Empower your purchasing process with sales process automation tools for Purchasing

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today we are going to learn about using sap process Automation and the steps and workflows within sap s4hana especially for business users we will cover four points today starting with a very short bit of business background about how we move from inside all the way to action then we are going to Deep dive into the section on insights where we will see a short demo of sap signavio process insights which is one of the tools to help us mine and analyze our different processes within lines of business and then after that we move to the main segment where you will see how you can take action about those kpis and the insights that you gain from the tool using sap process automation we have a short demo of how you can deploy one of the Bots from bot automations from the store and further apply extensions to it after that last but not least we will cap things off with situation handling to introduce to you one of the technologies that is already available in sap s4hana that you can leverage to inform the necessary managers about business situations that are happening within sap s4hana so let's jump right into the first part which is to describe to you the business background we notice and we hear from a lot of our customers that they are currently living in a world of hyper change and disruption so Enterprises today really need fast insights into their business processes and also need to respond by taking action appropriate to the scale of the business so we are talking about trying to achieve fast time to insights which is basically looking into your lines of business processes seeing how your business personas interact with different systems including manual and software-based business processes within the organization in the second part which we will focus on today is how these businesses can react to these insights take actions based on them and then measure improvements with the same tool in this context time to Insight and time to adapt are definitely key for every Enterprise that wants to achieve an optimal level of intelligence and autonomy some of you may also be aware that businesses want to try to start automating as much as possible in order to start manually managing their business processes only by exception so we will come to that Concept in one of our demos to break things down further we will also demonstrate how users can use and extend pre-built automation templates in sap process automation to take action and improve their company's overall kpis as identified with the first tool sap signavio process insights and now let's dive right into the first section beginning with insight sap signavio process insights is a solution for business Executives process owners and lines of business users to help evaluate process performance and identify bottlenecks to improve with direct Improvement recommendations what sap signavio process insights does is provide a quick start with data extracted out of your sap Erp environments and then after that it applies insights into that data which provides you with insights into Core Business processes happening inside your sap Erp applications this allows you to rapidly identify the key Focus areas in your lines of business such as for example the purchase requisition process or the purchase order processes within the purchasing department it also allows you to drill down into potential root causes that are causing inefficiencies within the process itself finally it also provides benchmarking and recommended actions that you can take to improve your processes to dive deeper into the tool this is what sap signavio process insights looks like it provides a list of process flows delivered out of the box along with various performance indicators looking into potential issues and inefficiencies within business processes all of these help you obtain a snapshot into your business looking at the screenshot as you can see we can start with a sales billing document creation process and continue all the way down to the accounts receivable clearance process you can see the entire process how the different parts flow and you can discover where the inefficiencies are as you can see in this example it takes around 20 days to move from the sales billing document item to create an accounts receivable item and a further 30 days for the account's receivable item to actually clear so all in all this is a very quick look into your Finance business process where the data is updated almost daily so business users can react based on process kpis and where they can also identify any blockers in order to reduce the time it takes to move between a sales billing item to an accounts receivable item and to also improve the smoothness of the Handover between the different process steps themselves we will see this in the following short demo in this demo we are going to assume the role of a purchasing manager so we will scroll down to the area of sourcing and procurement as we are going to look into the purchase requisition item creation process today and how it flows into the process order item creation process so let's select the purchase order item creation from the drop down you can see here a very simplified flowchart showing how the process workflow begins beginning with the purchase item requisition creation process we already have 110 items created if you scroll to the right you can see how they will move into the purchase order item creation at the end of the process step however we can see here that zero items were created meaning that this is a bottleneck and that the process may be broken so this is something we want to address as the manager to do so to actually diagnose and investigate some of the causes or root causes of why this process has some blockers we can scroll down and see this list of all the various blockers and other information that can help you further analyze what is potentially wrong with the process itself if you want to explore even more performance indicators you can do so at the top over here using the filter menus you can also just click on performance indicators to see a much more complete list of all the kpis that relate to sourcing and procurement or to take action on these insights by navigating not just to Performance indicators but also to