You are on page 1of 23

SAP Business Workflow at a Glance

Ulrich Keil
SAP AG, 06/25/2004

Scope and Motivation Architecture Demo

Future Plans

A Bit of History
Part of SAP basis since R/3 Release 3.0 (pre-historic Version 2.0) First release in conjunction with first release of the business object repository (BOR)

First GA quality release is R/3 3.1


In Release 4.6:
SAP delivers more than 250 ready-to-run workflow templates CRM is first SAP application that fully depends on Workflow An estimated 30% of all SAP customers use SAP Business Workflow Performance: ~150.000 workflow instances per hour

Release 6.10: Major re-design to support UNICODE Release 6.20: Support for ABAP-OO, First integration with XI Release 6.40: Process Engine Redesign, BPE as part of XI

SAP AG 2004, SAP Business Workflow / Ulrich Keil / #

Scope of SAP Business Workflow


SAP Business Workflow covers the classical area of business process engineering. It supports processes across applications, typically within one SAP system. It provides means to: Model business processes graphically (WF-Builder)
Build ready-to-run (execution level) process templates Stability and re-use via a task- and an object repository

Run business processes (WF-Engine)


In a partly or fully automated fashion Supporting user interaction Handling events, deadlines and exceptions Granting transactional behavior regardless of soft- and hardware failures Support high-volume scenarios

Provide monitoring and administration capabilities

SAP AG 2004, SAP Business Workflow / Ulrich Keil / #

Motivation: Why Business Workflow ?

Case study at the City of Phoenix


6th Largest US City 5th busiest Airport worldwide 500,000 Customers 14,000 employees $1.6 Billion revenue 160,000 Invoices 32,000 vendors

SAP AG 2004, SAP Business Workflow / Ulrich Keil / #

Old Manual Invoice Processing


Problem: The process is complicated, error prone and expensive.

SAP AG 2004, SAP Business Workflow / Ulrich Keil / #

Costs caused by process inefficiencies

Costs for inefficient document handling, based on a volume of 12.000 docs per month:
$20 in labor is spent per document to file, retrieve and store. 70% of cost = transportation cost => $168.000 3% of all documents are misfiled. $120 in labor spent locating misfiled docs => $4.300

1 in 20 documents are lost $250 spent recreating a lost document

=> $15.000

$187,300 monthly * 12 = $2.2 million yearly


Source: Coopers & Lybrand / Lawrence Livermore Labs

SAP AG 2004, SAP Business Workflow / Ulrich Keil / #

New Invoice Processing


Incoming invoices go to an optical archive and automatically start a review workflow that initiates the payment.

SAP AG 2004, SAP Business Workflow / Ulrich Keil / #

Metrics Expected vs. Achieved

RESULTS
Reduce validation errors by 50%

3
60%

Reduce the cycle time by two days Reduce the review process time by 50% Reduce lost document research by 30%

Reduce where is the invoice ??? by 75%


Reduce paper by 50% Increase # of discounts taken

SAP AG 2004, SAP Business Workflow / Ulrich Keil / #

Mission and Scope Architecture Demo

Future Plans

Core Components of SAP Business Workflow


High level view of core functional components:

Workflow Modeler
Create and maintain runtime models

Inbox
Base for user interaction

Process Engine
Execute runtime models

Monitoring & Administration


Operational aspects

Common Services
Container, Expressions, Data Binding, Rules, Eventing, Deadline Monitoring,

SAP AG 2004, SAP Business Workflow / Ulrich Keil / #

Relation to other NetWeaver Components


Functional dependencies of Business Workflow with NetWeaver components:
Busines Object Repository
Encapsulate application services Encapsulate application data Event repository

UI Technologies
UWL (Inbox) SAP GUI BSP- and iView- Inbox Groupware Integration

Task Repository
Reusable activities Data and event interface of activities Link to Org.Mgmt Link to Object Repository

Modeler
Engine

Inbox Operational

APIs
Model access Instance access Engine operations Inbox functions Ad hoc functions Eventing
SAP AG 2004, SAP Business Workflow / Ulrich Keil / #

Common Services
Communication
SAP Office (mail) ITS / AS-Webserver (HTTP) XI messaging

Operational
Reporting: LIS / BI Archiving toolkit

Workflow High Level Architecture


External System Portal
Web Services WFXML

SAP GUI UWL Workflow UI

XI IB
BPM Process Builder

UWL UWL User Userinterface interface (iViews, (iViews, WebDynpro) WebDynpro) + Ad hoc workflow

