Everything you need to know about SAP’s new CRM product: C/4HANA

SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) today fulfilled its ambition to disrupt the marketplace for customer relationship management (CRM) with the formal introduction of a new suite of applications, SAP C/4HANA, to help businesses serve and retain customers. SAP also announced the SAP HANA Data Management Suite, the industry’s first comprehensive data management solution that enables companies to turn data sprawl into business value.

The announcement was made by SAP CEO Bill McDermott at the company’s annual SAPPHIRE NOW conference.

SAP C/4HANA is an integrated offering designed to modernize the sales-only focus of legacy CRM solutions. Following the completed acquisitions of market leaders Hybris, Gigya and CallidusCloud, SAP now ties together solutions to support all front-office functions, such as consumer data protection, marketing, commerce, sales and customer service.

“SAP was the last to accept the status quo of CRM and is now the first to change it,” McDermott said. “The legacy CRM systems are all about sales; SAP C/4HANA is all about the consumer. We recognize that every part of a business needs to be focused on a single view of the consumer. When you connect all SAP applications together in an intelligent cloud suite, the demand chain directly fuels the behaviors of the supply chain.”

Building on the company’s reputation as an end-to-end business solutions provider, the new SAP C/4HANA suite will offer full integration with SAP’s business applications portfolio, led by its market-leading ERP suite, SAP S/4HANA. The combination of assets features new machine learning capabilities from SAP Leonardo, a set of intelligent technologies the company introduced last year, as well as the new SAP HANA Data Management Suite, which enables companies to gain visibility and control of their highly distributed data. The company’s overall strategy, focused on helping businesses run as intelligent enterprises, highlights the demand for a balanced approach to automation in the workplace.

Expanding its customer service solutions offerings, SAP also announced it has acquired Switzerland-based Coresystems FSM AG to improve field-service customer experience, especially in the manufacturing, energy, high-tech and telecommunications industries. Coresystems’ platform service provides real-time scheduling for customer-service requests and uses artificial intelligence-powered crowd-service technology. This  broadens the service technician pool to include company employees, freelancers and industry partners to assign the best-qualified technician to each call by taking into account expertise, location and availability of the individual service expert.

These announcements come on the heels of Europe’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which took effect on May 25. The massive regulatory change has caused businesses to take a critical look at their legacy CRM investments.

Managing Data to Reach Customers

All systems rely on data, yet the challenge facing companies today is distributed data — data that is not just in transactional systems but scattered across products, machines and people. It is about data that must be ingested, prepared and made enterprise relevant. SAP HANA Data Management Suite enables enterprises to turn massive amounts of data — both structured and unstructured — into valuable, usable knowledge, no matter where it resides. SAP HANA Data Management Suite allows customers to maximize the potential of their data safely, simply and efficiently.

More About SAP C/4HANA

The SAP C/4HANA portfolio includes SAP Marketing Cloud, SAP Commerce Cloud, SAP Service Cloud, SAP Customer Data Cloud (including the acquired Gigya solutions) and SAP Sales Cloud (including the acquired CallidusCloud solutions). Additionally, SAP Sales Cloud unites the SAP Hybris Revenue Cloud solution and SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer (comprised of SAP Hybris Sales Cloud and SAP Hybris Service Cloud solutions).

These cloud solutions — formerly on the market under the SAP Hybris brand name — as well as SAP’s commerce and customer engagement organization are now consolidated under the SAP Customer Experience business unit to support a consistent brand experience.

Improve customer engagement with Facebook advertising in Hybris Marketing Cloud

As a marketer one of your objectives can be to improve your customer engagement with Facebook advertising. What if you could select your best customers and create a target audience that is based on these customers and also represent people who show similar behavior? And what if you could deliver only relevant messages to this target audience to improve brand awareness, reach, lead generation and conversion?

Paid advertising on Facebook is one of the most immediate ways to impact the reach of your content. Most advertisers understand the real value of Facebook Advertising as a way to generate traffic and real business value. More than 42% of marketers report that Facebook is critical or important to their business.

Some figures:

• Over two billion people use Facebook and over 700 million use Instagram every month.
• Over 1.3 billion people on average log onto Facebook daily and are considered daily active users
• 1 of every 5 minutes people spend on mobile is on Facebook or Instagram.

What are Facebook ads?

Facebook ads are paid messages from businesses that are written in their voice and help reach the people who matter most to them. Advertisers create campaigns that have specific goals, which we call advertising objectives, and they create ads within those campaigns to help them reach those objectives.

For example, a business may create a campaign because they want to get more people to visit their website or webshop. When they create ads within that specific campaign, they’ll choose images, text and an audience that they think will help them get that increase in visitors.

The following objectives are available within Facebook:

• Awareness: Objectives that generate interest in your product or service
• Consideration: Objectives that get people to start thinking about your business and look for more information about it.
• Conversions: Objectives that encourage people interested in your business to purchase or use your product or service.

How to target the right people?

To target the people who are right for your business, you can use the information that is available about your customer(s), such as interests and behaviours, to choose your audience on Facebook.

In Hybris Marketing Cloud it is possible to select your best customers as a target audience and upload them to a Custom Audience in Facebook. Custom Audiences in Facebook help you find your existing customers and contacts on Facebook. Connecting with the people on Facebook who you are already connected to, can help you improve relationships and drive sales.