Innovation recommendations by clicking on Innovation recommendations we will be able to see some of the sap s4hana capabilities we can consider using and if you're thinking about automation you can actually use the field at the top sap process automation to look into some of the automation scenarios that are available to help us automate the processes within procurement so here we have some workflow management templates that we can consider adopting and at the bottom we also have an automation template that helps us create purchase requisitions based on structured data in Excel as well as to post the data to sap s4hana this was a very quick run-through of Sap's signavio process insights and now let us jump to the second demo where we will dive into sap process automation this is where you will begin using this tool in the lobby where you can see all the different projects that were created not just by you but also your team members and other users who are working with a tool let's first see what the sap process automation store looks like the store is where you would begin to explore all the different use cases that are available to download and use out of the box but of course these are just templates so certain extensions may need to be applied to fit them to individual business cases you can also see all the different process automations and you can use the filters here on the left menu to filter down to the use cases that you are interested in in this case we are interested in some of the scenarios and templates provided by sap s4hana and to be more specific these are the two use cases that are available in the sourcing and procurement space we are interested in the creation of purchase requisitions from structured data in Excel there are two ways of actually deploying these packages the first option is to add the package right out of the box if you do not want to use the package as is out of the box then you can create the use case from the template we have already done so for you in this demo we have called it 48m modified you can see here that we actually have the pre-delivered package artifacts as icons in Orange on the left the additional items we added are the additional workflow elements whose icons are purple the additional items we added onto the project are things like for example approval forms input forms for collected data and notification forms and also a full workflow process that combines all the different elements to have them work together as an end-to-end solution here is the process in full View let's zoom into the process itself for this demo we have already pre-built this workflow but it's important to show you how you the user can add extensions easily yourself for our listeners who are very familiar with working with intelligent RPA this is where our intelligent RPA would sit within the entire business process so before we actually trigger the automation to create the purchase requisition inside sap s4hana we actually have to manually perform a few add-on steps first we begin the process with the input form collecting data from business end users then based on the data or the purchase amount we run the process through an if else conditional statement over here so if the purchase requisition is above a certain amount then it has to be approved by the managers and here we have another form the input form begins here and then the approval form begins here after this business rule step this is when the managers would look at the purchase requisition data and decide to reject or approve the purchase requisition before it is created in sap s4hana if a manager decides to reject the incoming requisition from the requester that decision would generate a notification and inform the requester that the purchase requisition was rejected if the purchase requisition was accepted the requester would receive a notification about its acceptance the acceptance would then kick-start the entire bot process to begin to create the purchase requisition inside sap s4hana but before that happens another automation bot collects the data from the original input form and populates an Excel template with a collected data from the form then it hands the completed Excel input template over to the create purchase requisition bot which will use the data to create the purchase requisition and post it in sap s4hana that was a quick overview of the entire business process let's now take a look at what these different elements look like so let us zoom in further here you can see the input template form that we have already built which took only minutes if you want to add a line over here to say notice please submit this form only once you can do so by dragging and dropping certain elements such as you see here in the left panel into your working area over here you can improve and add on different elements to the form as we already did for this form all these fields you see here are the fields we added and which correspond to the compulsory fields that are needed when you create a purchase requisition within sap s4hana such as the document number and another field in number format for the purchase requisition item and then of course we want to specify the quantity in the base unit such as liters or pieces as well as the purchase requisition price and the requester's name if approved the request and all its corresponding details will then be automatically created in sap s4hana to finish this process the user clicks submit which hands off the data to the next process within the workflow that we saw just now speaking of the workflow let's zoom in again to look at the details in the next step we have a very simple business rule an if else condition statement that is based on the purchase requisition price that we saw in the input form if the cost is less than or equal to 100 euros then the purchase requisition is automatically created in sap s4hana but if it is not then a manager has to approve at first so let's see what the approval form looks like again just like in the previous form you can simply drag and drop the different elements from the left panel into the working area over here scrolling down we can include some necessary fields to provide the manager with more information to be able to decide to reject or approve this incoming request to show you what the automation looks like when you use the pre-packaged automation from the storm