Manage Operations for SAP for Retail

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Workforce Management 3.0

Dietmar-Hopp-Allee 16 D-69190 Walldorf CS STATUS customer published DATE VERSION Dec-13 2008 3.0

SOLUTION MANAGEMENT PHASE SAP SOLUTION

Operations & Continuous Improvement Best Practices for Solution Operations TOPIC AREA SOLUTION MANAGER AREA

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1 Management Summary

1.1 Goal of Using This Best Practice

This Best Practice helps you set up a Business Process Monitoring concept for your SAP for Retail Workforce Management solution. The concept aims at defining procedures for business process-oriented monitoring and error handling, and escalation procedures for your Employee Maintenance, Forecasting and Scheduling business processes. These procedures intend to ensure a smooth and reliable flow of this core process so that your business requirements are met.

This Best Practice gives orientation for defining suitable application-oriented monitoring objects in order to detect any irregularities or deviations from an ideal business process flow or to detect error situations concerning a core business process at an early stage.

This Best Practice follows the recommended approach of SAP to use SAP Solution Manager for monitoring functionalities whenever possible. But even if you do not use SAP Solution Manager we recommend to follow the procedures described in this document as much as possible in order to ensure a smooth and reliable flow of your business processes as well as an appropriate response in case of unforeseen errors.

1.2 Alternative Practices

You can have SAP experts deliver this Best Practice on-site by ordering an SAP solution management optimization (SMO) service for SAP business process management (BPM). This service is exclusively available within SAP’s support engagements SAP MaxAttention and Safeguarding. If your company currently does not have any support engagement with SAP, it is also possible to get assistance by SAP experts from SAP Consulting. In this case, please contact your local SAP Consulting representative.

1.3 Staff and Skills Requirements

To implement this Best Practice, you require the following teams: Application management team

This team creates the ERP Business Process Monitoring concept and consists of experts from several areas of your company:

Business department

Solution support organization (for example basis support or application support) Implementation project team

Business process operations team

The business process operations team will be responsible for applying the resulting procedures derived from implementing this Best Practice. It includes the following groups:

Persons designated to perform business process-oriented monitoring and to ensure that the process runs smoothly (e.g. the business process champion for each business process)

All parties in your solution support organization and IT department involved in monitoring focused on the application aspects (application support, development support, job scheduling management)

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SAP technology operations team

This team comprises all those in your solution support organization and IT department involved in monitoring focused on the system administration side (program scheduling management, software monitoring team, system administration team including the system administrator)

Business process champion

The business process champion is a person in the business department that is responsible for the successful execution of a given business process. He or she coordinates all activities necessary for the business process and, therefore, is usually responsible for the escalation paths in case of problems. Often this role serves as a second level in the escalation procedure if the application monitoring team needs to escalate an issue.

More information about roles and responsibilities of these teams can be found in the super-ordinate Best Practice for General Business Process Management, which you can obtain through SAP Solution Manager or the SAP Service Marketplace, quick link /BPM.

Necessary or useful trainings

SM300 – Business Process Management and Monitoring

E2E300 – End-to-End Business Process Integration and Automation Management EP120 – SAP Enterprise Portal Development

1.4 System Requirements

In order to monitor business processes running in your SAP for Retail solution via SAP Solution Manager, the SAP Basis release of the systems to be monitored has to be at least 4.6C. To have all described monitoring objects available in SAP Solution Manager, the add-on ST-A/PI01L has to be installed on the SAP for Retail system.

1.5 Duration and Timing

Duration

Creating a Business Process Monitoring concept can take approximately one week per business process. Implementing the Business Process Monitoring concept might take approximately another week.

Timing

The best time to apply this Best Practice is during the planning phase or during the implementation phase of your SAP solution.

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1.6 How to Use This Best Practice

Here you find a brief description of how you should proceed in using this document:

Read through the Best Practice for General Business Process Management, available on the SAP Service Marketplace. The document explains the procedures to be used to create a general Business Process Management concept. This includes the definition and documentation of the core business processes, definition of monitoring objects, definition of monitoring activities including error handling procedures, monitoring tools and monitoring frequencies, the definition of communication and escalation procedures and the assignment of responsibilities.

At the beginning of chapter 2 you will find a typical flow chart of the core business process explained in this Best Practice. It is intended to be used as a guideline for writing down your company-specific process documentation.

In chapter 1.7.4 you will find further information relevant for more than one scenario. In case information from the generic part is relevant for a specific business process step in one of the scenarios, you will find a clear link to the corresponding chapter of the generic part.

1.7 Best Practice Procedure

1.7.1 Preliminary tasks

Before performing this Best Practice, ensure that you perform the following preliminary tasks or checks in the system:

Complete all installation and post-installation actions and procedures, including customizing Ensure that the initial download has been successfully executed

Apply all SAP recommendations from SAP service sessions and any SAP recommendations resulting from customer problem messages

Implement all current SAP support packages upon availability 1.7.2 Monitoring concepts

The monitoring procedures proposed for each business process step are the core of this Best Practice. The monitoring procedures help you ensure that the technical processes meet the requirements for stability, performance and completeness. These procedures cover the monitoring for five areas:

Error monitoring Performance monitoring Throughput monitoring Backlog monitoring

Data consistency monitoring

For each of the business process steps, you will find the following information: A detailed functional description of the process step

Identified monitoring requirements for the process step Defined monitoring objects, alerts and selection criteria Description of error handling procedures and restartability

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General monitoring activities that are valid for all or most scenarios are described in the generic part in chapter 1.7.4. Recommendations for performance monitoring can also be found in this chapter. The performance of the most important steps of your core business processes should be monitored on a regular basis. The monitoring procedure for performance monitoring of all steps that are executed in an SAP for Retail Workforce Management solution is generally the same. Therefore, you will only find specific performance monitoring recommendations on selected business process steps.

1.7.3 Business Process Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager

Business Process Monitoring (BPMon), as part of Solution Monitoring means the proactive and process-oriented monitoring of the most important or critical business processes, including the observation of all technical and business application-specific functions that are required for a steady and stable flow of the business processes.

