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Access Control Management: Basics of access control and business roles

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Welcome to the blog series on access control management.  The series discusses access control and business roles.  It provides typical examples of roles and access management.  The following are the blogs in this series:

 

  1. Basics of access control and business roles – this blog
  2. Access Control Management: Access restrictions explained (coming soon)
  3. Access Control Management Example: Global versus local admin (coming soon)
  4. Access Control Management Example: Access forwarding (coming soon)
  5. Access Control Management Example:  Access to transaction or master data access (coming soon)
  6. How to analyse access control issues (coming soon)

 

Basics of access control and business roles

User management, business roles and access rights are maintained in the Administrator work center.  Authorization access can be maintained individually per business user or with the use of business roles. Access rights can be granted by global and/or local administrators.  Business users can only be created for employees or service agents.    It is highly recommended to use business roles for all access controls.  Assigning access controls directly to employees is a higher risk and much more complex to maintain and it does not provide all functionality which is available for roles.

 

 

Access controls within SAP Cloud for Customer has two levels:

 

  1. Assignment of work center and work center views
  2. Instance access restriction based on access context

 

This entire blog series focused on point 2 – access restriction based on access context. It is very important to understand that access context is by business object.  It is not changeable or extensible.  
For example, if the access context for a particular object is employee, then you cannot enhance the access context by adding additional criteria such as sales organization. Access context is explained in more detail in the following blog.

 

 

Business roles can be created for different access restrictions such as sales employees, administrator, manager etc.  Access restrictions can also be maintained for business roles.   An example would be a business role for sales manager, with an access restriction to their territory.

The business role is assigned to business user.  Multiple business roles can be assigned to one business user.  The business role must be in status active. In this case the business user will inherit the access control of both roles (Example: Role1: read; Role2: read&write --> Business User has read&write access)


Changes of the business role trigger an update for all assigned users.  Within a single role you can have various access capabilities.

Business roles are a central part of your security strategy, they can be key for all access.  Many capabilities can be linked to business roles.

 

 

Roles.JPG

 

The preceding graphic shows the most common linkages to the business roles (additional capabilities will follow).  By linking reports, code list restrictions, page layouts, work center assignments, and access and field restrictions to the business role, the business role becomes the key driver to all access permissions for your business users.

 

The next blog descriptions access restrictions in more detail.


Setting up communication system using XML Gateway to C4C

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This blog gives you an idea on how to set up a communication system  from ECC to C4C via PI and XML gateway. I worked on the following landscape and though about sharing the experience to make life easy.

 

 

       landscape.JPG

    In this use case data is flowing from on premise ECC system to C4C system via PI and XML gateway.

 

 

To call C4C web service from Client network you need to create one pass-thru service in XML Gateway which will accept the requests from SAP PI system and forwards the HTTPs request to C4C web service using SSL certificates of C4C.

 

To enable mutual SSL handshake between XML Gateway and C4C system, following activities need to be done:

 

  • C4C shared their private key for authenticating clients (This is applicable only when mutual SSL handshake is required, in this case C4C provided private key with a password (C4C private key.pfx and password  ***)
  • C4C shared its server certificate along with root and intermediate certificates, which has to be trusted by XML gateway

 

SAP PI, in turn, also establishes secure HTTPs connection with XML gateway, by adding the gateway’s certificate in its trusted server list and using user/password authentication as shared by gateway.

 

 

Server certificates-For validating the clients we used below 3 certificates of C4C in XML gateway.

 

 

certificate.JPG

SAP Cloud for Customer Tenant Landscapes: SDK deployment recommendations

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This blog series discusses C4C tenants from the aspect of how many you need and examples of recommended tenant landscapes. The blog series includes the following topics:

 

  1. Determine how many tenants you need
  2. Tenant landscape use case examples
  3. Considerations for tenant copies
  4. Tenant landscape recommendation with SDK
  5. SDK deployment recommendations - this blog

 

When using the SDK it is important to plan the landscape and how the solution will move through the tenant landscape. This blog highlights key topics discussed in the Deployment Recommendations with SDK presentation.

 

The presentation provides details on the following topics:

  • Recommended Standard Landscape for SDK Development
  • Advanced Options with more than 3 Tenants
  • Solution Template Option
  • Solution and Patch Process in Detail

 

This blog highlights the major points from the presentation.

 

Recommended Standard Landscape for SDK Development

 

 

 

As stated in the previous blogs, the recommended landscape is a separate DEV tenant that is used only for development.   When setting up the development tenant, there are some very important considerations:

  • Development tenant is a normal test tenant which is used solely for SDK developments.
  • Create the development tenant from the (main) test tenant. Usually full copy, to copy the solution profile and test data.
  • The test tenant remains the leading tenant for implementation configuration.

 

Use these tips to avoid obstacles:

  • Do not assign the PDI work center to business users.
  • Do not use the SDK development user for tests in frontend.
  • Do not use the development tenant for integration, data migration preparation, report adoption and master/page Layouts, because of namespace switch in patch process.


Advanced Options with More than 3 Tenants

Whenever a test tenant is purchased, by default it is on the same system as your other test tenant.   With multiple test tenants on the same system, both tenants must have the same version of the SDK  solution.  This may not be what you need.

 

Example: 
In your company you have developers working on a DEV tenant.  There are administration/key users testing on the TEST tenant.  Additionally, you have user acceptance testing going on regionally. The user acceptance testing is done by a group of business users. It could be that while user acceptance test is going on, the key users are testing an updated version of the solution that has not yet been rolled out to the user acceptance testing.  In this situation, the user acceptance testing may be on version 2.0 of a SDK solution, while the developers and key users are testing version 2.5 of the custom solution. 

