Debugging SAP CRM for functional people

During all my projects, I have found out that many people (technical and functional people) struggle with debugging in SAP CRM. Debugging can be very helpfull to quickly find a problem or understand they way SAP CRM is working. I have decided to make a training for functional people to learn them basic principle’s of efficient debugging within SAP CRM.

Debugging for Fuco’s Training

Setup Webchannel Experience Management 20 with SAP CRM

Introduction WCEM 2.0

SAP released a new E-Commerce solution based on SAP backend systems (SAP ECC and SAP CRM). This new solution is called SAP Web Channel Experience Management. It supports end-to-end processes for E-Commerce, E-Marketing, E-Service, Web Channel Analytics as well as a robust and easily extensible Web Channel platform.

It is very difficult to compare this solution with the old solution, because basically everything is different. The main differences from my point of view are:

• There is no separate solution for B2B and B2C anymore
• There is no separate solution for E-Sales, E-Service and E-Marketing anymore
• The available features are up-to-date (product review available, stock indicators)
• The technology used is up-to-date
• A very nice out-of-the-box look & feel

In the current release WCEM 2.0, I miss some functionality:

• Product catalog views
  It is not possible to assign a part of the catalog to one of more customer’s. We have however managed to solve this on an almost standard way.
• Supporting variant configuration
• A real B2B logon scenario
  In the standard B2B solution you can see all information and order only after logon. This is not a real B2B scenario where you have to logon before you can see any information

I had the opportunity to work on a rampup project for WCEM 2.0. There is a lot of information regarding this functionality and the needed setup. However there is also missing a lot of useful information, especially regarding the use and setup of SAP MDM.

Overview available knowledge platforms for WCEM

This is an overview of the information which I think is the most useful. Especially the ‘Live Expert Session Recordings’ are really needed for your understanding.

Solution Community Network
http://scn.sap.com/community/crm/web-channel

Wiki Page
http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/CRM/SAP+Web+Channel+Experience+Management

Live Expert Session Recordings (OSS user needed)
http://service.sap.com/~form/sapnet?_SCENARIO=01100035870000000112&_SHORTKEY=01100035870000750892&_OBJECT=011000358700000872402012E&

SAP Help
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_wec200/helpdata/en/c0/806565bd9b43de97e2fa219e19e927/frameset.htm

Rampup Knowledge Transfer (OSS user needed)
https://websmp108.sap-ag.de/~form/sapnet?_SHORTKEY=01100035870000744945&

Installation / Configuration and Development guides
https://websmp204.sap-ag.de/~form/sapnet?_SHORTKEY=01100035870000746737&_SCENARIO=01100035870000000202&

 

Select recommended scenario for your business

The first step is to define the scenario which should be supported. Use the mentioned wiki page (in the knowledge overview)  to check the differences between these scenarios:

SAP delivers this solution for three different scenarios:

• Multi Channel Catalog (based on SAP MDM) with SAP CRM backend
  In this case the full functionality can be used for E-Sales, E-Service and E-Marketing.
• Multi Channel Catalog (based on SAP MDM) with SAP ERP backend
  In this case only the E-Sales functionality will be available and SAP PI is needed for the interaction between SAP ECC and SAP MDM
• TREX Search Engine with SAP ERP backend (from WCEM 2.0)
  In this case only the E-Sales functionality will be available and only limited functionality can be used like only the area mode of the product catalog.

I will give some more inside in the setup of WCEM using the SAP CRM with SAP MDM scenario. Check this document for more information.

Frequently used transaction codes and Entity Relationship Diagrams

After SAP introduces the new WebUI, some of the transactions used in the SAP GUI where not visible anymore. The reason for this is that these transactions are not longer supported in the SAP GUI but only in the new WebUI. However sometimes it is handy to check the functionality and screens in the SAP GUI. For this reason I have made an overview of transaction codes available in the SAP GUI.

SAP CRM contains many tables and relationships between these tables. I have posted a message before, how you can find these tables and relationships. As a good starting point I have made an overview of tables and relationship which are used an a frequent basis.

For an overview of transactions and tables relations click here

Click here for another overview of most used SAP CRM tables

Transporting non transportable data

It might happen that some customizing or master data cannot be transported. For example the organizational model, marketing attributes, the category modeler or the availability and response times (transaction CRMD_SERV_SLA) are examples of data which is not included in a transport request by default.

These setting should be manually added in a new client or system. But this can be very time consuming (in the case of organizational model it is even not recommended to do this manually). There are several options to transport this kind of data:

• Check if you can make a transport request using the menu options(only possible in SAP GUI)
• Check in SAP CRM if there are transactions available for transporting data.
  For example marketing attributes can be transported with transaction CRMD_MKT_TOOLS
• Check if there are oss notes available which explains how to transport data
  For example oss explains that organizational models can be transported with program RHMOVE30
• Check sdn or google to find programs which can be used for transporting the specific object
  For example the category modeler can be transported with program  CRM_ERMS_CAT_AS_IMPORT
• If there are no options left it is possible to transport the tables which contains the setup.
  You need to be sure if you have included all related tables in this transport otherwise the system can get corrupt.
  For example to transport the availability and response times you can transport tables: CRMD_ESCAL, CRMD_ESCAL_REC, CRMD_ESCAL_RECNO, CRMD_ESCAL_T, CRMD_SERWI, CRMD_SERWI_T

For an explanation how to transport tables using following link: http://www.freesaptutorial.com/transporting-table-entries-from-one-client-to-another-client/

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Using the XIF adapter in SAP CRM

The XIF adapter presented in SAP can be used to easily communicate between SAP and non SAP systems. There are many other possibilities to communicate between SAP and non SAP systems, but in some case this technic offered by SAP can be used to quickly setup an integration solution.

This functionality can be used for inbound and outbound processing (Asynchronous). For inbound processing an IDOC, flatfile or XML message can be send to the XIF adapter. For outbound processing a XML message is created by the XIF adapter. The XIF adapter will convert the message to a BDOC in SAP CRM and than the standard process is used to create business partners, transactions etc.

I have included a full example of setting up the XIF adapter for transaction processing. This is both for inbound and outbound processing and based on the order type (additional customizing is needed for this) the order is send to the connected SAP ECC system or to the external non SAP system.

http://gstolmeijer.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/customizing-interfacing-using-xif-adapter.pdf

Creating and changing transactions using BAPI’s in CRM

In some cases you want to create transaction’s (like a quotation or an order) using programming and not using the standard UI. This is for example relevant in case you want to upload or migrate data from an external system into SAP CRM. There are several possibilities for migrating data:

• Using LSMW
• Using the XIF adapter (maybe I will write an article on this one also)
• Using the data workbench of SAP
• Using a special service offering from SAP called LSO
• Using custom programming

Because we needed a very good performance, we have choosen to upoad data using custom programming. However during the development of the upload program we encounter some challanges in using the standard available BAPIi’s in SAP CRM. The documentation around these BAPI’s is very limited and also on SDN we could not find all answers. We finally managed to create transaction’s with:

• A specific transaction type
• Two different business partner’s
• A valid from and to date
• Some reference fields

Especially the business partners and the validity date where very challanging. We have used BAPI_SLSTRANSACT_CREATEMULTI for creating the transaction and CRM_ORDER_MAINTAIN for changing the transaction.

The final program is included in this post:

http://gstolmeijer.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/z_crm_upload-example.pdf