The core business processes that are implemented in an SAP for Retail Workforce Management system or other software and operated by a company are of particular importance, and Business Process Monitoring is intended to ensure a smooth and reliable operation of the business processes and, thereby, that the core business processes meet a company’s business requirements in terms of stability, performance, and completeness. SAP Solution Manager provides a graphic to visualize a company’s (distributed) system- and solution landscape and all related business processes. By using Business Process Monitoring, it is possible to define and customize alert situations from the basic set of configurable alerts provided by SAP Solution Manager. These alerts are then visualized as green, yellow and red alert icons for each individual business process step in the graphical business process representation. Business Process Monitoring is intended to detect critical situations and respond to them as early as possible in order to solve problems as fast as possible.

SAP Solution Manager also offers extended functionality for error handling and problem resolution. By the definition of contact persons and escalation paths, Business Process Monitoring can be integrated into the company’s overall strategy for business process management and solution management within their solution support organization.

In general, Business Process Monitoring includes the solution-wide observation of: Business process performance (key performance indicators)

Background jobs (Job Scheduling Management tasks)

Business application logs (such as any error log, general application log, due list logs, etc.) Data transfer via interfaces between software components

Data consistency

Technical infrastructure and components required to run the business processes Required periodic monitoring tasks

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1.7.4 Monitoring types for Business Process Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager

Monitoring types are part of the functional scope of Business Process Monitoring as it is available in SAP Solution Manager. The below mentioned monitoring types are available:

Application monitor (throughput and backlog indicators, interface monitoring, data consistency checks, mass activity monitors, due list log, MRP key figures, user exit)

Background jobs (jobs running on SAP systems with an SAP basis) Dialog performance (dialog transaction performance)

Update error (V1 and V2 update errors from SM13 for specific transactions and programs) Due list log (messages for deliveries and billings)

Application log (messages from the application Log SLG1) Document volume (based on table call statistics in ST10)

Other CCMS monitor (all alerts that are configured in the CCMS alert monitor)

Depending on what is executed during a specific business process step, the relevant monitoring types must be selected. In order to receive detailed information on how to set up the monitoring objects in SAP Solution Manager, please refer to the documentation available at http://service.sap.com/bpm. In the following chapters, monitoring types that are relevant for this Best Practice document are introduced shortly.

One prerequisite for setting up Business Process and Interface Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager is that all business processes and business process steps are maintained in the respective solution that contains all affected system components. If you want to learn more about how to set this up, please turn to

http://help.sap.com SAP Solution Manager Basic Settings. 1.7.4.1 Application monitor

The application monitor is just one of many different monitoring types within the Business Process Monitoring. The latest monitoring objects are only provided if the latest ST-A/PI plug-in is installed on the satellite system. The service tool for ST-A/PI is available via the SAP Service Marketplace quick link /installations Entry by Application Group Plug-Ins SAP Solution Tools ST-A/PI.

Please ensure that ST-A/PI is installed on the SAP Solution Manager system and on the respective satellite. In case of problems refer to SAP Note 915933.

The throughput and backlog indicator functionality available as of ST-A/PI 01J* is only working properly with ST-SER 700_2007_1. This is due to changes in the underlying architecture.

More detailed information about the different application monitor functionalities and a detailed description on how to define self-written monitoring collectors for the user exit are explained in the following documents respectively (http://www.service.sap.com/ Alias BPM Media Library):

Setup Guide – Application Monitoring Setup Guide – Interface Monitoring Setup Guide – User Exit

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1.7.4.2 Background job

The background job monitoring should be part of a Job Scheduling Management concept. Go to

http://service.sap.com/solutionmanagerbp, topic area Business Process Operations to find the Best Practice for Job Scheduling Management. Because of several restrictions regarding background job scheduling, e.g. time restrictions, restriction of hardware resources (CPU, main memory, …), or existing dependencies between different activities (e.g. invoices can only be created after the corresponding goods issue is posted, or backorder processing and material requirements planning should not run at the same time) it is very important to ensure the stable run of background jobs. A cancelled background job should be identified as soon as possible in order to react as fast as possible. Therefore it is also necessary to define restart procedures and escalation paths.

Monitoring objects

Before setting up monitoring, the monitoring objects must be clearly defined. A monitoring object is a single background job or a group of background jobs. There are four different possibilities to identify a special back-ground job or a group of backback-ground jobs. This information needs to be maintained in the sub-node Background Job below a business process step.

A detailed description of what kinds of alerts make sense or what kinds of alerts are possible is provided in the Best Practice for Background Job Monitoring with SAP Solution Manager document, which can be found on the SAP Marketplace http://service.sap.com/solutionmanagerbp, topic area Business Process Opera-tion.

1.7.4.3 ABAP dump collector

The dump collector provides monitoring features for alerting on occurrences of ABAP dumps of specified runtime errors and collects statistical data of ABAP dumps for reporting reasons.

The monitoring object is an ABAP runtime error. This runtime error can be specified via the runtime error name, the user who is responsible for the runtime error, the client on which the runtime error occurs or the program that leads to the runtime error.

Monitoring alerts

Possible alert types are the Number of ABAP Dumps (Delta) – all dumps since the last collector run – and Number of ABAP Dumps (Reporting) – all runtime errors of specified type, client and program for this day or for the previous day.

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Figure 1: Alert type Number of ABAP Dumps (Delta)

1.7.4.4 Dialog performance

Dialog performance implies the monitoring of the dialog transaction performance of any transaction in the SAP system. This can be a standard transaction or a custom-developed transaction.

The monitoring object is the transaction itself. The customizing has to be done in the Dialog Performance node. The Transactions table lists all transactions that are already configured to that business process step. The relevant transactions need to be selected for monitoring. It is also possible to add or to remove transactions within the Add/Remove Transactions table. The monitoring can be performed per SAP instance. To this end, select the respective instances in the SAP Instances table, which lists all instances that are maintained for a system. The Alert Types table shows the dialog response time and all parts of the response time that can be monitored, like queue time, load and generation time, database request time and the front-end response time. Select those times that are relevant for monitoring. After saving this node, a sub-node Performance Alerts will appear where you can enter the threshold values.

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Figure 2: Monitoring objects – Dialog performance

Monitoring alerts

Each table in the Performance Alerts sub-node corresponds to an alert type chosen in the higher-level node, and lists the combinations of specified transaction code and SAP instance.

For each combination of transaction code and instance that you want to include in the monitoring, specify the threshold values resulting in alert messages for GREEN to YELLOW, YELLOW to RED, RED to YELLOW, and YELLOW to GREEN.