 

In order to support the previous example, the user acceptance testing needs to be on a different version of the SDK solution.  This requires that the user acceptance tenant be located on a different system.

 

When test tenants are purchased and created, by default the system where they are located will not be known to you.   You need to create an incident when requesting the test tenant and request it be on a different system in order to support multiple versions of the SDK solution.

 

Solution Template Option

 

Some consultants prefer to develop using solution template. This enables you to start coding when the design is not ready. There are disadvantages as well, for example business configuration content cannot be created.  The presentation describes the pros and cons to help you make your decisions.

 

Solution and Patch Process in Detail

 

In order to deploy the solution to the (main) test tenant and production tenant, you need to assemble the solution in the development tenant and upload and activate it in the target tenant. Once the solution is assembled, all further developments and enhancements are done via a patch and must be compatible to previous versions. This means that deletion of objects (BOs, fields, BCOs, etc.) as well as change of data types is not allowed in a patch. However you can add new fields and objects and change the business logic in a patch. When the patch is then deployed to production, the entire solution is deployed to production.  There are no ‘delta’ deployments. The actual deployment is a manual step, consisting of uploading a locally stored solution file to the target tenant and activation of the solution in that tenant. There is no transport mechanism between the tenants.

SAP Cloud for Customer Browser Support Update

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sapcloud.jpg

 

Dear SAP Cloud Customer,

 

SAP SE would like to keep you updated about upcoming changes in browser support related to the SAP Cloud for Customer (C4C) public cloud service offering.


Google has announcedtheir plan to remove NPAPI support from Chrome, a change that will improve Chrome’s security, speed, and stability as well as reduce complexity. In September 2015 NPAPI support will be permanently removed from Chrome. Installed extensions that require NPAPI plugins will no longer be able to load those plugins.


Read all about the impact of this announcement by Google, SAP recommendations and how you can engage with SAP regarding this matter to get further clarification at this link

 

Best Regards

SAP Cloud Customer Engagement

FAQs for Installed Base Management in SAP Cloud for Service

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Disclaimer: The aim of this document is to provide a better understanding of the installed base management feature in SAP Cloud for Service.
This is not the product documentation and the content
included here may get updated over time.

 

Question 1: What is Installed Base? What is Installed Base Item?

 

Answer: Installed Base is a hierarchical arrangement of items installed at your customer’s location. For example: You can maintain an installed base for Company ABC where your servers are installed. Certain information can be maintained at the installed base header level, for example, Involved Parties, Attachments, Notes and Competitor Products.

 

The following can be added as items in an installed base:

  • Registered Product
  • Product
  • Text

 

Registered Product: It is a unique instance of a Product with a serial ID. It is possible to maintain a warranty for a Registered Product. One registered product can exist only in one Installed Base at a time.

 

Product : An instance of a Product. Same product can be added in multiple installed bases.

 

Text : A flexible category which can represent, for example, a location or a grouping.

 

On the UI, the “Category” field differentiates the types of items. (Technically, an Installed Base item is an installation point of the specific category).

 

An example of Installed Base set up:

 

Installed Base Hierarchy.png

 

Question 2: Is there any limit to the number of levels when creating the installed base hierarchy?

 

Answer: There is no limit to the number of levels that can be created in an installed base hierarchy. However, too many levels may become incomprehensible or difficult to maintain. Decide on an optimal number based on your scenario.

 

Question 3: How is installed base used in the service process?

 

Answer: Installed Base Management provides the ability to create a Ticket from an Installed Base at the header level or at the item level. Certain information (if) maintained in the Installed Base (header or item level) is automatically copied over to the Ticket, for example the customer, contact, service
technician, service technician team and location.

 

The list of all tickets where an installed base or installed base item is included is seen in the TICKETS facet on installed base.

 

Question 4: I see multiple views - Registered Products, Installed Base, and Installation Points. How are they different? When to use what?

 

Answer: Registered Products view was available (under Products work center) prior to Installed Base. Registered Products can be used standalone if you need to track serialized products as individual items.

 

Use Installed Base if you need a hierarchical representation and a consolidated view of installed items.

 

When you enable Installed Base feature, the Registered Products view is automatically enabled and is shown under Installed Base Work Center as well (since Registered Product can be an item in Installed Base).

 

Installation Points has been built to enable replication of ERP Functional Locations to C4C. But it can be used standalone also without ERP integration. Currently this view shows Installation Points of category “Functional Location”. In future, installation points of other categories (product and
text) will also be shown here.

When you enable Installed Base feature, the Installation Points view is automatically enabled.

 

Question 5: Is there any integration with SAP ERP available for Installed Base management?

 

Answer: Replication from SAP ERP is available for the following:

Equipments in SAP ERPare replicated as Registered Products in SAP Cloud for Service.

Functional Locations in SAP ERP are replicated as Installation Points of category ‘Functional Location’.

Information such as Party Information, Notes, Address etc. maintained for both Equipment and Functional Location gets replicated to SAP Cloud for Service.

Please note that only uni-directional replication, from SAP ERP to Cloud for Service is available.

 

Question 6: Can I migrate installed base related data from another system into C4C?

 

Answer: Installed Base and Installation Points (installed base items) migration templates are available that can be used to migrate installed base related data to SAP Cloud for Service.

 

Question 7: Is functional location equivalent to installed Base?


Answer: No. In SAP Cloud for Service, a Functional Location is an Installation Point of category/type “Functional Location” and is shown in the Installation
Point UI.

 

Question 8: I see ITEMS in Registered Product and Installation Point as well, what are these?