Workflow Builder

Inbox Integration Repository Directory

RFC Remote SAP WF UWL Service APIs Operational

Integration

Application Server / NW04


R
tRFC / qRFC

SAP Business Workflow WF Builder


Runtime Meta Model

Task Repository
Import Single Step Task Multistep Task

Def.Services
XI-BPM-Process BPEL/BPML

HTTP Server

Activation

Import/Export R

Wokflow API

Runtime Meta Model


R

Transport / Versioning R

XI Runtime

WF Engine
Workflow Manager (Flow Execution Control)

Runtime Services
Deadline Handling Conditions

HR Organisational Management

Basis Services

R R

Instance Storage

Dataflow

(Mapping) R

Expressions Workitem Manager (Step Execution Control) R R Container Event Mgr. & Correlations

Business Object Repository


Business Object Business Object Business Object

Event API
R

SAP Applications
SAP AG 2004, SAP Business Workflow / Ulrich Keil / #

Selected Features (1) Execution Model


The workflow manager Interprets the process and determines Canceled model Error the next step(s) to execute Handles control data binding Waiting Ready flow and Started Completed Ensures transactional behavior on flow level
Selected

Committed

The workitem manager WF Application Starts methods, passes control to the Context WF application change (tRFC) WF Processes method results Application Evaluates pre- and post conditions WF Ensures transactional behavior on step level Application WF

SAP AG 2004, SAP Business Workflow / Ulrich Keil / #

Selected Features (2) Workflow Service Model


Business Workflow uses Business Objects (BOs) as generic interface to SAP Applications. BOs may be defined in the BOR or as persistent ABAP objects (Rel. 6.20). Operations are encapsulated by BO methods Data is encapsulated as BO attributes Events are declared as special components of a BO

The workflow system accesses application functionality only via the object layer, to ensure long-term stability of workflow processes.

SAP AG 2004, SAP Business Workflow / Ulrich Keil / #

Selected Features (3) - Cross System Workflow

Support for cross-system business processes:


Between SAP systems:
RFC (raise events with non-initial logical destination) Replicated process definitions (remote work items)

Between workflow systems


Using WF-XML. This standard defines control commands (start, stop, get_status, ) understood by compliant workflow systems. The transport layer uses XML-messages over HTTP.

To and from systems supporting web service calls.


Workflow tasks can be exposed as web services.

A proprietary call- and result handler component manages asynchonous calls.

=> Tight coupling, proprietary implementation


SAP AG 2004, SAP Business Workflow / Ulrich Keil / #

Selected Features (4) XI Integration

In NW04, workflow and XI integration engine co-operate on an adapter level and, via a small set of XI services.
To dispatch a message to a ccBPM process (message-to-event bridge):
A process adapter is called by the XI pipeline. The adapter raises a workflow event associated to the message type. Event manager uses a flexible correlation mechanism to dispatch the event to a process (instance) registered as listener for that event.

The workflow engine invokes XI services to send a message (implemented as a sub- workflow) and to access mapping and receiver determination (single step tasks).

Automatically generated Message proxy objects are used to access payload and header of XI messages from within a workflow.

SAP AG 2004, SAP Business Workflow / Ulrich Keil / #

Mission and Scope Architecture Demo

Future Plans

Demo
We will create a simple workflow to create and approve a leave of absence request. This will serve as a tour through the most prominent components of SAP Business Workflow: Workflow Builder Workflow Log

Workflow Inbox

SAP AG 2004, SAP Business Workflow / Ulrich Keil / #

Mission and Scope Architecture Demo

Future Plans

Future Plans from Spring 1999

Translation hints: Portal should read XI Infrastructure, WebFlow = Business Workflow

In Short: We want to support distributed peer-to-peer processes.

SAP AG 2004, SAP Business Workflow / Ulrich Keil / #

From Business Workflow to a BPM Infrastructure


With NW05, the workflow system assumes the role of a central process infrastructure. This poses a set of new requirements: Extended support for distributed peer-to-peer business processes

New execution models must be supported (ccBPM, GP,)


Robust and powerful API for ad hoc changes of a business process

These requirements translate into architecture requirements for the existing workflow system.

SAP AG 2004, SAP Business Workflow / Ulrich Keil / #

Roadmap for Business Workflow

Architecture tasks ahead:


Move from HR-task repository on to:
ESI infrastructure to consume and expose services

MOM (Master org. management) to handle user assignments

Move from a workflow engine to a process engine as platform for process oriented applications (workflow, ccBPM, GP, VIP,).
Persistence and transactional behavior are configurable properties of a process model Engine-owned execution model with full API Support other execution paradigms, e.g. rule based, state driven, etc. High performance integration with the XI integration engine Serialization of process instances (migration, load balancing, ...)

Expose re-usable service components, in particular: Eventing, Rule Repository and Deadline handling

SAP AG 2004, SAP Business Workflow / Ulrich Keil / #

You might also like