Since the monitoring object for performance monitoring is created on the satellite system, it might be possible that the object already exists there. Therefore you can load the current threshold values from the respective systems via the Load thresholds from <XYZ> button, with <XYZ> representing the SID. If successfully retrieved for an SAP instance, the values are filled in columns. If no active settings for the threshold values were found for a certain transaction code, default values are set (indicated in column Default). To transfer the threshold values for a single line from right to left, the Copy icon can be used. To transfer all at once (all thresholds for all columns and tables) there is an additional Copy all button.

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1.7.4.5 Application log

The application log provides an infrastructure for collecting messages, saving them in the database and displaying them as a log. At runtime, situations can arise in application programs that must be brought to the attention of the user. These are usually errors. It can also be useful to report a successful completion. The information that arises is called a message. A set of messages is a log. A log usually also has header information (log type, creator, creation time, etc.). A transaction can generate several logs. The application log is not written consecutively but as a whole at one point in time.

Monitoring objects and alerts

The application log allows an application- or object-oriented recording of events. An object and any sub-object that belongs to it classify each event. The analysis of the logs is similarly sub-object- (or sub-sub-object-) oriented. The name of an object (or sub-object) can be found in transaction /nSLG1 together with all other information specific to that log.

Figure 4: Monitoring objects and alerts – Application log

It is possible to monitor the total number of messages belonging to an object. For each object, the number of messages that raise a YELLOW alert and the number of messages changing from YELLOW to RED must be maintained.

It is also possible to monitor specific messages that are considered as critical in the N° of Critical Messages table. To configure the monitoring of critical application log messages, select the relevant object-sub object combinations. For each of these combinations, you can specify the message type, the message ID and the message number as well as the threshold values for the number of critical messages that are supposed to result in changes from GREEN to YELLOW and from YELLOW to RED can be specified. It is also possible to use wild cards.

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Figure 5: Monitoring alerts – Application log/Critical messages

1.7.4.6 Analysis and monitoring tools

It is possible to specify analysis transactions or URL addresses (including file directories) per monitoring object. In case of analysis transactions these should be used to analyze errors or problems either locally in SAP Solution Manager system (Call Option “1”) or directly in the respective satellite systems (Call Option “2”). Per default some standard transactions are maintained. For instance, transaction SM37, that provides a job overview in an SAP system, is maintained for background jobs, and transaction SLG1, which is used to have a look into the application log.

It is also possible to add new transactions. These can be standard transactions or transactions written by the customer.

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On the second tab strip, you can specify an URL that should be called in order to further analyze the given problem. This is especially interesting if you have knowledge documents that are linked to a portal. You can define a short text and the URL.

For Web pages to be called, specify the full URL, e.g.http://help.sap.com. For content available on file servers specify the full file path, using the nomenclature: file://\\\<server>\..., for instance,

file://\\\server1\operations_documents\operations-handbook.txt

Figure 7: Analysis and monitoring URL

When using the monitoring during a Business Process Monitoring session, the specified transactions or URLs are available as buttons within a business process step. When you press these buttons, for instance , you jump directly into the corresponding transaction, either in SAP Solution Manager (here: SAT) or the connected satellite system (here: CT1), for further analysis.

In case of URLs, the button (e.g. ) contains the short text (limited to 20 characters) from the setup session and opens the defined URL in a new browser window.

1.7.4.7 Monitoring activities

Monitoring activities should be set up for every monitoring object within a business process step. All monitoring objects defined within a business process step are listed there. To ensure effective monitoring and efficient problem resolution, assign responsibilities and define problem resolution procedures as described in the following table. Some information has been taken from the previous Solution Support Organization node.

Monitoring Team Defines the team that is responsible for monitoring the relevant monitoring object. Use value help F4.

Person Resp. Defines the person who is responsible for monitoring the monitoring object. Use value help F4.

Frequency Describes how often the responsible person should process the required monitoring activity.

Start Time Describes at which time the responsible person should process the required monitoring activity.

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Problem Indicator A description about what indicates a problem.

Error Handling Describes how to react on problems or errors, i.e. how to solve the problem or correct the error.

Escalation Path Describes the escalation path in case that the person responsible could not solve the problem. Persons who can be contacted should be maintained here.

You can enter additional information related to this business process step in the tables Monitoring Activities, Error Handling, Restart of Step and Escalation Path. That information is valid for the whole business process step and help users who have to carry out the monitoring and who are not familiar with that particular business process.

1.7.4.8 Notifications

You can set up notifications for the whole business process or for each business process step individually. There are two types of notifications: Workflow notifications and support notifications. Workflow notifications allow sending messages to a specified recipient in case of alerts, for instance, an e-mail or SAPOffice mail. Support notifications allow setting up a service desk message in case of an alert. The information entered for the service desk message serves as a template. The service desk message can be created manually or automatically.

On business process level, you can define notifications for the whole business process, i.e. as soon as the business process gets an alert status, notifications will be triggered. Alternatively, notifications can be defined for every monitoring type individually, e.g. all alerts related to background jobs of the business process are forwarded to a defined e-mail address.

Notifications defined on business process step level will overrule the configuration made on business process level for this particular step.

Workflow notification

Sender Must be a user within in the monitoring client of SAP Solution Manager. This user can even be a system user without any roles or profiles, but the user must have a valid e-mail address which the used mail server knows.

Recipient Address Depending on the recipient type, the recipient name is required. This can be any e-mail address, an SAP user name in the same system, a remote SAP name or a shared distribution list. In case of an SMS you need to enter “SMS:<cell phone or pager number>”.

Reci. Type There are currently five different recipient types: U (e-mail), K (for SMS and pager), B (SAP user name), R (remote SAP name) and C (shared distribution list).

No. of Yellow Alerts Number of YELLOW alerts that can occur before an automatic notification is triggered

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Max Wait Time [h] Once the maximum wait time [hours] has elapsed, a notification is created even if the thresholds are not exceeded.

RED Only To restrict this mechanism only to red alerts, the flag in column RED Only must be set.

Detailed Triggers a long text for e-mails or SAPOffice mails, e.g. name of the solution, name of the business process step, …)

Support notifications

Priority Defines the priority of the support notification.