 

Answer: The Items in Registered Product and Installation Point show the structure (child items). This is a flat list (no hierarchy) so one level of items is
shown.

In SAP ERP, a functional location can have equipments and other functional locations under it. Similarly, an equipment can have other equipments under it. This is supported in SAP Cloud for Service as well. The registered product can have other registered products as Items.

The Installation point (Functional Location) can have other functional locations or registered products as Items.

 

In SAP Cloud for Service: For a pure registered product scenario (if installed base is not scoped in):

These items can only be registered products.

For installed base scenario:

These are all items (can be registered products, products or text) added directly under this registered product in the Installed base hierarchy.

 

Question 9: What is the “Belongs to Installation Point ID” field ?

 

Answer: The “Belongs to Installation Point ID” field (if filled) indicates that the Installation Point is part of the structure (is a child) of another Installation Point (registered product or functional location)

This field is a hyperlink and will open the parent Installation Point.

 

For example: Belongs to Installation Point ID for registered product Coffee Machine “CM01” shows “21”. When you click on 21, the UI for Installation Point
21 is launched which is a functional location “Floor 1”. The ITEMS facet of Floor 1 shows CM01. This means that coffee machine CM01 is under Floor 1.

 

Question 10: Can Registered Products or Installed Base be added to contracts?

 

Answer: Currently, you can add a registered product as a covered object in a Contract. In future, you will be able to add installed base as well into a contract.

SAP Cloud for Customer (C4C) - My first experience

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Recently I have taken part on a C4C Project, one of the first ones in South America region and I have been going through different status that I’d like to share with you as well as some advices that would have saved me a lot of time and, that I hope will help you to speed up your ramp-up into C4C when working as a consultant.

 

Let me first share with you a brief description of my SAP related background; I have been working with SAP CRM for over 10 years as techno-functional consultant, technical leader and, CRM Trainer. Over a year ago, as I was seeing that SAP CRM consulting demands where decreasing in some regions of the world, I had to decide whether to pivot and change (by moving to another area) or to persevere (by keeping my eyes on CRM related areas and learning new technologies). Today I am sure I have chosen the right path! And even better, I am seeing that SAP CRM demand has risen again!

 

In my personal experience, I have had the chance of taking C4C trainings but, as we all know, participating on courses is not the same as having hands on experience and facing specific issues but, it is a very good starting point.

 

In comparison to the moment where I started working with SAP CRM technical side in 2005, there was not much public information being shared by SAP. Nowadays, SAP seems to have changed its strategy as we have several places from where we can gain a lot of knowledge. I personally first started with SAP Cloud for Customer YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/SAPCustomerOD/videos) and then, jumped into SDN C4C Space (http://scn.sap.com/community/cloud-for-customer). Afterwards, I also took advantage of Marketplace documentation (http://service.sap.com/cloud4customer).

 

For those who want technical insights, it also has very valuable documentation the SAP Cloud Application Studio site (http://help.sap.com/studio_cloud). Also, there is an openSAP course for SAP ByDesign (https://open.sap.com/courses/byd1).

 

However, the most relevant knowledge was provided by the networking generated through SDN C4C Space where I had the chance of meeting new consultants around the globe who have really helped me when I was under complex situations and when I was not facing further alternatives.

 

Some of the biggest challenges I faced where when trying to leverage connection from ERP to C4C through PO as the guide had some inconsistencies which were taken care by SAP colleagues (after raising an Incident). These issues forced me to deeply research and learn to use new C4C and ERP tools. Also, they made me learn things which are not written (and that I am trying to share on several SDN documents). As a friend of mine says, “the best knowledge is gained while suffering”. I am trying to change this phrase by “the best knowledge is gained by accessing SDN C4C space”, hope I can help with it!

 

From my personal and humble point of view, there are some things that seem to be “still a bit green” but SAP is demonstrating, day after day, that their commitment for improving tis is huge and that they are already adding existing OnPremise (traditional SAP CRM) tools and processes into OnDemand (C4C) system. I have personally seen this, after having worked with several C4C releases, after having been in touch with SAP Product responsible and, after having received help from several SAP SMEs while solving open incidents. Also, you can understand this by checking the news for future releases where they improve existing functionalities and, also, add some others which were still not present. I strongly believe that this is going straight forward and that this is the right path!  Meanwhile, while not getting specific functionalities on the standard, this is good for us as where are being forced to explode our creativity in order to solve issues on alternative ways; always adjusting system to customer needs and not the other way!

 

Finally, feel free to mention me on your SDN queries so I can try helping you. I received plenty of help while ramping up and, for sure, I am open to provide the same (and more) to others!

Cloud for Customer (C4C) - Summarizing some experiences

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After having written a few documents, I started getting some requests to unify all my documents so colleagues could follow them in a quicker way in addition to the fact that helped me to find my own documents in a quicker manner so, I decided to create this new blog! During my next experiences, I will continue updating it.


1) SAP Cloud for Customer (C4C) - My first experience

This document is about my first project experience working with functional and integration side of C4C. Here I share some feelings and advices in order to help others to speed up their ramp-ups into it.


2) Creating a default port in SOA Management for a Consumer Proxy

This document explains how to create the Logical Port required when leveraging ERP-C4C integration.


3) C4C - Mapping ERP Account Group into C4C

This document explains a complete development for being able to syncronize standard Acount Group from ERP within custom field on C4C; covering development, mapping in PO, customizing, etc.


4) C4C Integration - Filtering Products and Accounts from ERP to C4C

This document explains how to filter Products and Accounts when flowing from C4C into ERP. Also, it gives some insights on how to filter other objects. Finally, it explains how to filter objects on the opposite flow (ERP into C4C).