Furthermore, after you have created a Custom Audience in Facebook, you can also create a Lookalike Audience based on that. Lookalike Audiences helps you find people on Facebook who are similar to your customers or contacts. It uses the insights you’ve gained from your Facebook marketing and increases your chances of reaching people who might be interested in your business.

How do you setup a Facebook Campaign in Hybris Marketing Cloud?

Let’s say that you are a wintersports company that wants to do a Facebook advertising wintersale campaign on last year’s snowboard collection. For this, you have to carry out the following steps in Hybris Marketing Cloud:

1. Plan your Facebook advertising campaign
2. Build your Facebook advertising campaign by selecting your target audience and creating the Facebook ads campaign
3. Execute your Facebook advertising campaign by uploading your target audience to Facebook and creating your ad in Facebook
4. Monitor and adjust your Facebook advertising campaign to maximize results

* Prerequisite: You already own a Facebook Business Manager account with Facebook and have setup the integration between Hybris Marketing Cloud and Facebook for authentication purposes.

1. Plan your Facebook advertising campaign

Use the Hybris Marketing Cloud Marketing Calendar to plan your campaign at the right time by choosing a timeframe and filter to view which campaigns are currently active and which are planned in the future.

2. Build your Facebook advertising campaign

Select your target audience for the Facebook advertising campaign by selecting your best customers in Hybris Marketing Cloud via the Profile Dashboard.

In the Profile Dashboard you can analyze contact data to determine the interests of certain groups of contacts, the sentiments related to these interests, and the channels in which the contacts are active. You can also directly create Target Groups or Segmentation Models from within the Profile Dashboard.

Select your target audience by choosing a specific Timeframe (Q3-Q4 2017), Country (Germany), Interest (‘Snowboarding’ for our wintersale) and preferred communication channel (Social).

Now you have selected your target audience, you can create a target group. Choose the ‘Create Target Group icon on the right top of the screen to create the target group for your Facebook advertising campaign (for example ‘WINTERSALE_FB_TG’).

Choose ‘Save and Open’ to go to your created Target Group and ‘Release’ it.

Now, you want to create the Facebook Campaign in Hybris Marketing Cloud to send your selected target audience (Target Group) to Facebook as a Custom Audience. Go to the ‘Campaigns’ app, select ‘Create’ and choose ‘Facebook Campaign’ as campaign type.

Define a name and description (Wintersale Facebook Campaign) for your Facebook advertising campaign and select Facebook ads as Category. Also, select the previously created Target group ‘WINTERSALE_FB_TG’ and choose ‘Create’.

The flow-based campaign designer is opened and here it is possible to maintain general details for the Facebook advertising campaign, such as Schedule time (Immediate) and Frequency (Recurring), Media type (Social), Priority (High), Interests and Tags.

After the general settings we choose the Facebook campaign action block in the flow-based campaign designer to choose the Facebook advertiser account we want to use and our Objective for this campaign (Reach).

Choose ‘Authenticate’ to authenticate yourself with Facebook.

After a few seconds, authentication with Facebook Ads is carried out successfully.

Choose ‘Done’ to close the flow-based campaign designer.

3. Execute your Facebook advertising campaign

Choose ‘Start’ to execute the campaign and send your target audience to Facebook to create a Custom Audience for your Facebook Ads campaign.

How does this work?

Facebook users are identified by email addresses or phone numbers. Before the transfer to Facebook, data is hashed (one-way encrypted) so that personal data can not be traced. This is also in the context of the new GDPR privacy law which will be effective as from May 2018. In Facebook the hashed values are matched to known email addresses and telephone numbers and corresponding Facebook users are added to the Custom Audience.

Go to Facebook by clicking on the ‘Custom Audience on Facebook’ or ‘Campaign on Facebook’ tile in the campaign and login with your business manager account. Check if your just uploaded target audience is created as Custom Audience ‘WINTERSALE_FB_TG’ in Facebook Ads.

Within this section it is also possible to create Lookalike Audience(s) in Facebook, based on the Custom Audience.Now, we want to create our Facebook ad. Therefore go to the Ads Manager via the Facebook menu and choose ‘Use existing campaign’ to select the just created ‘Wintersale Facebook campaign’.

Within the Ad configuration, section Ad set, you choose the created Custom Audience ‘WINTERSALE_FB_TG’. If created, it is also possible to select the Lookalike Audience(s) and you can select the Location(s) to show your Facebook Ad.

Final step of Ad creation is creating the Ad which will be shown in Facebook.
It is possible to add only text or also use photo or video content. After your satisfied on how the Ad looks in the preview, you choose ‘Confirm’ to start the Facebook Advertising Campaign in Facebook.

Monitor and adjust your Facebook Advertising Campaign

While your Facebook Ad campaign is running or after it has finished, it is possible to check the success within the campaign. Therefore go to the ‘Success’ tab in the specific Facebook Advertising campaign to check the KPI’s such as: Reach, Impressions, Likes and Costs and use this information to improve the results of your campaigns.
It is also possible to view the pre-delivered Facebook campaign operational report ‘Campaign Success for Facebook’ in SAP Analytics Cloud to analyze multiple campaigns at once. This report is available via button ‘Analyze’ in Campaign app.