Queue Defines the support component on which the message is put. This component must exist within the service desk.

Processor Defines a default processor who should process the message. The processor must be known within the service desk and must be SAP user name defined as a business partner with role employee.

Text Template Text templates can be defined that will then be available for service desk messages manually created for alerts.

Automatic Support notifications will be created automatically depending on the alert thresholds.

Reporter Necessary if service desk messages are created automatically. Must be a SAP user name defined as a business partner with role general.

Num of YELLOW Alerts

Necessary when service desk messages are created automatically, e.g. after ten yellow alerts a service desk message should be created.

Num of RED Alerts Necessary when service desk messages are created automatically, e.g. after five red alerts a service desk message should be created.

If in addition to Queue, Processor, Priority and Reporter either one of the columns Num of YELLOW Alerts or Num of RED Alerts is filled with a value, the automatic support notification creation is configured. In case that both columns are filled with a value, the automatic support notification creation works with a logical OR operation. Hence, with the figures in the table above the system would create a support notification if there are either more than nine yellow alerts or more than four red alerts for which no support notification has been created yet.

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1.7.5 Business Process Monitoring process

For a successful and efficient Business Process Monitoring, you have to define a process for implementing your monitoring concept. This includes the definition of the roles and responsibilities involved. You need to define who is supposed to carry out which activity within the process and how communication between the different roles within the support organization is supposed to take place.

A Business Process Monitoring concept has to be tightly integrated with the support organization. This includes the integration with the Incident- and Problem Management processes and the Change Management process. These processes have to be adjusted to the Business Process Monitoring concept so that communication and escalation procedures defined within these processes support the Business Process Monitoring concept. This includes the final communication of open alerts to SAP.

Wherever communication connected with Business Process Monitoring happens outside these support processes, separate communication and escalation paths and procedures have to be defined.

Please see the separate Best Practice for General Business Process Management for further details.

1.7.6 Legend

This symbol indicates a paragraph from where you can navigate to another chapter of this document for a more detailed information on a topic.

This symbol indicates a paragraph from where you can navigate to another document within the SAP Service Marketplace for a more detailed information on a topic.

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2 Business Process Monitoring for Workforce Management

Workforce Management (WFM) performs the complex process of creating optimum employee schedules by leveraging employee skill sets and balancing workload and weighted variables such as payroll requirements, budgetary objectives, employee availabilities, workplace rules, regulatory requirements and performance standards. WFM is a Web-based application that can stand alone on SAP NetWeaver, SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (SAP ERP) or serve as an integrated application to SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM). The application is delivered with nine standard Web template reports that you can use as they are or modify via SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence to meet your needs. Workforce Management is integrated with SAP Enterprise Portal with configurable role-based access (manager, employee, supervisor, corporate executive); with SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence for centralized reporting; and holds key integration to SAP ERP HCM where hiring and scheduling processes can be streamlined. Workforce Management is comprised of four major business processes which include employee maintenance, business forecasting, labor scheduling and managing time. This Best Practice document will focus on three of the four business process and describe in greater detail monitoring possibilities for employee maintenance, forecasting, and scheduling.

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2.1 Sample WFM Scenario

Cosmetics Inc. is a mid-size specialty retailer that sells cosmetics, fragrances, jewelry, vitamins, skin care and hair care products in the United States. Store teams range from 25 employees in smaller stores to 75 in larger locations. It is no easy task to ensure employee coverage levels to accurately match changing customer demand was no easy task. The company previously managed employees by a manual scheduling system that was time-consuming, inconsistent across all stores, and very biased leading to organizational inefficiencies and inadequate customer service levels. To address these issues, Cosmetics Inc. acquired WFM delivered on SAP NetWeaver to streamline the process of scheduling store staff and improve customer service levels. Employees are maintained in a third-party HR system and are imported into SAP through a standard employee master data interface. To forecast adequate workload for each store respectively, key volume drivers, such as items sold, and transactions are loaded from the point-of-sale system. Schedules are processed centrally and maintained at the store level by the store manager.

The following core business processes were used.

1. Employee maintenance (managing employee master data) 2. Forecasting (forecasting schedule and workload)

3. Scheduling employee

The following chapters take you through these three core business processes step by step, explaining where and how you can identify focus points for Business Process Monitoring. For each business process step, the most effective ways for Business Process Monitoring in the context of the example are highlighted. Currently, WFM-specific Business Process Monitoring objects are not contained in SAP Solution Manager.

2.2 Business Process: Employee Maintenance

In WFM, the employee maintenance business process defines how employees are to be maintained for scheduling once they have been hired or imported into the system. WFM either uses HR master data loaded from a third-party HR system, SAP ERP HCM, the Personnel Action Portal iView of WFM, or replicates manually created data in SAP Business Partner. Despite the method used to import employees, all employees must have a business partner created. SAP Business Partner (SAP BP) is the entry point to view or modify employees in WFM. The SAP BP application is a component of SAP NetWeaver and contains master data (name, address, date of birth, etc.). WFM utilizes the SAP BP component to represent employees (persons) within an organization. In WFM, the business partner must be assigned to a position within an organization’s hierarchal structure viewable as an employee of the store within the WFM portal. With this assignment the user is available for scheduling.

After the employee has been imported into WFM, a combination of required employee HR master data and supporting data supplied directly from the employees is needed to complete the employee’s profile in WFM. Once created, WFM employee profiles are visible for review and modification through the portal user interface (UI). Required end-user entered employee data points include:

Employee availability Assign work areas Assign schedule rules Time-off requests

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Figure 9: Business process – Employee maintenance

2.2.1 Business process step 1: Personnel actions/receiving employee master data 2.2.1.1 Description

Employee master data can be initiated from varying sources: the Personnel Administration iView of WFM, SAP ERP HCM, or a third-party HR system. Client requirements define how employees are imported to WFM.

The Personnel Action iView allows WFM end users to process SAP ERP HCM or HR employee personnel actions and update the employee master data via WFM. The functions that this iView enables: Hire, Update, Transfer, Terminate, and Re-Enter (Rehire). The use of SAP’s standard WFM employee transfer IDocs updates the employee master data record in SAP ERP HCM or the HR source system. The HR system then has to use another IDoc transfer to transmit any relevant changes to the HR data to the WFM system. Employee master data from a third-party HR system have to transmit similar data changes in the IDoc format used by SAP ERP HCM. In this way, you can rely upon the existing inbound processing to guarantee that the WFM business partner database is maintained correctly.

