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Process Observer is a component in the SAP Business Suite Foundationlayer that can be used to monitor and analyze their built-in processes ofSAP Business Suite, like Order-to-Cash or Procure-to-Pay, Payment etc. .

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Managing business change and business automation are importantrequirements in today‘s world.Our customers want to manage and monitor business processes along thelifecycle, and seamless across Business Networks and across SAP andnon-SAP applications.

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The value proposition of Process Observer is to:

Gain full Process Visibility, enablingReal-time Monitoring including exception & error handlingBusiness Activity Monitoring & SLA TrackingTransparency on process quality

Process Optimization allow to differentiate bystrengthening operations through continuous processimprovements

Insight-to-action take action as soon as issues show upon the horizon

Enhanced Process Automation

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In the Business Suite we find two kinds of processes:

Modeled Process for process extensions and built-in for SAP standard deliveredprocesses, the “applications” (Business Suite)

Modeled ProcessProcess engine executes processes according to processdefinitions

Built-in ProcessBusiness logic executed without use of an explicit processengineCollaboration treated as built-in process since activities ofdifferent actors are driving

Built-in processes make up 95% of delivered Business Suitefunctionality

The typical implemented end-to-end process is a mixture ofboth orchestration types

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High-Level Concept of Process Observer

The execution of Business Process Activities is exposed via events‘Process Observer’ correlates the events into local processes andcalculates KPIsLocal storage of local processes and their KPIs in a local “Process Log”A federated process log provides end-to-end Process Visibility,Monitoring and Analytics

A note on events: Technically events that are supported are the so-called„BOR“-events; BOR is the business object repository, which is used for SAPBusiness Workflow (BWF), but also in other areas. SAP provides a largenumber of BOR objects like „sales order“ and „business partner“ and therelated events. There are more than 7000 of these BOR events available inthe core Suite applications. Additionally many generic frameworks are BOR-enabled, i.e. they can throw BOR-events if customized accordingly. Thisincludes the change documents used in SD and related areas. See belowfor details on events and change documents.

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Design time:The Process Repository contains information about known events andBusiness Objects of the application, represented by the “facade“, and“process definitions“. Process definitions are simple lists of activities thatmay occur in the process, no specific ordering is required. KPIs may beassigned to the process definitions. Process definitions are required tomonitor processes in Process Observer.

Runtime:- A user executes an activity in the system. This could also be somethingcalleed from another program, e.g. a service, BAPI/RFC etc.- The application raises a BOR-event (or something similar supported byProcess Observer). This is captured by Process Observer, and mappedagains a process model. One or many activities are determined- The activity is mapped to a process instance and stored in the process log- The process log data is available for monitoring through APIs- Process log data is also available for analytics

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The process log contains „Processes“ as own entities with additionalinformation as futher basis for process related monitoring and analysis.

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The process definition contains the list of activities that you want to monitor.Start and end activities must be indicated. An activity can be linked to atask; tasks represent the process-relevant event implemented in thesystem. The existing tasks are listed in the Process Observer Façade anddefine a combination of business object type (e.g. Sales Order) andcorresponding action (e.g. Create). The tasks can be physically assigned toevents of BOR object (e.g. BUS 2032, CREATED). The process definitionmay also contain process KPIs and custom process status definitions.

The process definitions can be viewed with the Process Definition ViewerPOC_VIEWER.New process definitions are crated using transaction Process DefinitionPOC_MODEL.Process Façade entries are edited using transaction POC_FACADE.BOR assignments are created in transaction POC_BOR.

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This diagram shows how Process Observer is integrated into othercomponents:

The Process Log is the central component to give insight into yourprocesses, but also to trigger follow-up actions.Events about process execution are thrown by SAP or – through an API –by non-SAP applications and stored in the process log. Process loginformation can by accessing through the Process Monitor directly or byquerying via Enterprise Search. From the process monitor you can navigateto the process-related business objects.Light-weight consumption is possible via ODATA/Gateway.Datasources allow the extration to and direct access from BusinessWarehouse. Real-time data access (RDA) is available. Analytics Data isalso available through ODPs. The existing datasources can be used toreplicate process log information to HANA via ETL. Alternatively the processlog tables can be replicated directly using SLT. The report-report interfaceallows navigation between reports, and to backend applications.Additionally, process log content be made available for applications throughsidepanels.