Enjoy creating your own Facebook Advertising campaigns in Hybris Marketing Cloud and stay tuned for more on building and executing highly effective marketing campaigns in Hybris Marketing Cloud.

Hybris Marketing Content Studio: Not able to create Email Templates, Emails, Confirmations and Text Messages

The Hybris Marketing Content Studio does allow to create Landing Pages only but no Emails, Confirmations, Email Templates and Text Messages.

Reproducing the Issue

1. Log on to Fiori Launchpad in Hybris Marketing or S/4 Hana Marketing Cloud environment.
2. Open the Content Studio App.
3. There is Landing Pages Content available but no Emails, Confirmations, Email Templates, nor Text Messages.
4. Creating new Content does allow to created Langing Pages only. There is no option to create Emails, Confirmations, Email Templates, nor Text Messages.
   

Cause

There is some Campaign Communications related Configuration missing. Emails and Text Messages require a Sender Profile to be sent out – if there is no Sender Profile available in the System the option to create Email Content and Text Messages is not available.

Resolution

SAP Hybris Marketing On-Premise Installation:

1. Maintain connection to the Email or Text Message Provider in the Provider Configuration using the following Customizing path:

   SAP Hybris Marketing > Campaigns > Campaign > Define Provider Configuration

2. Create a Sender Profile for the Provider Configuration using the following Customizing path:

   SAP Hybris Marketing > Campaigns > Campaign > Define Sender Profile

For testing the configuration there is the check report CUAN_MKT_EXEC_CHECK_CONFIG available. Further information about the test report and how to handle the check result is available with the following SAP note: 2375193 – Errorhandling of campaign execution issues

S/4HANA Marketing Cloud:

1. Create Communication Arrangement for the predefined Campaign Execution Scenario for the relevant for the predefined Email or Text Message Provider. This is done in the Communication Arrangements App available in the Communication Management.

   
   The following Communication Scenarios are available in the standard Content:

   SAP_COM_0016  Marketing – Campaign Execution Amazon SES Integration (together with SAP_COM_0039  Marketing – Campaign Execution Amazon E-Mail Bounce Integration)
   SAP_COM_0040  Marketing – Campaign Execution SAP Mobile Services Email Integration
   SAP_COM_0041  Marketing – Campaign Execution SAP Mobile Services SMS Integration

2. Maintain the Access Key in the Provider Credentials for the Email and Text Message Service Provider and Maintain the Sender Profiles using the Provider Credentials App and the Sender Profiles App available in the Segmentation and Campaign Configuration.

   

SAP Hybris Marketing – Execute Facebook campaigns

As from release 0611 it is also possible to execute Facebook campaigns, in SAP hybris Marketing, with ad spend visible as a key figure in the charts of the detailed spend planning application

With this feature, when you are executing Facebook campaigns, ad spend is now visible as a key figure in the charts of Detailed Spend Planning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Further enhancements include:

New Campaign User Interface (UI)

You are now provided with a new campaign UI to create and access your campaigns. To open it choose ‘Campaigns’ under ‘Campaign Management’.
From here, you create a new campaign using the plus sign (+) on the right and then choose the required campaign in the popup:

• Blank Campaign opens the previous UI. From here, you have access to all campaign categories.

• Email Campaign opens the new campaign UI for an email campaign that enables you to design your campaign by dragging and dropping the required triggers and actions to the corresponding places.

• Facebook Campaign opens the exisisting Facebook Campaign UI (see above).

• Paid Search opens the existing Paid Search campaign UI.

• Transfer Leads opens the existing Transfer Leads campaign UI.

• Trigger-Based opens the new campaign UI for a trigger-based campaign.

Managing Email Templates, Emails and Text Messages

The following new functions are available:

• You can now create content for messages (emails, confirmation emails or text messages) in different languages. This enables a marketer to send messages in different languages in a single campaign. If no matching content is available, content in the default language is used.

• You can now insert product recommendations in emails.

 

SAP Announces Third Quarter and First Nine Months 2016 Results

SAP Raises Outlook After Strong Third Quarter

• Cloud and software revenue up 8% (IFRS) and up 9% (non-IFRS at constant currencies)
• Cloud revenue up 28% (IFRS) and up 29% (non-IFRS at constant currencies)
• Operating profit down 9% (IFRS) and up 1% (non-IFRS at constant currencies)
• Operating cash flow up 52% in the third quarter and up 12% year-to-date
• SAP S/4HANA is leading the digital transformation with more than 4,100 customers

The future of CRM: SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer (C4C)

The demand for CRM solutions is large. The worldwide market for 2015 estimate the Gartner analysts to 26.3 billion dollars – by far the largest segment of the software market. Many companies have some catching up and increasingly asking service providers and manufacturers. With the trend away from on-premise licenses to cloud services should especially Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics benefit – one might think: SAP has however used the grace of late birth and sail the competition with SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer (C4C).

In autumn 2015, SAP announced a revolutionary solution with C4C which goes far beyond the classic CRM addition, thanks to digital networking through social media analysis, customer service and support. Industry experts and IT managers were skeptical that promises were dismissed as pure marketing measures. But SAP is keeping its word and continuously published four times a year a version with extended functionality, the standardized supports new processes.