 

5) Opportunity External Pricing  (Integration with ERP through PO)

This document explains how to setup external pricing between C4C and ERP, going through all the configuration of the 3 systems (ERP, C4C and PO) and, also, explaining how to test it.

 

6) C4C Integration – Debugging remote calls into ERP / CRM

This document explains how to debug on ERP/CRM when doing remote calls from C4C side. It is really helpful when having integration issues and troubleshooting.

 

7) Cloud for Customer (C4C) - Lock Concept

This document explains how is Lock concept applied to C4C, as well as it explains parallel processing..

 

8) Cloud for Customer (C4C) – Organizational Management

This document explains several concepts related to Organizational Management which were making me some trouble and that, after writing them all down, things got a bit more clear as I started understanding differences. Some parts of this blog are copy-pasted from help.

 

Hopefully, I will be updating this blog soon with new experiences!

 

Cheers.

 

Alejandro.

Access Control Management: Access restrictions explained - Access Context

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  1. Basics of access control and business roles
  2. Access Control Management: Access restrictions explained  - Access Context (this blog)
  3. Access Control Management: Access restrictions explained  - Restriction Rules (coming soon)
  4. Access Control Management Example: Global versus local admin (coming soon)
  5. Access Control Management Example: Access forwarding (coming soon)
  6. How to analyze access control issues (coming soon)

 

 

The previous blog mentioned that each object is controlled by the access context. This access context is a characteristic of the work center view/business object. In the following screenshot, you can see that the work center view Account has the access context 1015 – Employee or Territory or Sales Data.  

 

0200_AccessContext.png


The access context 1015 is also relevant for Opportunities, Sales Quotes and other business objects. Other business objects such as the product may have different access contexts assigned. The access context is a characteristic bound to the work center view/business object. It is defined by the standard set up of the business object and cannot be changed or enhanced. Hence the access control capabilities for a certain business object works in the defined structure of the access context. That also implies – if there is no access context defined for a work center view/business object a distinct instance base access control setup is not possible for that particular entity.


For custom BOs created with the SAP cloud development studio access control can be inherited from a standard business object through association. In addition it is also possible to define a custom BO specific access control context related to employees or territories.


Example for Access Context:

The work center view “Accounts” has the access context 1015 assigned (Employee or Territory or Sales Data). This implies that the access to an account can (only) be controlled based on the following criteria:


EMPLOYEES directly assigned in the account team --> I have access to all accounts where I am member of the account team (independent of the role assigned); or my manager has access to all accounts of EMPLOYEES of the functional unit (organization) for which he is assigned as a manager.

 

0201_AccountTeam.png


TERRITORY team --> I have access to all accounts which are assigned to a territory I am a member of. Accounts assigned to territories which are sub territories of my territory are also accessible. Please note that the work center territories where the territories can be maintained works with a different access context - 1010 Employee!

0202_TerritoryTeam.png


SALES DATA - This is a new capability introduced with 1508 --> I have access to all accounts which are assigned to a sales area I am eligible for. The assignment of my relevant sales areas can be maintained in the employee master independent of my actual organizational assignment.


0203_SalesData.png

0204_EmployeeSalesArea.png


Read/Write access can be restricted on Work Center View (Business Object) level. 

 

Question:


Consider the following scenario for account Widgets Inc.:

For Widgets, Inc, Violet is assigned as the owner of the account. She is the designated employee responsible. Violet’s business role provides access context to accounts by employee. Violet’s business role provides her only access to accounts that are owned by Peter.

The question is: Can Violet see the account Widgets, Inc? 


The answer is no: Violet cannot see it because access context outweighs the role employee responsible. Even though she is the employee responsible, her access restriction settings in the role assigned to her only provides access to accounts that are owned by Peter. 




Cloud for Customer (C4C) – Organizational Management

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Introduction

Organizational Management (OM) is the central source of organizational information in the C4C solution. It is used for modelling the organizational structure and it provides a graphical representation through an organizational chart. In addition, it reflects entities and aspects (legal, operational and functional) of the company. SAP C4C accesses OM whenever business processes require information related to company’s organization.

 

01.png

 

For ensuring an appropriate OM, the following guiding principles exist:

 

- Time dependency: all information stored is time dependent.

 

- Active version vs. Planning version: the system has the ability to differentiate between the planning version and the active version of the organizational information.

 

- Consistency checks: there are some checks which help maintaining OM consistent all the time.

 

- Partial activation: it is possible to activate smaller parts of the organizational structure, while continuing to work with other parts.

 

 

Purpose

The aim of this document is to help consultants to clarify what does each function of the Organizational Management means as they are not detailed.

 

 

Organizational Units

These are the functional units of a company and form the basis of an organizational plan. Depending on how a company is organized, the organizational units may be departments, groups or, project teams.

 

 

Organizational Unit detail in C4C

When working with an organizational unit in C4C, there are several tabs which give meaning and sense to each unit. I will give a deeper detail for: General, Definitions and Functions.

 

 

Tab: General

Following, I will list the meaning of some of the relevant fields:

 

- Org. Unit ID: this is the unique identifier, once the OM has been activated, it is no longer editable.

 

- Org. Unit Name: the value contained on this field is the one that will appear on reports and business documents.

 

- Valid From/To: validity period for organizational unit.

 

- Working day calendar: specifically used for time management and payment optimization.

 

- Org. Unit. Manager: defines the service agent or employee with managerial responsibility over this organizational unit.