Landscapes where SAP ERP HCM and WFM reside on the same box are considered a WFM best practice and do not require the Personnel Actions iView. WFM and SAP ERP HCM have many integration points that enable employees hired into SAP ERP HCM to be replicated to WFM. Upon activating the integration between the two systems and maintaining key configuration settings, standard personnel actions become seamless, allowing end users to proceed to business process step 2, the Profile iView, to maintain employee WFM-related settings.

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Scenario-specific sample

Due to hardware constraints, Cosmetics Inc. decides that HR and WFM must reside on different boxes. Personnel Action view is used to hire, update, transfer, terminate and rehire employees.

2.2.1.2 Monitoring requirements Error monitoring

Monitoring can be performed in the enterprise portal, by inspecting Personnel Actions views, and also in the HR system to ensure modifications made via the Personnel Actions iView have been updated in both systems. This includes monitoring the data transfer between the systems via IDoc processing.

When you use WFM as an entry point for employee data, you need to monitor the subsequent Employee iViews Profile, Work Areas & Qualifications, Schedule Rules and Time-off Request (described in subsequent business process steps) to ensure population of required fields for employee scheduling.

An employee at Cosmetics Inc. has just accepted a promotion to another store location. The employees’ current manager wants to complete the transfer via the Personnel Action iView. Upon submitting the transfer, the manager will need to check the corresponding screens in HR or SAP ERP HCM to ensure that the changes in position, pay, and location were updated there too.

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Performance monitoring

Utilizing the standard inbound and outbound IDocs to pass HR master data to and from HR or SAP ERP HCM residing on different logical systems allows for other data or processing capabilities to be performed as well between WFM and SAP ERP HCM. Users can monitor the IDocs by using the IDoc monitoring function-nality in SAP Solution Manager or manually on satellite system via transaction WE05.

2.2.1.3 Monitoring objects in SAP Solution Manager

Monitoring Object Selection Criteria Alert Analysis

Tool on Satellite System Monitoring Frequency / Data Collection Outbound IDoc: HRMD_ABAWFM

Basic Type: HRMD_ABAWFM Status:

Error and intermediate statuses for outbound processing, e.g.:

29 (error status) - Error in ALE service. Employee data is not transferred from WFM to HCM WE05 Depending on business needs (every 15 minutes – once per day) Inbound IDoc: HRMD_ABA01

Basic Type: HRMD_ABA01 Status:

Error and intermediate statuses for inbound processing, e.g.:

51 (error status) - Application document not posted 52 (intermediate status)

-Application document not fully posted

56 (error status) - IDoc with errors added Employee data is not transferred from WFM to HCM WE05 Depending on business needs (every 15 minutes – once per day)

Table 1: Personnel actions/receiving employee master data – Monitoring data in SAP Solution Manager

When monitoring IDocs, the status of the IDoc will dictate what actions need to be taken:

IDoc in error status (red light): Click once on IDoc number to read text diagnosing the error. After error has been corrected, you may reprocess the IDoc.

IDoc in processing (yellow light): No action is needed if further processing takes place as expected. If the intermediate status lasts longer than usual, an erroneous behavior is indicated. In this case, investigate the root cause and correct the error.

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2.2.1.4 Further monitoring objects Monitoring Object Selection

Criteria

Alert Analysis Tool on

Satellite System Monitoring Frequency / Data Collection Personnel Actions iView WFM Portal • Employee tab Personnel Actions performed in WFM are not reflected in the third-party HR system WFM enterprise portal (manual check): WFM Portal • Employees • Personnel Action Weekly/for each instance: Hire, update, transfer, terminate, re-hire

Table 2: Personnel actions/receiving employee master data – Further monitoring data

2.2.2 Business process step 2: Maintain employee profiles 2.2.2.1 Description

Users can maintain several employee master data fields within the WFM portal. The Employee Profile iView displays basic employee information such as the employee’s hire/start date, employee type, default settings group (FT/PT status), date of birth, employee number, cost class, and termination date. The Default Settings Group field can be maintained manually by the user or configured to correspond with updates made in the HR system. The Replacement Eligible feature, when activated, indicates that the employee is eligible to replace shifts of other employee or for added coverage during schedule modification. The Replace and Add Coverage functionality will list any employee who has this feature active and is available to cover the selected shift. Other fields that can be modified include Cost Class, Hire Date, Start Date, and Termination Date. When interfacing to an HR system that supplies this data, you can disable these fields by activating the Date Lock flag within the RFC destination to HR configuration. All other fields in this iView will be grayed out to prevent direct user modification. Updates or adjustments to the iView information must be performed in the HR system of record and imported to WFM via the WFM employee maintenance standard interface.

Cosmetics Inc. hires a new employee. The data is entered into the HR system. In the portal, some WFM-specific information needs to be maintained.

The initial monitoring is done in the enterprise portal by inspecting the Profile iView to ensure that basic HR data was imported properly to WFM. For all correctly created employees, the Profile tab displays an employee profile.

Scenario specific sample

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Figure 11: Maintaining employee profiles

New hires and employee master data modifications should appear in the portal in minutes if the integration between HCM or third-party HR and WFM works properly. If you notice that an employee is missing from the employee list, you need to check the box beside New Employees Only to get the corresponding list.

Figure 12: Checking new employees’ profiles

The list displaying the new employees indicates that an error was made during the hiring process. In such cases, HR master data (such as hire date) is missing, which prevents the employee profile from creating properly. Manually entering Hire Date and Start Date and saving will remove the employee from the New Employees Only list and make the profile visible in the general list. If a majority of employees is displayed in the New Employees Only list, it is best to find the root cause for the problem rather than manually correcting the profiles.

In addition, check if the RFC interface WFA_EMP_DATA_MODIFY works properly. It is used to maintain: WFM global attributes (hire date, start date, termination date)

General WFM attributes (such as default settings group and cost class) Work area assignments for an employee

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Work rules Contract rule

Employee time-off requests

It is best practice to call the RFC interface WFA_EMP_DATA_GET, which retrieves all of the attributes main-tained by WFA_EMP_DATA_MODIFY. Errors resulting from this interface are stored in table ET_RETURN, which resides in WFA_EMP_DATA_MODIFY and WFA_EMP_DATA_GET interface. Object ET_RETURN can be checked to determine if the interface failed.