Meanwhile SAP C4C mastered the high customer demands and has grown into one of the most advanced cloud-based CRM systems on the market. As the cloud dominates about half of the CRM market and software-as-a-Service (SaaS) in 2015 recorded an increase of 27 percent, the solution captures the spirit of the time. Since it is hardly surprising that SAP ERP can be SAP 6.0 with sophisticated on-premise processes run for CRM and the successor S / 4hana it has hardly innovative and efficient functionality.

Instead, SAP focused on the cloud and should convince even the last skeptics so. For the CRM in the cloud is to SAP C4C safely. SAP operates the application as a public or private cloud in their own data center and transmits the data encrypted. Concerns about IT security and the loss of business-critical data thus belong to the past.

The competitors in the CRM market have long jumped on the train: Salesforce CRM is built exclusively on the cloud and Microsoft Dynamics CRM are the first two releases of new versions only in the cloud. Since it does not matter that the on-premise deployment of the software is optional. In short: On the cloud passes no way in CRM.

What the difference between Agile and Waterfall CRM Implementation Methods?

Waterfall implementation methodologies have been the norm for over two decades of CRM deployments. These approaches are often visually depicted in cascading or linear diagrams and follow a progressive sequence of phases (for example, Requirements to Design to Development to Testing to Deployment). A significant risk with this deployment approach is that it can be unforgiving as success or failure is realized in largest part at the end of the project – thereby severely limiting remediation measures if outcomes don’t match objectives.

Agile methods such as Scrum are an alternative to predictive methods such as waterfall. An agile approach defines the business goals and success criteria in smaller increments, delivers continuous subsets of high-value features and puts them in the hands of users as fast as possible. This provides the development team with faster product verification so they may continue to deliver iterations which align with user expectations or adapt their output to counter for missed or changing expectations.

Agile versus Waterfall

CRM software implementation projects place heavy emphasis on the factors of Requirements, Resources and Time. Waterfall methods presume Requirements to be fixed and Time and Resources to be projected.

Gartner: Customer Relationship Management Software Market Grew 12% in 2015

Worldwide customer relationship management (CRM) software totaled $26.3 billion in 2015, up 12.3 percent from $23.4 billion in 2014, according to Gartner, Inc.

“The merger and acquisition activity that began flowing through the market in 2009 continued in 2015, with more than 30 notable acquisitions, Julian Poulter, research director at Gartner. “This has resulted in increased competition at the top end of the CRM market, with the continued focus of global vendors’ sales forces driving good growth worldwide in all CRM subsegments but only for cloud or software as a service (SaaS) applications.”

Overall, the top five CRM software vendors accounted for more than 45 percent of the total market in 2015 (see Table 1). The top five vendors had very little change in ranking compared with 2014, although Adobe jumped into the fifth position, displacing IBM, as it continues to lead the CRM marketing segment with a focus on marketing agencies and the chief marketing officer (CMO).

Table 1
CRM Software Spending by Vendor, Total Software Revenue Worldwide, 2015 (Millions of Dollars)

Company	2015 Revenue	2015 Market Share (%)	2014 Revenue	2014 Market Share (%)
Salesforce	5,170.9	19.7	4,268.5	18.2
SAP	2,684.4	10.2	2,669.0	13.0
Oracle	2,046.5	7.8	2,119.0	9.1
Microsoft	1,141.5	4.3	951.1	4.1
Adobe	936.8	3.6	738.1	3.2
Others	14,307.7	54.4	12,658.3	55.4
Total	26,287.8	100.0	23,404.0	100.0

Source: Gartner (May 2016)

“CRM growth is driven by cloud service revenue, which, in the application space, uses SaaS as the major delivery model,” said Mr. Poulter. “SaaS revenue grew 27 percent year over year, which is more than double overall CRM market growth in 2015. On-premises new license revenue declined 1 percent for the same period.”

Salesforce continued to dominate the CRM market in 2015, with 19.7 percent of the market. Salesforce leads in revenue in the sales and customer service and support (CSS) segments of CRM, and it is now third in revenue in the marketing segment, where it is the fastest-growing segment among the top five.

Spending in North America continued in double digits as this market continued to generate the bulk of revenue (55.7 percent) in the overall CRM market. However, U.S. dollar figures were significantly impacted by currency swings in 2015, especially for those vendors with significant revenue from non-North American markets. Currency impacts typically show that overall EMEA results were down for companies with substantial EMEA revenue when reported in U.S. dollars. Companies that report in euros, such as SAP, show lower CRM growth at 0.6 percent in current U.S. dollars, but in constant currency, they show 12.8 percent growth.

Once again, emerging Asia/Pacific grew the fastest, with growth of 21.9 percent in 2015, closely followed by greater China with 18.4 percent growth. Middle East and North Africa and mature Asia/Pacific both achieved double-digit growth at 10.7 and 10.2 percent, respectively.

Detailed analysis is available in the report “Market Share Analysis: Customer Relationship Management Software, Worldwide, 2015.”

SAP CRM: Map Integration in Account Search Results

Planning upcoming customer meetings and associated travel is a common task in sales. Direct map integration in SAP CRM is missing, which can make this task more time-consuming. When planning upcoming sales meetings with customers, it can make sense to see if other customers are located nearby who could also be visited.

With this new functionality the account search result list in the SAP CRM WebClient UI can be switched to a map view showing the accounts on a map. From there you can navigate to the overview page of each account shown on the map. Several map providers are supported. Seeing this information on a map directly in SAP CRM can make this check very efficient.

