping carts created for these purchase requisitions are set immediately to an ordered status without any approval workflows.
This reminded me, that although Compera has been focusing on awesome new functionalities of SAP Ariba lately, it doesn’t mean that SAP isn’t still developing new features for SRM 7. For this particular example, SAP introduced the option to approve the transferred purchase requisition in SRM with EhP 3 last year. These releases come through notes, in this case note 2258525, or are made available through (upcoming) support packs.
These new functionalities are often results of the customer influence program from SAP. There is even a roadmap for SAP SRM, including new and optimized Fiori apps and the User Interface Add-On . It incorporates large improvements such as the Invoicing Payment Plans, which I discussed in one of my previous blogs, but also small improvements, such as optimizing the user experience and the performance of the User Interface Add-On.
Interesting new features amongst others is the Extension of the team shopping cart functionality within the User Interface Add-On, the Confirmation Approval Fiori App and an Import and Export functionality for shopping carts.
Extension of the team shopping cart functionality within the User Interface Add-On
Currently isn’t possible to take over team shopping carts by team substitutes when the status is of the shopping cart is ‘Awaiting approval’. Adjusted work items are only sent to the document owner, which is the requester who ordered the shopping cart.
This has been resolved by introducing the ‘Take Over’ button, which can be activated through a new customizing switch.
Note this functionality has been made available within the Web Dynpro shopping cart also and can be implemented without a support pack.
The Fiori app Confirmation Approval
Your business expects that all approval tasks, such as shopping carts and purchase orders, are supported on a mobile device through your Fiori Lauchpad. For confirmations however this wasn’t possible.
Until now, because from EhP3 SP14 and EhP4 SP6 the transactional Fiori app Confirmation Approval, approvers can view the confirmation work items and approve or reject the document. If necessary, work items which are in status ‘Awaiting Approval’, can be forwarded to a different employee for further processing!
Import and Export functionality for shopping carts
This functionality provides offline availability of shopping carts. It allows the user to easily add, edit, and delete data locally through Microsoft Excel and then import the changes to the document in the SRM system. This helpful when you create large shopping carts, where you are using different account assignment data for example. You don’t have to go through different tabs per item, which is much more efficient.
But did you know that Compera offers an upload functionality for shopping carts, without creating a shopping cart first in SAP SRM?
If you want to know more about this upload functionality or how you can implement the functionalities from the customer influence program for SAP SRM 7, please contact Compera for more information. And by the way; Compera is SAP Ariba partner.[:]