 

02.png

 

Tab: Definitions

The following properties are used for defining the organizational unit:

 

- Company: it represents an org. unit that is financially and legally independent, that is not tied to a geographical location, and is registered under business law. It includes all legally registered entities, such as associations, cooperatives, or any other legal persons that release annual financial statements. Each company has an official country of registration and a default currency. Each org. structure must contain at least one org unit that is defined as a company.

 

- Business Residence: it represents a part of your company within a geographic area. The business activity of this business residence is subject to uniform tax processing, its registration with public authorities is unique, and there is only one valuated stock per material for this business residence. A business residence can be, for example, a city or region, even if your company has several locations with different addresses within this city or region.

 

- Reporting Line Unit: it represents an org. unit that has personnel responsibility within the reporting line. If a manager is assigned to the reporting line unit, all employees on the org. unit and below it report to that manager.

 

- Program:  it represents a group of related projects managed collectively to achieve a common goal. The assignment of projects to a program is optional.

 

- Segment: it represents a company area whose business activities result in revenue and expenditure, and whose operating income is regularly monitored for the purpose of assigning resources and evaluating performance. The segment collects the balances of all lower-level profit centers and offers additional financial reports to those provided at profit center level.

 

- Profit Center: it represents a company area for which a separate period-based profit is determined. It is used for evaluating and regulating the activities of the company area in a profit-oriented manner. The profit center provides visibility on profit and loss via reports.

 

- Cost Center: it represents a defined location of cost incurrence, for which costs are recorded separately. A cost center is used in cost center management accounting to collect and allocate overhead costs.

 

03.png

 

 

Tab: Functions

On this tab, customer defined the functions that correspond to a specific organizational unit such as:

 

- Sales Organization: it indicates that the org. unit to which it is assigned represents the head org unit of a sales hierarchy. An example of a sales organization is the head organization in a country, such as domestic sales. The sales organization is also the relevant org unit for defining sales-relevant master data. Sales data in the product and account master can be defined in relation to the sales organization in combination with the distribution channel - this combination is known as the distribution chain. Price lists can be defined based on the distribution chain. In a sales document, such as a sales order or service order, the combination of the sales organization and the distribution channel appears.

 

- Sales: it indicates that the org. unit to which it is assigned is responsible for the processing of sales quotes and sales orders. In sales reporting, sales data is aggregated at the level of sales units. The sales organization is a specific type of sales unit, which is used to head complete areas, regions, or countries.

 

- Marketing: it indicates that the org. unit to which it is assigned is responsible for target group and campaign management, capturing of responses to campaigns, market and competitor information, and leads generation.

 

- Service Organization: it indicates that the org. unit to which it is assigned represents the organization that provides customer service. Below the service organization, customer service units can be defined to represent sub-entities of the service organization. If the services provided are sold to your customers,

you will also require a sales organization.

 

- Customer Service: it indicates that the org. unit to which it is assigned is responsible for the management, monitoring, and execution of services, such as the handling of product inquiries, providing recommendations, and pre- and after sales support. Customer service can be provided by a service desk or by field and in-house service teams.

 

- Strategic Purchasing: it indicates that the org. unit to which it is assigned is responsible for procuring products, identifying and managing sources of supply, and establishing long-term relationships with suppliers. Responsibilities include the creation of requests for quotation, and the negotiation and management of contracts with suppliers.

 

- Operational Purchasing: it indicates that the org. unit to which it is assigned is responsible for the procurement of materials and services from external suppliers. This includes the automation of the procurement process and the handling of purchase requests, purchase orders, purchase order acknowledgments, non-stock materials, and goods and services receipts.

 

- Cash Flow Management: it indicates that the org. unit to which it is assigned is responsible for: Cash and liquidity management, Payment management, Expense and reimburse management and, tax management.

 

- Financial and Management Accounting: it indicates that the org. unit to which it is assigned is responsible for: General ledger, Fixed assets, Cost management and, Inventory valuation.

 

- Customer Invoicing: it indicates that the org. unit to which it is assigned is responsible for: Receivables and Invoicing of customers for the supply of products and services

 

- Supplier Invoicing: it indicates that the org. unit to which it is assigned is responsible for: Payables and Supplier invoicing.

 

- Human Resources: it indicates that the org. unit to which it is assigned is responsible for: Personnel administration, Time administration, Compensation, Payroll, Expense and reimburse management.

 

04.png

Get up to speed with the latest information and news on SAP Cloud for Customer

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6th July 2015

Due to the global announcement of SHA-1 certificate deprecation plans and migration to SHA-2 for better security, our current SSL server certificates will be re-issued against SHA-2 Signature Hash Algorithm from a new certificate authority (Baltimore Cybertrust Root).

 

Read More at http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-65089

 

 

29th June 2015

We had the distinct pleasure of talking to our customers and partners informing them about the planned functionality that will be available with the August 2015 release of the SAP Cloud for Customer, public cloud software as a service offering, powered by the SAP HANA Cloud.

 

Find all the details at http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-63524

 

 

22nd June 2015

Earlier this year we announced SAP Cloud for Customer certification.  SAP just announced a discount available for C4C certification.  The promotion is available now thru  August - so check it out and get certified!

 

Find all the details at Promotional offer for SAP Cloud for Customer certification! 

 


5th May 2015

On May 5, 2015SAPintroduceda new service called “SAPDigitalforCustomer Engagement”...D4C is designed for “your way” - easy to buy, simple to use, robust and scale-able, all for the best price you can get.Buy D4C atThe SAP Store...

FAQ - C4C Tagging and Text Analysis - Hana Text Analysis

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This document captures common questions on this topic. These are valid as of C4C 15.05 version.