How do you set up Map Integration in SAP CRM?

Complete the following steps to set up Map Integration in SAP CRM within Account Search Results:

1. As a prerequisite, implement the SAP Notes 2180268 and 2180269
2. Implement the correction instructions from SAP Note 2104728 or import the specified Support Package
3. Activate the business function CRM_MAP_BP to see the new functionality. The map view is implemented using SAP Visual Business 2.0
   
   1. Create a new business function with transaction SFW2.

   Business Function CRM_MAP_BP
   Short Text: Map in Business Partner Search
   Long Text: Map Integration in Business Partner Search
   Type: G
   Press button save to save it in package CRM_SFW_CC.

   2. Change business function CRM_MAP_BP with transaction SFW2.

   On tab “Switch” enter the switch CRM_MAP_BP_1, type = Activation.
   On tab “Dependencies” enter Prerequiste Bus. Function = FND_VISUAL_BUSINESS, dependency Type = Prerequisite.
   Save and activate the business function.

4. Set up map integration, and check the requirements described below.The following new customizing is now available to set up map integration:
   Customer Relationship Management –> Master Data –> Business Partner –> Search –> Map Integration.
   1. Use transaction SM30 to call view CRMV_VBMAP_APPL and make settings. By default, the CRM Account application (CRMACCOUNT) is mapped via table CRMV_BUS_APPL to the SAP Visual Business application GEOMAP_DEMO.
   2. In the Implementation Guide, go to Cross-Application Components -> Processes and Tools for Enterprise Applications – > Visual Business – > Visual Business 2.0 -> Maintain Application Definitions.Define the SAP Visual Business application GEOMAP_DEMO.
      Define and assign geocoding services (not used for CRM Account), map products, map layer stacks, and applications for SAP Visual Business.

The SAP-delivered application GEOMAP_DEMO can only be used for demo purposes. If you want to use maps in your productive system, create your own SAP Visual Business application (for example, by copying the application GEOMAP_DEMO) and adapt the settings to meet your requirements. You can either use a free map service or obtain a license from a provider that charges for maps.
Assign the new SAP Visual Business application to the CRM Account application (CRMACCOUNT) in view CRMV_VBMAP_APPL.

Requirements for Using a Map:

• You have installed the SAP Visual Business frontend software (version 2.0 or higher). You can find this in the SAP Software Download Center on SAP Service Marketplace at https://support.sap.com/swdc.
• You have activated geocoding of account addresses (see SAP Note 613647 and related notes). To display the locations of accounts on a map, geocoordinates from the account address are used.
• You have registered a geocoding program that determines the required geocoordinates. You do this in Customizing for SAP NetWeaver, under General Settings -> Set Geocoding.

Features

In the result list of an account search, a button is available that switches the list to a map view showing account locations. You can display selected accounts on the map or, if you do not select accounts, all accounts are displayed. You can see the account name by moving the mouse pointer over an account symbol. By clicking on the account symbol, you can see the account address and navigate to the account overview page.

Supported Map Providers

These are a few of the supported Map Providers already available via REST services. More to follow..

• Microsoft Bing Maps
• NAVTEQ Maps
• OpenStreet Maps

New! in SAP CRM EhP4: Category Sequencing | Common issues

As from SAP CRM EhP3 SP11 or SAP CRM EhP4 SP01 it is possible to use Category Sequencing to influence the order in which categories are displayed in the WebClient UI, in the dropdown boxes for categorizing service transactions, such as service requests and incidents.
The UI components BTCATEGORIES/Categories and GSMCDDLB/DropDownList are both supported.

Note: that sequencing does not influence the sorting of categories in categorization schemas in the category modeler or in other tree-based visualizations of categorization schemas, such as the input help for categories in the agent inbox search.

You can activate the sequencing function in the category modeler on the header level of a categorization schema. You can define the sequence values per category, by entering 4-digit values in the corresponding column of the categorization schema. You can also activate the sequencing function and define sequences for schemas that are already active and deployed. To do this, you have to open the categorization schema in edit mode (without having to create a new version).

You have to implement SAP Note 2216004 (WebClient UI framework) to use the sequencing function.

Result in Web UI:

In the Categorization Hierarchy, you can see the possibility to assign a sequence to a category ID, therefore the checkbox Sequencing in ‘General data > General’ must be active.

After this, add the categories to your scheme and assign a sequence to the categories by selecting the corresponding row and entering a 4-digit value. After implementing SAP Note 2243196 it is possible to maintain the sequence of a category without having to select the category row.

When your categorization scheme is completed and activated, you can import it from Development to your other environments. Depending on your landscape this is Test, Acceptance and Production or only Acceptance and Production. During this import it is possible that the sequence settings are not imported correctly from the source into the target system. This is because of a program error.

This has been resolved by SAP Note 2333938 – Importing schema with category sorting sequence values. SAP Note is valid from BBPCRM release 713 – 714.

Technical Details

Product Feature Is	New
Country Dependency	Valid for all countries
Software Component Version	BBPCRM
Application Component	CRM-IC-EMS-CAT (Categories)
Availability	SAP enhancement package 4 (SP01) for SAP CRM 7.0 SAP enhancement package 3 (SP11) for SAP CRM 7.0

Use Event customizing via table CRMV_EVENT_CUST

Use Event customizing via table CRMV_EVENT_CUST to carry out customer specific functions for all types of BUS-objects in CRM triggered by events: for example partner determination on Partner Create (AFTER_CREATE) or after Partner Change (AFTER_CHANGE).