If integrated with SAP ERP HCM, verify that both, HCM-PA to WFM integration and SAP BP integration, are enabled. Another issue that can result in an incomplete employee profile is that the WFM agent profile update failed during the hiring process. In that case the employee will appear in the portal without a start and hire date and will only be visible in the New Employees Only list. You can correct this error by manually entering the start and hire date and saving the profile. You can also delete and recreate the agent relationship utilizing the agent update program created during the BP conversion process.

Figure 13: Error – WFM agent profile update failed

Performance monitoring

It is necessary to monitor the time elapsed from hiring an employee in HR until the data is visible in WFM. Scenario-specific sample

A new employee has been hired and the data entered in HR but the data is not immediately displayed in WFM.

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Monitoring Object Selection Criteria Alert Analysis Tool on Satellite System Monitoring Frequency/Data Collection Outbound IDoc HRMD_ABAWFM Basic Type: HRMD_ABAWFM Status:

Error and intermediate statuses for outbound processing, e.g.:

29 (Red light) - Error in ALE service.

Employee data is not transferred from WFM to SAP ERP HCM WE05 Depending on business needs (every 15 minutes – once per day) Inbound IDoc HRMD_ABA01 Basic Type: HRMD_ABA01 Status:

Error and intermediate statuses for inbound processing, e.g.: 51 (red light) -Application document not posted 52 (yellow light) -Application document not fully posted 56 (red light) - IDoc

with errors added

Employee data is not transferred from WFM to SAP ERP HCM WE05 Depending on business needs (every 15 minutes – once per day) Function modules WFA_EMP_DATA_ GET and WFA_EMP_DATA_ MODIFY (depending on the interface technology used, tRFC or qRFC monitoring can be used in SAP Solution Manager)

RFC destination Any of the following is not updating properly:

WFM global attributes (Hire Date, Start Date, Termination Date) General WFM

attributes (such as, Default Settings Group and Cost Class) Work area assignments for an employee Schedule rules (Availability, Preferences and Set/Fixed Shifts) Work rules Contract rule Employee time-off requests tRFC processing: SM59 qRFC processing: SMQ1, SMQ2 Depending on business needs (e.g. once per day or once per week)

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IDoc in error status (red light): Click once on IDoc number to read text diagnosing the error. After error has been corrected, you may reprocess the IDoc.

IDoc in processing (yellow light): No action is needed if further processing takes place as expected. If the intermediate status lasts longer than usual, an erroneous behavior is indicated. In this case, investigate the root cause and correct the error.

IDoc successfully processed (green light): No action is needed. 2.2.2.4 Further monitoring objects

Monitoring Object Selection Criteria

Alert Analysis Tool

on Satellite System

Monitoring Frequency / Data Collection Business partner created N/A Employee does

not appear in the WFM portal.

Transaction BP Verify BP number created for each employee

Profile iView WFM portal •

Employee tab • Profile N/A WFM enterprise portal For each: New hire Employee basic information modification Transfer Termination RFC Select Trace: RFC Trace Select Trace Function: Activate Trace

N/A ST05 When errors are

detected from the employee profile, an RFC trace may point to the error.

Table 4: Maintain employee profiles – Further monitoring objects

2.2.3 Business process step 3: Maintain work areas and qualifications 2.2.3.1 Description

The Work Areas & Qualifications iView allows you to assign one or several work area(s) to an employee so they can be scheduled. Default Settings Group, Cost Class, and Employee Group are also visible in the Work Areas & Qualifications iView. The Pay Rate field can be visible to or hidden from the store level user via Roles & Authorizations.

A work area defines the job that the employee will be scheduled to work. A work area can be given a numerical rank if the employee has been assigned to multiple work areas. The rank defines the order in which the work areas should be considered for scheduling for that employee during schedule calculation.

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In Work Areas & Qualifications iView the employee can be assigned a proficiency rating which defines what skill level the employee holds within a particular work area. The Shared Employee feature in WFM allows specific employees to work in multiple store locations. The Work Area Reluctance Profile will define, for scheduling purposes, what priority the rank of the work areas should be scheduled.

Cosmetics Inc. stores #1 and #2 would like to use the Shared Employee feature within WFM. They noticed that employees that meet the requirements for sharing do not show up on both store schedules.

Each employee must have at least one work area assigned although multiple work areas can be assigned based on the configuration and business requirements.

The WFM administrator must ensure that the requirements for the Shared Employee feature are active: The employee’s home store must have the Shared Employee feature active.

The employee’s home store must have the Replacement Eligible feature active

The schedule for the home store must be posted before the employee will appear for scheduling in the shared location(s).

If multiple shifts can be worked in multiple locations, then the May work in multiple locations in same day flagged must be active.

After schedule calculation, the WFM administrator noticed that an employee did not display any scheduled hours on the schedule, nor did they display under a specific work area in the portal.

2.2.3.3 Monitoring objects in SAP Solution Manager Monitoring

Object

Selection Criteria

on Satellite System Monitoring Frequency/Data Collection Function Modules WFA_EMP_DATA _GET and WFA_EMP_DATA _MODIFY (depending on the interface technology used, tRFC or qRFC monitoring can be used in SAP Solution Manager) RFC destination

Any of the following does not update properly:

- WFM global attributes (Hire Date, Start Date, Termination Date) - General WFM attributes (such as,

Default Settings Group and Cost Class)

- Work area assignments for an employee

- Schedule rules (Availability, Preferences and Set/Fixed Shifts)

- Work rules - Contract rule

- Employee time-off requests

tRFC processing:SM 59 qRFC processing: SMQ1, SMQ2 Depending on business needs (e.g. once per day or once per week)

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2.2.3.4 Further monitoring objects

Monitoring Object Selection Criteria

on Satellite System

Monitoring Frequency/Data Collection Work Area & Qualification

iView

WFM portal • Employee tab

N/A WFM Portal •

Employee • Work Area & Qualifications

Weekly, when new hires/re-hires are entered Whenever work area additions or modifications are needed RFC Select Trace: RFC Trace Select Trace Function: Activate Trace

N/A ST05 When errors are

detected from the work area and qualifications view an RFC trace may point to the error.