 

Q1. What is the engine behind text analysis.

Answer - Hana Text Analysis v1.85 (part of SPS 08). Used for  both Tagging(auto-tagging) and Sentiment Analysis(automatic sentiment determination)

 

Q2 - Where is Auto-Tagging used ?

Answer - Used in analyzing incoming Service/Social interactions - Eg social media mentions "Chris Rock is a big fan of iPhone" - Name "Chris Rock" and "iPhone" are tagged for that message. C4C user (agent) can manually change and update these.

 

Q3 - Where is Sentiment Analysis used?

Answer - Used in analyzing incoming Service/Social interactions. Systems detects sentiment and marks these interactions with positive/negative/neutral sentiments.  C4C user (agent) can manually change these.


Q4 - Does engine use dictionaries?

Answer -  Yes engine uses different dictionaries for different languages. These are standard predefined dictionaries.


Q5 - Can customer tweak the standard dictionary or define custom dictionaries? Can customer influence this process?

Answer - At this point, no.  Engine uses standard dictionaries for both sentiment analysis and tagging.

 

Q6 - What languages are supported?

Answer - English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese  and Traditional Chinese.

 

 

Related blog - http://scn.sap.com/thread/3761609

Work Distribution Rules for defaulting Owner in Opportunities

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This blog aims to discuss how we could use the Work Distribution Rules to default an Owner in the transactions -

Using the Involved Parties of the Opportunities-> Rule "Employee Responsible for Sales" along with a Work Distribution Rule defined for this Rule, this can be achieved

 

Eg: If the Rules for Party Determination in an Opportunity specify that the owner can be determined by the following:

     - Employee Responsible of the Account Team

     - Employee Responsible of the Territory Team

 

 

But, while creating the Account, the data specified in the Account meets none of the above.. say neither an Account Team has been defined with an Owner, nor is there a Territory Team. We still don't want the Opportunity to have no Owner determined. In such a case, using the Work Distribution Rules, one can specify a default Employee here.. Here is how you could do this:

 

1. To ensure that the Work Distribution Rule gets evaluated, you have to enable the associated rulel in Maintain Distributions of the Involved Parties for the Opportunities (Business Configuration -> Fine Tuning -> Opportunities -> Involved Parties)

wd5.gif

 

 

2. Next, ensure that there is a rule that is defined for the "Employee Responsible for Sales".

Go to Administrator -> General settings and locate Work Distribution Rules

WD1.gif

3. Define a Rule specifying the Owner who should get defaulted - Eg: Ulrike

wd2.gif

 

4. Next, to test, create an Account for which no Account Team / Owner / Territory has been defined - so that there is no Owner that can be determined in the transaction

wd3.gif

 

5. Finally, create an Opportunity for this customer - and check if Ulrike gets defaulted as the Owner

wd4.gif

 

Cheers !

Vinita

Helping our users help themselves in SAP Digital for Customer Engagement

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A positive information expereince imporves the overall user expereince and usability of the application, and in turn builds happy and loyal customers.

 

As a step in this direction, SAP Digital for Customer Engagement comes with a unique online help expereince with walk-through guided technology. This engages and drives the users to action, enhancing their online experience with guided tours. It guides them through different task flows with contextual and relevant help. And thus, instantly simplifies their experience.

 

How is this approach different? In this innovative help experience, we have carefully tried to map the content to the user tasks and workflows. And, for each single task, we have tried to answer these questions.

 

  • What is the user trying to do?
  • What does he need to know?
  • And how can this information be best provided?

 

We believe this approach will make it easier to understand and navigate. Also, help over the learning curve and through the various phases of intercation with the application.

 

Walkme screenshot for blog.PNG

We also have a new section in SAP Digital for Customer Engagement under help called 'Browse more FAQ'. Get the common answers to the questions most frequently asked that have been categorized for quick access and lookup.

 

Embrace this innovative endeavor from SAP in providing the users with information when and where they need it, by using SAP Digital for Customer Engagement.

Access Control Management: Access restrictions explained - Restriction Rules

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Welcome to the blog series on access control management.  The series discusses access control and business roles.  It provides typical examples of roles and access management.  The following are the blogs in this series:

 

  1. Basics of access control and business roles
  2. Access Control Management: Access restrictions explained  - Access Context
  3. Access Control Management: Access restrictions explained  - Restriction Rules (this blog)
  4. Access Control Management Example: Global versus local admin (coming soon)
  5. Access Control Management Example: Access forwarding (coming soon)
  6. How to analyze access control issues (coming soon)

 

 

The translation of the setup of the access restrictions defined in an unspecific role to the access restrictions of a specific user is handled through the restriction rules.

 

Example:

You have created a role for sales representatives. This role provides access to the work center views Account, Contacts, Opportunity and Sales Quote.  You want to assign this role to all of your global sales representatives in the different organizations. By choosing the restriction rule “Assigned Territories and Employees (for Managers)”. The system will automatically provide access restriction set up to the accounts where a user is assigned in the account team or in the territory team”. As the system generates the access restriction for the user automatically it is not necessary to create a role for each individual territory.

 

 

How does the system actually translate the access restrictions for the individual business users?

 

Sales Representative Nils Watt

Nils is a sales representative of the BFT Company Inc. Organizationally he is assigned to the corporate org unit of the company. He also is a member of the territory “Germany” which has further sub territories assigned. Nils user has the role “BFT DE SALES ASSISTANT” assigned. For the Accounts work center view the access restriction rule “Assigned Territories and Employees (for Managers)” is selected. 