Check transaction CRMV_EVENT for the possible object and event combinations.

It is possible to combine different execution times with different combinations of object names & events to carry out different customer specific functions.

 

Available events:

AFTER_CHANGE
AFTER_CHANGE_ALL_APPT
AFTER_CHANGE_ALL_BRI
AFTER_CHANGE_BILLING_REQUEST
AFTER_CHANGE_ITEM_CATEGORY
AFTER_CHANGE_ORDER_QTY
AFTER_CHANGE_PRODUCT
AFTER_CHANGE_TEXT_ITEM
AFTER_CHANGE_VARIANT_KEYS
AFTER_CREATE
AFTER_CREATE_ALL_APPT
AFTER_CREATE_BILLING_REQUEST
AFTER_CREATE_DATES
AFTER_CREATE_WITH_REFERENCE
AFTER_DELETE
AFTER_DTERMIN_CURR
BEFORE_CHANGE
BEFORE_CREATE
BEFORE_CREATE_WITH_REFERENCE
BEFORE_DELETE
BEFORE_SAVE
CATALOGS_AVAILABLE
CONFIRM
CREATE_SUBITEMS
DUPL_CHECK
INIT
ITEM_NUMBER_DETERMINATION
PROCEED_PARTNER_DETERMINATION
ROUND
SAVE
TRIGGER_FUNCTION

SAP CRM 7.0 EHP4 has been released!

SAP enhancement package 4 for SAP CRM 7.0 has been released for customers!
Please check the slide for more information on SAP CRM 7.0 EHP3 versus EHP4.
For more information please check http://help.sap.com/crm704

 

 

 

 

For the time being please check the SAP CRM improvements that are currently being developed for SAP CRM 7.0 or which are already available as from EHP1, EHP2 or EHP3 via: CRM2015-Delivery-Call-EN-20150805

——————————————

Remco Jansen is working as a SAP CRM professional for various clients in the Netherlands.

SAP CRM – Service orders are not shown in search result, parameter NO_OBJ_TYP_HDR

When you search for Service Contracts in the CRM WebUI, the system returns all other business documents such as sales order, quotes and etc.
Or
While searching for Service Orders in the CRM WebUI, the search results shows documents of various types like Service Orders, Service Requests, Sales Orders etc. in the service orders search result.

Cause

• The parameter NO_OBJ_TYP_HDR is set to ‘X’. *
• The header object type is inactive.* With this parameter set it influences the behaviour of the search so it will avoid the join with CRMD_ORDERADM_H and so SELECT will only be performed on OBJECT_TYPE on CRMD_ORDER_INDEX table. In that case documents will be selected if item or if header matches with the business object searched. Standard the system is doing a search with a SELECT JOIN with CRMD_ORDERADM_H in order to select only the relevant business object header searched.

Resolution

1. Please check if ‘1697204 – Incorrect search results service order’ and pre-requisite ‘SAP Note 1679150 – Incorrect results for service order search’ are already implemented. The correction code of these SAP Notes together are causing above described issue.
2. Navigate to transaction SM31 or SE31.
3. Edit/View table SMOFPARSFA.
4. Select following entry:
   Key: CRMRF
   Parameter Name: NO_OBJ_TYP_HDR
5. Remove the value of the parameter and leave it blank. *
6. Save.NB. Please note that by activating or de-activating this setting it will result in an increase or decrease of performance when searching for business documents.

 

 

SAP CRM – SPROXY – test with XML variant

How to test Enterprise Services via Transaction code SPROXY.

We would like, for example, to test the functionality of sending a SalesOrder to SAP CRM, which was created via a front-end (Java) portal.

Step 1: Start transaction SPROXY
Search for the Service Interface for which you want to test and load a XML file. For example the standard SAP SalesOrderCRMCreateRequest_In.

Step 2: Double-click on the SalesOrderCRMCreateRequest_In to load the details and choose Execute (F8).

Step 3: In the next pop-up screen check if ‘Generate Request Template’ is selected and choose Execute (F8).

Step 4: In the following screen you will see the ‘Test Service Provider: Display Request’ with a example request.

There are different option in this step:
1. Choose an already defined variant via the variants button to directly test with already set-up test data
2. Load a XML file from your local computer.

Step 5: Choose Execute (F8) and you will get a success message ‘Succesful with empty result – commit may be required’

Step 6: Commit work is required to save the Sales Order in the database. Choose ‘Extra > Trigger COMMIT WORK’

Step 7: You will get a success message ‘COMMIT WORK triggered’

Step 8: Check for example via CRMD_ORDER the salesorder that has been created. Please note that you will have to search for the creation date/time that was put into the XML within <CreationDateTime> to find the specific order. Or use a reference ID (put in field BuyerID for example) to find the order via this value/field.

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Remco Jansen is working as a SAP CRM professional for various clients in the Netherlands.