Table 6: Maintain work areas and qualifications – Further monitoring objects

2.2.4 Business process step 4: Maintain schedule rules 2.2.4.1 Description

Employee scheduling rules can be maintained in the Schedule Rules iView in the WFM portal. Schedule Rules allows you to enter employee availabilities, preferences, fixed and set shifts. Availability start and stop times are entered manually by day in either standard or military time. Rotations can also be defined in this iView if employees have rotating availabilities and/or schedules. WFM will automatically assign the rotation settings to a specific schedule week, based on the number of rotations in the list and the settings position in the list. WFM will reference the information in this view during the schedule calculation to schedule the employees within their availability and shift settings.

Work rules are used by WFM during schedule creation to ensure the resulting shifts meet the schedule goals for the employee while complying with company policy and legal requirements. Examples include: Minimum or maximum number of hours per day or week, maximum days per week, allow overtime, maximum hours per period (contract), etc. Work rule templates are preconfigured and assigned to each employee to provide default settings that meet the company policy and legal requirements. Contract work rules are used more commonly in union environments and enable scheduling constraints for minimum and maximum scheduled hours over a period of time.

If the schedule calculation or modifications made to a schedule break any of these rules, schedule exceptions will be generated. The manager can then modify the schedule to remove the exception or decide to ignore the exception. When assigning the work rules for a given employee, you also need to consider the employee type (FT, PT) or age qualification (Minor).

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Cosmetics, Inc is preparing to open a new location and needs to maintain availabilities and work rules for all employees prior to grand opening.

2.2.4.2 Monitoring requirements

The initial monitoring is done in the enterprise portal by inspecting the Schedule Rules iView to ensure availability and work rules are maintained.

Error monitoring

Employee availability must be maintained for each employee. If employee availability is left blank, the WFM scheduler will not create a schedule for that employee.

Work rules must be maintained for each employee to constrain the min/max hours of work per day or per week according to company guidelines. For example, a part-time employee should receive fewer hours than a full-time employee. If you notice that this is not the case, you should check the work rules assigned to the employee in question (Employees • Schedule Rules • Work Rules):

Figure 14: Checking work rules

Positions that require a fixed shift must be maintained to prevent erratic schedules. It is best practice to maintain fixed shifts for managers and any other positions that require coverage that is not dependent upon customer demand.

A company may have the philosophy that a manager should be present at all times to assist customers and store associates. To ensure consistent coverage, use a fixed shift. Otherwise, WFM will schedule the manager to coincide with store demand, producing a very erratic schedule.

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Figure 15: Maintaining shifts

2.2.4.3 Monitoring objects in SAP Solution Manager Monitoring Object Selection

Criteria

on Satellite System Monitoring Frequency / Data Collection Function modules WFA_EMP_DATA_GET and WFA_EMP_DATA_ MODIFY (depending on the interface technology used, tRFC or qRFC monitoring can be used in SAP Solution Manager)

RFC destination

Any of the following is not updating properly:

WFM global attributes (Hire Date, Start Date,

Termination Date) General WFM attributes

(such as, Default Settings Group and Cost Class) Work area assignments for

an employee Schedule rules

(Availability, Preferences and Set/Fixed Shifts) Work rules

Contract rule

tRFC processing: SM59 qRFC processing: SMQ1, SMQ2 Depending on business needs (e.g. once per day or once per week)

Table 7: Maintain schedule rules – Monitoring objects in SAP Solution Manager

2.2.4.4 Further monitoring objects

Monitoring Object Selection Criteria Alert Analysis Tool on Satellite System

Monitoring Frequency / Data Collection

RFC Select trace: RFC trace Select trace unction: Activate trace

N/A ST05 When errors are detected from the Schedule Rules view an RFC trace may point to the error.

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2.2.5 Business process step 5: Maintain time-off requests 2.2.5.1 Description

Time-off requests allow the user to manage planned absences for scheduling and projected payroll planning purposes. Requests can be made for a specific time period of a day, a full day, a number of days or a number of hours. Comments associated with an employee time-off request can also be entered. A time-off request will modify employees’ availability by making them unavailable for scheduling without modifying their permanently entered availabilities. The time-off request can be processed for paid and un-paid time off. Paid benefit time-off requests are only used in WFM for pre-payroll calculations and schedule costing purposes.

Figure 16: Maintaining time-off requests

Employee submits a time-off request to their manager to attend jury duty. 2.2.5.2 Monitoring requirement

The initial monitoring is done in the enterprise portal by inspecting the Time-off Requests iView. Error monitoring

Errors displayed in this view are usually user errors. Time-off requests may have been entered incorrectly and need to be modified.

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The store manager has just entered a time-off request for an hourly employee and realized that they assigned the wrong absence type.

Submitted time-off requests are listed for each individual in the Time-off Requests table. The absence type is listed as a hyperlink displayed in blue. To modify data associated with the absence type, click on the hyperlink to view the time-off request details. To remove a time-off request, place a check in the box beside the absence type and press the Remove button.

2.2.5.3 Monitoring objects in SAP Solution Manager Monitoring Object Selection

Criteria

on Satellite System Monitoring Frequency/Data Collection Function modules WFA_EMP_DATA_ GET and WFA_EMP_DATA_ MODIFY (depending on the interface technology used, tRFC or qRFC Monitoring can be used in SAP Solution Manager) RFC destination

Any of the following is not updating properly:

WFM global attributes (Hire Date, Start Date,

Termination Date)

General WFM attributes (such as, Default Settings Group and Cost Class)

Work area assignments for an employee

Schedule rules (Availability, Preferences and Set/Fixed Shifts)

Work rules Contract rule

tRFC processing: SM59 qRFC rocessing: SMQ1, SMQ2 Depending on business needs (e.g. once per day or once per week)

Table 9: Maintain time-off requests – Monitoring objects in SAP Solution Manager

2.2.5.4 Further monitoring objects Monitoring

Object

Selection Criteria Alert Analysis Tool on Satellite System

Monitoring Frequency / Data Collection

RFC Select trace: RFC trace Select trace function: Activate trace

N/A ST05 When errors are detected from the Schedule Rules view, an RFC trace may point to the error. RFC Select trace: RFC trace

Select trace function: Activate trace

N/A ST05 When errors are detected from the Schedule Rules view, an RFC trace may point to the error.