Nils Watt  - Organizational assignment

0301_NilsWattOrg.png

 

Nils Watt – Territory assignment

0302_NilsWattTerr.png

 
Nils Watt User Role

0303_BFTSalesAssistantRole.png


The following screen shots show access rights for account work center of the user of Nils Watt. These access rights were automatically being generated:


  • As Nils is assigned as an employee (and not as a Manager) to his organizational unit. He has access granted only for those accounts (and contacts) where he is assigned as a member of the account team (no access to accounts of other account team members!).

0304_NilsWattAccessRestriction.png

 

  • As Nils is assigned to the territory Germany he has access to all accounts which are assigned to this territory but in addition also to all the accounts assigned to its sub territories.

0305_NilsWattAccessRestriction_Terr.png

 

 

Nils’ access is a combination of the employee part of his access context (--> Accounts where he is directly assigned as an account team member) and the territory part of his access context (à Accounts which are assigned to a territory (and sub territory) he is a member of.

 

The restriction rule of the role which is assigned to Nils’ user has dynamically generated access rights. Dynamically means that a change of his territory assignment will lead to a change of his territory related access rights.

 

 

Sales Manager Bodo Mann

Bodo is the manager of the BFT Company Inc. Organization. Bodo’s user has the same role “BFT DE SALES ASSISTANT” assigned as for his employee Nils. Bodo is not assigned to any territory:

 

  • As a manager Bodo has access to all accounts where employees of his own organizational unit and sub units are assigned in the account team. Please note that the organizational unit must be flagged as a sales unit (functional unit sales) to be effective in the access restrictions.

0305_BodoMannAccessRestriction_Terr.png

 

Does Bodo also has access to an account where his employee Nils Watt can access because he is member of the territory team of the account but not member of the account team?


The answer is no! The employee part of the access context only considers the organizational assignment of the employees of the manager.


When setting up a role I recommended to use access restriction rules rather than defining specific rules. This might not always be possible for all customer use cases but using restriction rules can reduce the  number of different business roles as the same role can be used for users of different organizations, territories etc. By this maintenance and administration effort on handling the roles can be reduced.


0306_RestrictionRule.png


The restriction rule can be maintained in the “Access Restriction” by individual work center view. It is depending on the access context of the work center view/business object. In the screen shot above you see the available restriction rules for the access context 1015 – Employee or Territory or Sales Data. Other work center views/business objects which are assigned to different access contexts will provide a different set of restriction rules.

The restriction rules are defined by the standard and cannot be changed or extended customer specifically.

Engage Customers Like Never Before with client managed banking powered by SAP Cloud for Customer

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SAP Cloud for Customer for client-managed banking is a single, collaborative sales platform that aligns financial advisers and client managers with product specialists, helping to build better relationships with clients, particularly in commercial banking and wealth management where collaboration is key.

 


C4C10 certification - My experience!

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Today, I have reached a milestone that I 've been chasing for the last months, today I have cleared my first C4C related certification (C_C4C10_2015 - SAP Certified Application Consultant - SAP Cloud for Customer)

 

The aim of this blog is to answer some questions that could be on others mind willing to get C4C certification so hope it helps

 

 

Administrative steps

For understanding how to sign up to Certification Hub and getting a certification appointment, I would strongly recommend to go through Ginger Gatling blog where she explains everything on a great way: C4C Certification

 

 

Getting prepared

So, for getting prepared I have been reading and studying from different sources. Most of them are detailed on my other blog SAP Cloud for Customer (C4C) - My first experience although the main one was C4C10 handbook through Learning Hub (LH). For being honest, I still haven't found a comfortable way to use LH and I do not like studying from the laptop; it would be much more comfortable for me to print out handbook or, even, read it from a tablet (i.e. iPad). Anyway, I have read the handbook twice. In addition to this, I personally count with hands-on experience so that was really a plus. The topics I found more complex during the exam, where those that I had never used on my projects so, my first big advice would be to focus on those topics that you have less experience.

 

 

Surprises during certification exam

For being honest, I did not get any "surprise" while sitting for the exam; this was not my first SAP certification although it was the first one under the new Cloud model that had a proctor 100% time looking at you through my webcam.

 

 

Sensations during certification exam

I entered to the exam being very confident with my knowledge (otherwise, I would have reschedule it before the beginning time) and it happened the same thing that has happened to me every time I got certified; first it happened that I couldn't understand lots of questions as I was very nervous so I have a first round through the 80 questions in an hour (total time for answering the 80 questions is 3 hours). While going through the first round and answering, I also set marked those questions where I was not sure about the answer.

After the first hour, I went through all the questions again; those which where not marked I just went through them in order to check them for the last time and forget about them and those that where marked, I tried to clarify and answer them. This second round took me around half an hour. I used another half an hour to answer those 10-12 questions where my major doubts were. I still had an hour left but I only had doubts on 5 questions which I had no clue so I decided to submit my exam. And there is when extreme happiness started...

For summarizing, I would propose to give a first quick round trying to answer all the "easy" questions (those topics that each of you finds it easier) in order to reduce the unanswered questions. Second round should be to re-check those answered and to clarify those where you are not clear. Third round should be for finish answering remaining questions. This is the method I have used in all my certifications and that, up to now, it has provided good results to me...

 

 

For those who are preparing themselves for getting certified, feel free to post questions on this blog so we can share comments and, for sure, all the best!!!

 

Good luck!!!

 

Alejandro.

