Portal Concepts

This section explains the concepts of the SAP NetWeaver Portal that you need to understand when using the SAP Supplier Relationship Management (SAP SRM) application running in the portal.

For information about the functions of the SAP SRM applications that are available in the SAP NetWeaver Portal for SAP SRM, see Functions.

For information about the Portal content, that is, the roles, worksets, and iViews available for SAP SRM, seeBusiness Packages.

3.2.1 Control Center

The control center is available to all users, irrespective of the role they have been assigned. You access it by chossing Home Overview Today in the navigation of the SAP NetWeaver Portal. The control center provides clear organization of content.

In the Universal Worklist available in the control center, you receive messages, alerts, or workflow work items prompting you to take appropriate action. The control center then provides direct navigation to the necessary pages, employee self-services, or SAP SRM applications.

The Home Overview Today page provides an overview of company broadcast news, alerts, task items, and notifications.

Control Center and Work Centers in SAP SRM

3.2.2 Work Center

The work center is an area in the SAP NetWeaver Portal browser window that allows you to access the different work areas specific to your role(s). Each work center is represented by one or more tabs and is the place to start or resume work in a certain area. In SAP Supplier Relationship Management (SAP SRM), there are predefined user roles. Each user role has a tailored work center.

Example

The Strategic Purchaser role has many tasks that are handled in different work centers, such as Strategic Purchasing, and Purchasing.

The following graphic shows where you can access work centers in the SAP NetWeaver portal browser window.

Control Center and Work Centers in SAP SRM

3.2.3 Universal Worklist

The Universal Worklist (UWL) is a list of work items and provides quick access to your critical work items and the relevant information within the context of the work center. Overview information is provided, but the main focus is on the list of work items. From the list, you can immediately complete the task or navigate directly to the SAP Supplier Relationship Management (SAP SRM) application where the task can be completed.

Features

The Universal Worklist (UWL) supports you in the following ways:

 It aggregates workflow task items from multiple systems in one universal list

 It displays additional information, as required, from document and object repositories, including attachments and other details

 It helps you to personalize how work items are presented

 It enables you to assign another user to your work items as a substitute in case of absence.

The UWL presents work lists resulting from workflows. The work item may be handled in any of the following ways:

 Using a single click, for example, an approval

 By starting a self-service application, for example, creating a confirmation

 By starting a transaction, for example, modifying a purchase order

The UWL allows you to manage your work by bringing together assignments from different workflow systems, including:

 Workflow

 Alerts

 Knowledge Management (KM) notifications

 Collaboration tasks

3.2.4 Personal Object Worklist

The Personal Object Worklist (POWL), which is located in the content area of the SAP NetWeaver Portal, is a query-driven worklist that contains procurement documents (business objects) from your work area.

The list of objects is assembled so that you can work on a defined set of items. While adapting and saving queries is possible, the focus is on having predefined queries, which bring your work items to you.

Simple, one-step actions are possible, but typically you navigate from the POWL to an application to work on the selected procurement document.

The POWL with its flexible queries is particularly useful for users with the following work styles:

 Routine: repetitive work

 Calendar-driven: periodic tasks

If you are using the classic or extended classic scenario as well as roles that enable you to access SAP ERP and SAP SRM documents (Strategic Purchaser (ERP/SRM) and Operational Purchaser (ERP/SRM)), the POWLs contain predefined categories, queries, search criteria, and buttons that allow you to work with documents from both SAP ERP and SAP SRM. In this case, when creating a purchasing document from within the POWL, you see a screen that allows you to select the SAP ERP or the SAP SRM system where you want to create the document. The respective application is then started automatically in either SAP SRM or SAP ERP.

Prerequisites

To use the automatic refresh function of the POWL, your system must fulfill the following requirements:

 You use SAP NetWeaver 7.01 SPS 05 or higher.

 You use SAP NetWeaver Portal 7.0 SPS 17 or higher.

To use the POWL to access purchasing documents in both SAP SRM and SAP ERP, you have done the following in Customizing for SAP Supplier Relationship Management:

 You have defined in which SAP systems you want to search and whether you want to use the Embedded Search. You do this under SRM Server Technical Basic Settings Define System Landscape .

 You have specified the RFC destinations for the back-end systems (SAP ERP) where you want to search. You do this under SRM Server Technical Basic Settings Define RFC Destinations to SAP ERP for Input Help .

 If you use POWLs that allow you to access SAP ERP and SAP SRM objects, you have scheduled the report Get ERP Customizing Data for Business Suite (/SAPSRM/GET_BS_DATA) to replicate data from SAP ERP to SAP SRM. This data has been defined in Customizing of SAP ERP, and replication makes it available for the input help and dropdown lists of the POWLs.

Note

You must either start the report every time you make changes in Customizing for SAP ERP or schedule a job that runs the report regularly.

You can adapt the layout of the worklists to include or exclude columns and actions for purchasing documents. You can also modify the search criteria that are available to users when defining queries for POWLs. You do this in Customizing for SAP Supplier Relationship Management under SRM Server Cross-Application Basic Settings POWL and Advanced Search Adjust POWL Layout, Search Criteria, and Pushbuttons .

You can choose to display only the most important fields on the user interfaces of the shopping cart and confirmation personal object worklists (POWLs). You can also restrict sorting to sorting-relevant fields by activating the related Customizing switch in Customizing for SAP Supplier Relationship Management under SRM Server Cross-Application Basic Settings POWL and Advanced Search Activate/Deactivate POWL Optimization .

To use this function, you must activate the business function SRM, Continuous Innovations (SRM_CONT_IMPR_1).

The following table lists the delivered settings for the shopping cart POWL:

Sorting