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2.3 Business Process: Business Forecast and Workload Modeling

WFM includes a forecasting engine that builds staffing demands based upon recent history, variable and fixed activities, corporate labor targets, and other requirements. Forecasts are created to calculate the expected overall business volume and workload. The process uses a store’s activity together with parameters and other historical information to establish trends. The user, store or corporate user, then has the oppor-tunity to tune this data to ensure that it accurately reflects the current business situation. Once the volume forecast is generated, WFM projects the workload, the number of employees needed per work area for each quarter hour. Forecast creation is generally the first step when creating a new schedule week.

The steps and processes that comprise forecast and workload creation are:

System maintains historical indicator data – Historical indicator data is stored in a database for access during forecasting the workload

Select week to schedule – User selects schedule week

Select forecast parameters – The forecast parameters determine the indicators that will be used to create the workload

Submit forecasting calculation request – The request will be put in a queue at corporate for calculation Monitor status of forecast request – A status of the forecast request will be listed in the portal for review by

the location

Review forecast – Once the forecast has been successfully calculated, the location manager can review the forecast for adjustments

Review workload – The location manager can also review the workload for adjustment

Modify forecast to reflect location variables – After the location manager makes adjustments, the forecast must be resubmitted for forecasting and approval

Monitor of status of forecast calculation request Review and approve workload

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2.3.1 Business process step 1: Adjust actual volume data 2.3.1.1 Description

The volume data to be used for forecasting and workload modeling is defined in WFM and linked to variable activities or tasks. Each variable activity will have a labor standard defined to indicate the time it takes to complete the task. This setting is used in the forecasting of the demand. Fixed activities are also defined and will be accounted for in the forecast of the demand.

Volume data is based upon recent history derived from POS systems, traffic counters, merchandising systems (markdowns, price changes), and financial plans. This data is typically stored and maintained in a data warehouse system such as SAP NetWeaver BI at the corporate level. The data is imported into WFM via various means: RFC, IDoc or manual entry. Import of data via RFC or IDoc is controlled by the corporate office. Manual entry of data is typically performed at store level. Manually entered data can include the number of markdowns expected for the week, cartons expected from a shipment, etc. This data is entered prior to forecast calculation to ensure the appropriate workload and employees will be scheduled to handle these tasks.

Once the data is imported, you can further tune the data to reflect changes in the store’s business or expected new business for the scheduled week. For instance, the mall where the store is located is promoting a sidewalk sale. The data that is imported may not meet the expected requirements of the sale. You can adjust the data prior to forecast to reflect the expectations of the sale in order to ensure that the store will be scheduled appropriately for it.

Data is imported via corporate defined process and systems (i.e. POS system, traffic counter, etc.). 2.3.1.2 Monitoring requirements

The initial monitoring is done in the enterprise portal by inspecting the iViews in the Forecasts tab. Error monitoring

Successfully imported data is displayed in the WFM portal in the Forecasts • Review/Modify Forecast iView. You can review the graph or the numeric values to verify whether or not the data that was imported is accurate. WFM will utilize the volume data imported into the system when calculating the demand. If incorrect data was loaded to the system, then the issue can be directly reflected in the forecasted demand.

Errors in the data will be reflected in the graph or statistics of the Review/Modify Forecast iView in the Forecasts link.

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Figure 18: Reviewing forecast data

When the user accesses the Review/Modify Forecast iView, no actual data displays.

Discrepancies in the data should be traced back to the original source(s) – the POS data for the store, traffic counter data, manually entered values, etc. You will have to contact a resource at corporate to determine why no data has been imported for the selected indicator.

The data displayed in the Review/Modify Forecast iView does not reflect the volume expectations for an upcoming sidewalk sale.

You can adjust the indicator values by entering specific values or a percentage change so that the data will reflect the expected change in workload for the sale. Once the changes are saved, the adjustments will immediately be reflected in the statistics as well as in the graph. You can further review and tune the adjustments until the results meet the expected needs of the sale.

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Figure 19: Modifying volume data

Monitoring Object Selection Criteria Alert Analysis Tool on Satellite System Monitoring Frequency/Data Collection Function module WFA_FORECAST_SAMP LE_SET (depending on the interface technology used, tRFC or qRFC monitoring can be used in SAP Solution Manager)

RFC destination Forecasting data did not import to WFM tRFC processing: SM59 qRFC processing: SMQ1, SMQ2 Depending on business needs (e.g. once per day or once per week)

WFM forecast data import inbound IDoc:

IDOC_INPUT_WFAFCHV

Basic Type: WFAFC_A01 Status: Error and

intermediate statuses for inbound processing, e.g.:

51 (red light) - Application document not posted 56 (red light) - IDoc with

errors added

62 (yellow light) - IDoc passed to application 68 (green light) -

Error-no further processing

N/A WE05 Depending on

business needs (every 15 minutes – once per day)

WFM forecast data import outbound IDoc:

IDOC_INPUT_WFAFCPV

Basic Type: WFAFC_A01 Status:

29 (Red light) – Error in ALE service.

N/A WE05 Depending on

business needs (every 15 minutes – once per day)

Table 11: Adjust actual volume data – Monitoring objects in SAP Solution Manager

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IDoc in processing (yellow light): No action is needed if further processing takes place as expected. If the intermediate status lasts longer than usual, an erroneous behavior is indicated. In this case investigate the root cause and correct the error.

IDoc successfully processed (green light): No action is needed.

2.3.2 Business process step 2: Performing the initial forecast calculation 2.3.2.1 Description

The initial forecast provides the first impression of how data is calculated based on the imported data and the configured parameter settings. There are two critical steps when generating a forecast calculation:

1. Determine forecast parameters 2. Submit the forecast for calculation

Once data has been imported and adjusted, and manual entries have been made, the next step is to determine the forecast parameters for the selected schedule week. Those parameters allow a great deal of flexibility in the variables that can be selected to influence the forecast outcome. They also provide a means to create a more accurate demand for the specific locations.

Manage Operations for SAP for Retail - Workforce Management 3.0

Manage Operations for SAP for Retail

Workforce Management 3.0

Table of Contents

1

Management Summary

2

Business Process Monitoring for Workforce Management