let's click through and drill down this is how the bot is structured and built we begin with the initial setup automation here we can check the environment variables and the authorization steps scrolling down we come to the steps that actually process the input Excel file and then the steps that send the email report this is actually what comes out of the box when you download the automation from the store and you can definitely also apply your own modifications to it so for example if you want the automation to open an Outlook instance you can simply use the low code Editor to drag and drop that function into the process coming back to the main workflow if you want to add more steps over here you can and in fact you can also include new forms for example if you want to have a new approval form for some reason before you actually create the purchase requisitions in saps for Hana you can do this by clicking forms new form on the plus sign here or if you want to apply additional automations you can also do so by clicking new automation which will let you create a whole new automation itself which we have already done we added the step of transferring data to excel over here so this is actually a custom automation that we added by clicking here and creating a new automation this is just a very quick run through to show you some of the capabilities of sap process automation the editor that you see here is very fluid and it allows even non-technical business users to modify processes however they see fit this all opens up a lot of possibilities for business users to interact seamlessly with it colleagues especially when designing a solution together because both parties end up looking at the same screen this means they can address problems and create Solutions on a much more real-time collaborative basis let's switch over from editable mode right now to the deployed mode to show you how this entire process works so first let's switch over to the input form to see what that looks like this is the input template file that human users will need to fill with data so that the bot can process and analyze it and then package it before posting it to sap s4hana just for this demo you can see here that certain fields are highlighted in pink these are the fields we need to fill with the data that we will collect from the input form itself you can scroll through the input template to see what the entire input template looks like at all the different fields we need the custom bot to fill let's go ahead and close this input template file and then begin the entire demo process itself using the deployed version of this business process we have the input form and the corresponding URL that is provided business users can just simply copy and paste this form Link in whatever medium such as email or chat and distribute it to the End Business users who will need to just click on the linked URL and you can see here that this is exactly the same input form that you saw in the editor previously this time around however we are sending this directly to the requester who will need to fill it with information so let's go ahead and create a purchase requisition over here if you remember before we entered Lithium-ion batteries but this time around we will request some other hardware parts so we will enter a purchase requisition item with base unit as one piece the total amount will come to 110 Euros so a manager will definitely need to approve this we'll select a delivery date and we'll call this test and we'll put some initials in the requester form over here now let's click submit we have now submitted the data and jumping back to the workflow we have just completed this step here now the information is being passed through the if else statement for the manager to decide to approve it or not so let's change our screens right now to see the manager's point of view we are navigating right now to the inbox capability and Sab process automation this is the inbox that both requesters and managers can access and where all the notifications are pushed for them to make decisions here is the incoming request for the new purchase requisition for new hardware parts that cost 110 Euros in the inbox so as the manager we can decide to reject it or approve it let's go ahead and approve it so the approval task was processed successfully and we just approved the purchase requisition now let's refresh our screen here as we change our role back to the business user the original requester has the requester or business user this time around we get a notification from the purchasing manager that says something like requester your purchase requisition for hardware parts costing 110 Euros has been accepted and will now be created in sap s4hana system we will click submit to acknowledge the notification and to end the workflow which is great right now we have the automation move on to the next step where the information collected in the form will now populate the Excel input template and further on be posted into sap s4hana itself this is the local folder where the input template shown previously is stored right now the bot will begin to pick up the input template file that we see over here and it will open the Excel sheet and begin to populate it with the data that we collected in the previous input form and it will begin to replace the data that we see in the pink Fields with the data we collected in the input form from the requester so this step is done and now the bot is packaging the data and handing it over to the main bot which will use the data and post it in the sap S4 Hana system the bot actually passes through all the different fields in this newly updated Excel template and it will then begin to post this information into sap s4hana via apis okay the automation has just finished running so let's go and find the new purchase requisition number that the automation created this means navigating to either the error or success folders depending on the outcome of the Run here we find the new file created with the information about the newly created purchase requisition in the S4 system we see the new purchase requisition for hardware parts with the document number 101 in the Excel template here and it shows price of 110 euros which we can cross-check against the newly posted data in sap s4hana so let's navigate right now to the sap s4hana cloud system here right now we are