SAP CRM – Mass reset of obsolete notes in SPAU

Symptom After upgrade or update, in transaction SPAU, some notes may appear with grey lights. These are obsolete notes. These notes must be reset during this phase. In case there are several such notes in SPAU then it has to be performed one by one which is very time consuming and tedious task. Other Terms SNOTE, SPAU, Obsolete Notes, Modification Assistant Reason and Prerequisites Missing feature Solution SAP Note 1975910 consists of the feature which allows you to do this operation in bulk and in background. Mass operation to reset obsolete notes in SPAU is carried out by the job: SCWB_BGR_OBS_NOTE_RESET. Implement the relevant corrections and perform the post-manual activity to get this feature enabled on your system. During implementation of the automatic correction instructions, the report NOTE_1975910 will be created. If you are asked for the package, please enter package SCWN. Also refer the SAP note: 1972294. After implementation of the automatic correction instructions, the report NOTE_1975910 will be created. – run report NOTE_1975910 – on the selection screen select Update mode <Step 2> – when you are asked, choose activation in mode ‘Online’ —————————————— Remco Jansen is working as a SAP CRM professional for various clients in the Netherlands.

SAP CRM: Service Order type not available in Service Order Creation/Search view

Symptom

• Expected service Order type does not appear in popup when Service Order is created;

• Expected service Order type does not appear in drop down list box (DDLB) of search criteria of Service Order Type.

Environment

• Customer Relationship Management(CRM)
• SAP Customer Relationship Management 7.0
• SAP enhancement package 1 for SAP CRM 7.0
• SAP enhancement package 2 for SAP CRM 7.0
• SAP enhancement package 3 for SAP CRM 7.0

Reproducing the Issue

1. Logon CRM WebUI with Service role;
2. Go to search Service Orders;
3. Check DDLB of Service Order Type;
4. Check popup of creating new service order.

Cause

The Service Order Type is set as IC ticket in IC scenario.

Resolution

Go to below path and delete the entry of the Service Order Type:

SPRO ->Customer Relationship Management -> Interaction Center WebClient -> Business Transaction -> Define Transaction Types for Navigation

Keywords

IS_TICKET, CL_CRM_UIU_BT_OBJ_MAPPER, GET_PROCTYPES_FOR_CREATE, CL_BTSRV_ADVSRL_CNTRL, GET_PROC_TYPES, CL_CRM_UIU_BT_GET_PROCTYPES, GET_PROC_TYPE_CUST, IS_NAVIGATION_SUPPORTED, DETERMINE_UI_OBJECT, crmc_ic_ticket, BT116_SRVTK, BT116S_SRVO, BUS2000116.

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Remco Jansen is working as a SAP CRM professional for various clients in the Netherlands.

SAP CRM WebClient Transaction Launcher – Common Issues

Symptom You can use the transaction launcher and the transaction launcher profile, which is part of the CRM WebClient profile, to start SAP GUI for HTML transactions via the Internet Transaction Server (ITS) from both Enterprise R/3, SAP CRM, and People-Centric User Interface (UI) transactions from SAP CRM. Starting from CRM 4.0 Add-on, you can use transaction launcher to launch URL and front-office based transactions also. Agents have access to transaction launcher from the CRM WebClient navigation bar. I will describe some of the common issues faced when using the CRM WebClient Transaction Launcher and the possible solutions for that. Other Terms CRM IC WebClient, Transaction Launcher, CA-WUI-APF, CRM-FRW-AFP, CRM-IC-ABO, CA-GTF-IC-ABO Reason and Prerequisites None Solution (1) Transaction launcher will not work after transporting “Request” from development system to other systems: The transaction launcher handler class is generated in package $TMP and is not transported. However, the transaction launcher entry and the dataflow definition are transported and contain all the information needed to re-generate the transaction launcher handler class. Users can also manually enhance the transaction launcher handler class, reassign it to a different package, and initiate a transport, if necessary. If the transaction launcher handler class is regenerated then the custom changes (if any) will be overwritten in the new handler class generated. (2) When ITS based transaction launcher is executed users will receive “Please wait…” screen without any further data being displayed: Publish the services WEBGUI, SYSTEM and IAC in the system where ITS is called by following the steps mentioned below: Run the transaction SE80 and execute the following steps for the services WEBGUI, SYSTEM and IAC: a) In the dropdown box select “Internet Service” b) In the input field please type <service> and press ENTER c) Use the context menu under the <service> Object Name and then choose Publish -> Complete Service. After a while you should notice the message “Object published successfully. Site: INTERNAL”. Notice that <service> needs to be replaced for WEBGUI, SYSTEM and IAC. All the three services need to be published in order for ITS to work properly. (3) Issues with URL Based transaction launcher: (a) In case of “Non-BSP URL” in the URL ID Configuration if “Determine Host/Port” option is selected then following error messages are displayed, “Error within a launch transaction” “Error during URL creation for destination ‘Destination name'” “No authorization to log on as a Trusted System” To overcome this issue user should also have “S_RFCACL” authorization to determine the host and port values in the respective system. More information about authorization can be found at sap help url: http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/8b/0010519daef443ab06d3 8d7ade26f4/content.htm (b) When URL based transaction launcher is configured to launch a website, then the message “This content cannot be displayed in a frame” is received: For using transaction launcher there is a prerequisite that “The target page to be displayed must be able to run in an IFRAME”. Enabling the web page to be displayed in IFrame is the responsibility of the Publishers of the site and this cannot be influenced by SAP CRM. (4) While configuring launch transaction for BOR based transactions, the system gives error, “Mapped Logical System <LOGSYS> not defined’. Check if the logical system which you are trying to access is properly configured. The steps to configure the logical system are given below. (a) Check in the system which you are trying to access, how the logical system is defined. This entry can be seen thru transaction SE16, table T000. (b) In the CRM system, thru transaction SM59, create a RFC destination for the remote system. (c) In the CRM system, thru transaction BD54, create the logical system. Make sure, that you use the same name as the logical system name of the remote system (the one you found in table T000 in step (a)). (d) In the CRM system, thru transaction BD97, link the RFC destination created in SM59 with the logical system created in BD54. (e) In the CRM system, thru transaction CRMS_IC_CROSS_SYS, provide the ITS URL to connect to the logical system. —————————————— Remco Jansen is working as a SAP CRM professional for various clients in the Netherlands.