SMS Workflow Functionality-August 2015 release

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Pre requisite

You should have a SMS Provider like Sybase that would actually take care of the Messaging

How to set up SMS workflow (done by the Administrator)

1) Set up the SMS Channel

    1. Enable Messaging in Scoping

Scoping element:  Sales  -> Account and Activity Management -> Activity Management .
Question: Do you want to record messaging activity?

b. Request Gateway Provider (eg Sybase) to give the Endpoint URL for Outbound SMS.

c. Go to Administrator -> Business Flexibility ->  Mashup Web Services .. Create a Mash up web service to integrate to the SMS provider

 

WS.png

2) Create Workflow Rules: Go to Administrator->Workflow Rules. Set up a Workflow Rule as usual. In the Actions tab, select “Messaging” and the parameters as explained below

workflow.png

3) Testing: Test by triggering the workflow. The mobile number to which the SMS is to be sent is taken from the Mobile number defined in the Employeeconfiguration.

 

 

Cheers,

Geetha

What's New Video for August 2015!

Understanding Change Projects

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This blog series is designed to help in understanding the concept and usage of change projects in business configuration. The idea of this series is to explain the features of the change projects, and some do's and dont's while working on it. This blog series will contain following articles:

 

  1. Introduction - Concept and Usage
  2. Change Project Types - Remote or Local
  3. Change Project - Merge and Sync with Production
  4. Change Project Life Cycle

 

Introduction- Concept and Usage

 

Change project is a mechanism to bring in new business configuration (scoping) changes into a production system once that production system is set to live. How should this "live" be inferred? To explain this, I need to explain the life cycle of the first implementation project in a customer production system.

When a customer requests a new production system, that system comes with an implementation project with title "First Implementation". This implementation project can be seen in Business Configuration work center, Implementation Projects work center view.

 

In case the above production system is requested from a test system with solution profile copy option, then the implementation project in the production system will be a copy of the same name project from the test system. In case, this production system is a fresh request, then the implementation project will be a pre-configured project delivered from SAP. You can get more information on different kinds of possible tenant request scenarios here.

 

Once you have the above implementation project in your production system, you can continue with your business configuration setup. You can do scoping as well as fine tuning related changes. There are various milestones in an implementation project. These milestones are reviewed at different project stages. The last and final milestone of this "First Implementation" project is "Confirm Go Live". This milestone  is only available in a customer production system but not in a test system. This milestone is set to confirmed once the customer solution is tested and accepted by business users community. Once this milestone is set, the implementation project status changes to "Live".

 

Once an implementation project is set to live in a customer production system, this brings in certain constraints on carrying out changes in business configuration. A customer should be able to carry out maintenance of most of the fine tuning activities, i.e. maintaining a code list. However, a user will not be able to carry out any changes with respect to scoping in the implementation project. This restriction is set to minimize risk at the production scenarios at the customer. Bringing in new changes, without proper testing etc., will put the current production processes at risk.

 

Now, I come to the first sentence of my blog article, which states that change project is a mechanism to bring in business configuration (scoping) changes into a customer production system.

 

How do I create a change project? Once the first implementation project is set to live, the "New" button on the list in the Implementation Projects work center view will be enabled. This button is used to create a new implementation project, which is also called a change project to infer that this project is created to bring in some changes.

 

What happens when a user creates a new change project? This results in the creation of a new implementation project which in fact is a copy of the existing live implementation project. This way, a user starts to carry out changes on top of his existing live solution scope.

 

CP1.jpg

 

Will the changes I am doing in a change project impact my production system? The answer is no. The change project is not associated with the runtime of the production system. Or in layman terms, the processes in a production system work with the live implementation project. These processes do not access a change project at any point of time. This way, we are able to separate out the project which should be used to run processes and a project which can be used to carry out new changes. Once a change project is created, there is automatic synchronization between this change project and the live project. This means, in case you make some fine tuning changes in your live project, those changes will not automatically come to the existing change project.

 

Can I have more than one change project in my production system? The answer is yes, however not recommended from SAP. Technically, you can have multiple change projects in a production system. Whenever you create a new change project, it copies the live implementation project and creates a new implementation project as per your given description. A valid use case of multiple change projects could be that a customer wants to carry out two separate line of changes and wants to keep these as different projects.

 

CP3.jpg

 

But you can already observe here that if you have multiple change projects then there would be issues with syncing these different change projects at any given time. Let's try to understand the scenario from above picture. In the above picture, we see two change projects, CP1 & CP2. First CP1 was created, and after some time CP2 was created. As you can see, both these change projects started with the copy of the same First Implementation. Now, there can be chances that the state of the First Implementation at the time of creation of these two change projects was not the same. A user might have done some changes (fine tuning) in between the creation of CP1 & CP2.

 

At some point of time in future, a change project needs to be merged with the live project. And at the time of merge, user will run into conflicts in case a change project and live project is not in sync. Therefore, if you have multiple change projects, keeping those in sync would be a time consuming task.

Of course there are remedies to overcome this, however the conflict resolution among different change projects is not that easy. We will learn about syncing change project with live project in a latter article.


The next article in this blog series deals with the types of change projects and how you can perform testing for the changes carried out in the change projects.

SAP Cloud for Customer - August 2015 Release - Customer Briefing

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Dear Community,

 

We had the distinct pleasure of hosting a conference call on Tuesday, August 4th, 4pm CET / 9am CST

 

In case you were not able to join Jack Nehmer from the Cloud CRM Product Management team, for an overview of the key capabilities and better understanding of the planned functionality for the SAP Cloud for Customer August 2015 Release. Please reference the recording below to understand the discussions that ensued during the conference call.

 

 

Thank you for your time and attention to this important matter.

 

Please feel free to reach out to us with questions and comments below in case you are looking for more information.

 

cc. Jack Nehmer

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