logged into sap s4hana as the purchaser and we would like to navigate to the sap fiori app manage purchase requisition professional over here we can see a full listing of all the newly created purchase requisitions over the past few months in this case we are interested in this new purchase requisition that sap process automation created one thousand two four seven five whose details you see correspond to what we saw in the Excel input template again just to repeat all this is actually created by sap process Automation and not by a human user and we can see that all the details of the data also exactly correspond to what we saw in the input template and are now in sap s4hana to summarize this demo what we saw just now was how an employee in procurement can use sap process automation to automate a full business process and this is a business process document that lists all the different individuals working within the procurement department and therefore customers who are actually working in sourcing and procurement in sap s4hana cloud the scope item here describing the process above an sap best practice Explorer is a TJ requisitioning we can see here that this is a step we wanted to automate that is the steps that a procurement employee would manually perform to create purchase requisitions within the process at the very start the automation package purchase requisition creation from Excel which we saw aims to automate the manual steps needed to create purchase requisitions in sap s4hana what we did as part of quality control was to add an additional layer of approval and input forms so that the managers can approve incoming requisitions first before they are automatically created in sap s4hana this is where we want the human manager to step in to intervene because it helps reduce the volume of automatically created purchase requisitions with incomplete data such as what we saw in the first demo where the purchase requisition items did not have info records or sources and suppliers to to show you also how this actually relates to the subsequent parts of the end-to-end requisitioning process we have here this step where a purchase requisition is converted into a purchase order if the steps above are not done right and if the problems are not addressed that will create a bottleneck in the long term which we also saw in the first demo so this is what we did today we applied an additional approval layer requiring managers to intervene before purchase requisitions are created in sap s4hana again here is a very quick summary of the use case we began by creating an input form to capture incoming purchase requisition data we applied a decision layer that says if a purchase requisition is below 100 euros it is automatically created in sap s4hana above 100 euros a manager has to approve it first then we have a custom bot to fill an existing Excel template with data from the form and then hand it over to the main bot which creates the purchase requisitions within the sap s4hana system using the various elements of sap process automation which we actually used in the demo such as processes workflows business rules forms the task Center inbox and also automations combining them all in the end-to-end use case do note however that this is only a very simple proof of concept as you as customers or partners of sap can decide how you want to make your own extensions to better fit your own unique use cases so that's it for sap process automation but let's spend the last minute or so talking about how you can respond proactively inside the sap s4hana system to take things further with situation handling which is one of the embedded capabilities in s4hana that notifies you about scenarios or situations or events that are taking place within the S4 system such as a new purchase order or purchase order being created furthermore it notifies the respective managers or stakeholders so that they can take action on these items previously users needed to recall or search for information inside the S4 system across various transactions and applications which can be very time consuming what situation handling does is to shine a spotlight on issues that require your immediate attention so at the end of the day saps for Hana is not just a reactive system waiting for users to interact with it but is actually much more proactive just like your smartphone pushes new notifications to you sap s4hana now pushes notifications to the right business managers so that they can have the relevant information and actions they need to take and expedite the entire workflow one of the situation handling scenarios that relates to the two demos we just saw is when confirmation is overdue for purchase requisition items the feature will inform employees that a confirmation is still pending for a purchase requisition item and thus employees are reminded to confirm the receipt of goods pertaining to those purchase requisition items so as to trigger further procurement processes such as invoice posting and payment further down the line if you want more info information about situation handling including this particular situation visit the sap help portal here are three takeaways from this demo first sap process automation provides all automation Tools in one single integrated offering we are talking about workflows business rules and automations all working together in a low code editing tool that allows normal business users to take action on their insights in their processes as we saw at the beginning when we talked about sap signavio process insights and lets them construct solutions to complex scenarios including exceptions and approvals that managers need to handle it also enhances adoption by providing users a single low code automation solution second we saw how a robotic process automation bot can work with input forms business rules and approval forms these Technologies no longer work separately but rather they work together in sap process automation third this low code approach of the sap process automation tool helps departments and companies as a whole to lower their costs for the entire solution where we are able to reach out not only to more business users but also we can accelerate the time to Value while at the same time reduce the training and maintenance costs that may come along with it if you have any questions you can definitely reach out to the email address shown