SAP CRM – How to add search criteria options in CRM Web UI?

Symptom

• CRM WEB UI search
• Exclude search is not possible
• Web UI does not offer all search options allowed in prior version
• Previous options allowed single value, greater than or equal to, less than or equal to, greater than, less than, not equal to

Environment

SAP Solution Manager IT Service Management

Reproducing the Issue

-Searching in Solution Manager 7.0 offered multiple options:

-Upgraded Solution Manager from 7.0 to 7.1
-Try using new CRM_UI or SM_CRM Web UI to do a search and missing options:

Cause

The new CRM Web UI was modified between 7.0 and 7.1 and the options are configured for users with default options.

Resolution

A user can modify the search options to include more than the default options in the SPRO under Customer Relationship Management > CRM Cross-Application Components > Generic Interaction Layer/Object Layer > Component-Specific Settings > Define Operations for Dynamic Queries.  For any option that you want enabled, select the equivalent box.

For example, to adjust the Incident Management Incident ID option in versions of Solution Manager 7.10 SP09 and later:

For example, to adjust the Incident Management Incident ID option in versions of Solution Manager up to 7.10 SP08:

Note:  To see detailed steps for modifying this, see attachment Search_Setting_Steps.docx.

7.0	7.1	SPRO ID
Single Value	is	EQ
Greater than or Equal to	is greater than or equal to	GE
Less than or Equal to	is less than or equal to	LE
Greater than	is greater than	GT
Less than	is less than	LT
Not Equal to	is not	NE

Other options

is between -> BT
is not between -> NB
contains – > CP (contains pattern)
does not contain -> NP
is empty (handled by code by default)
starts with (handled by code by default)

Note:  It can be possible to enable an operator, but if the backend code for the operator is not there, it will not work.  For example, when searching the Solution Category andReported By fields, IS NOT does not work.  Only IS is supported for these fields.  In this case, a user can write custom code to add the missing backend code.  This involves consulting and is not supported.

Keywords

webui, CRM UI, SV-SMG-SUP, query, ITSM, SM_CRM, SV-SMG-CM, operators

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Remco Jansen is working as a SAP CRM professional for various clients in the Netherlands.

SAP CRM EHP4 release date

SAP enhancement package 4 for SAP CRM 7.0 has ben released for customers!
Please check the slide for more information on SAP CRM 7.0 EHP3 versus EHP4.
For more information please check http://help.sap.com/crm704

 

 

 

 

For the time being please check the SAP CRM improvements that are currently being developed for SAP CRM 7.0 or which are already available as from EHP1, EHP2 or EHP3 via: CRM2015-Delivery-Call-EN-20150805

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Remco Jansen is working as a SAP CRM professional for various clients in the Netherlands.

SAP CRM – System Status ‘Contains Errors’ / ‘Not correct’ (I1030) in transaction

When for example business partners are blocked and used in transaction which are replicated to ECC, it is possible that these transactions contain the system status I1030  – Contain Errors. When you check the statuses active for an specific document (at header or item level) the system status ‘Contain Errors’ (I1030) is active even though the document doesn’t have any error message on the header or item level.
This is possible because the system status I1030 Contain Errors typically flags at transaction creation.

Environment
SAP Customer Relationship Management
SAP CRM Web Client User Interface (Web UI)
SAP Graphical User Interface (SAP GUI)

Reproducing the Issue

1. Logon to CRM Web UI using any business role.
2. Search for a business transaction using ‘Status = Contain Errors’ I1030 as criteria.
3. Document <nr> is returned from the search even though there is no message about the error.
4. Go to SAP GUI to double-check the statuses for this document (including its items):
a. Go to Tx SE16 and check table crmd_orderadm_h.
b. Using the document ID you will determine the GUID of this document.
c. Using the GUID check table CRM_JEST.
d. System status I1030 is active.
Resolution

Option #1 : Run the report CRM_MESSAGES_CHECK for the relevant transactions in order to delete the system status I1030

 

 

 

 

Option #2 : Make a change in the document to update table CRM_JEST:
1. Do any change which raises an error in document message log.
2. Undo this change so that the error is deleted.
3. The error status I1030 will also be deleted afterwards.

CRM_MESSAGE_COLLECT, CRM_MESSAGES_CHECK, CRM_MESSAGES_DELETE_LOG, CRM_MESSAGES_CHECK, I1030, I1005, DELETE, ERROR, MESSAGES

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Remco Jansen is working as a SAP CRM professional for various clients in the Netherlands.