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Once Process Observer is activated in the system, the Generic ObjectServices (GOS) provide access to the „Process Monitor“ showing allprocess instances related to the business object. Thus the „process“becomes available for the users executing the process.

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Logged process instances can be reviewed with transaction ProcessMonitor POC_MONITOR.The log contains the list of executed activities in descending order.Execution Date/time, Business object ID, user, transaction and logicalsystem are displayed.A second view contains information about defined KPIs and their values.Threshold exception status is displayed.Predecessor and successor information is displayed for activities.

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The Process Instance diagram allows quickly monitoring the progress of aprocess with respect to the process definition.

It is available from Business Suite Foundation 7.31 SP08 (ERP 6.0 EhP6SP08) or Business Suite Foundation 7.47 (EhP EhP7)It can also be set up as sidepanel in SAP Business Client, and so be linkedto the Process Monitor, or the normal business applications (e.g. VA03).

Technically this requires the installation of the SAP jNet frontend componenton the display client.

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By default, each business suite system running Process Observer containsLocal Process Definitions and stores process execution information in aLocal Process Log. When processes are displayed in the respective LocalProcess Monitor, they however provide a federated end-to-end processview combining the different process logs. Communication between thelocal systems is done using the Process Facade. It uses information fromthe E2E Process Registry. The registry contains information on definitionlevel, how E2E processes span over systems.

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BPI ingredientsBusiness Process Management and Business Applications

Models of business processesExecution of business processes and (composite) business applicationsEvent consumption and provisioningBusiness Process IntelligenceProcess Monitoring, Process Visibility, Process Analytics, KPI, SLABusiness Activity MonitoringProcess AnalyticsBusiness Intelligence InfrastructureDashboards and Monitoring Capabilities

Business KPIs (e.g. revenue) based on transactional data (e.g. order data)

Process data based on process logs (e.g. event „order created“)

Process KPIs (e.g. order lead time)

Get insight within the context of E2E process and take action (e.g. orders withhigh volume and overdue delivery)

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Xcelsius Dashboards based on BW, ODP and on HANA allow observationof processes over time, and the drilldown/filtering of critical processes.Process Observer data can be combined with application data (see lab-preview dashboard on the right side).A sample dashboard is delivered (left side).

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Process KPIs, also called “PPIs”, are calculated locally duringRuntime by Process Observer. Aggregated KPIs like averagesare calculated by BW, ODPs or HANA.Thresholds are used to trigger actions.

IndicatorIs a measurable quantity

EvaluationIs associated with and assesses indicator valuesIts scope will be defined depending on the business perspectiveTargets, classifications, ranges, benchmarks, thresholds

ActionViolation of objectives defined in assessments requires specificactions to be taken

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Process Observer detects the violation of predefined thresholds. Thresholdscan be set for process definitions, or for individual processes using BRFplusrules. Following the violation, a BOR event is thrown indicating the violatingprocess. The BOR event can be used to trigger automated reactions likelaunching a workflow, calling a service or sending an event to NW BPM, orcontacting a person using email, SMS, etc. using the alert management(ALM, BC-SRV-GBT-ALM), which is provided as part of the SAP WebApplication Server.

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Process Observer does not only support BOR Events:Through the new, delivered Event API, systems that do not have ProcessObserver locally available, here called “client systems“, can participate.This may be non-SAP systems or SAP systems of lower releases or SAPsystems where for some reason Process Observer is not set up.Also application that are not sending BOR events can use this Event APIinternally.This requires the external system to provide the events. For SAP some bestpractices how to do that exist (see MDG example).The process log is available in the Suite system and only in local (to theSuite) UIs.Limitations of this approach are obviously availability of events in the clientsystems and overall performance considerations; even though the API iscapable of bundling, volume may be a limiting factor.

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The Event-API for Process Observer can be called remotely viasynchrounous RFC call. Internally this is a simple function module call, ormethod call.A table of events lt_event is created and used as input to the RFC module.A single event contains information about the event (task) type, thebusiness object (type and id), the callable business entity (e.g. transaction),user, execution date and time, and logical system.For federation across systems the kernel transaction ID should be added tothe event.Document flow information should be given in the form of predecessorobject information to the event. This information is used to create theprocess instance chain in the process log.After the execution of the function module, the events are stored in a buffertable and are processed asynchronously.

See also note 1737693 for additional notes on how to use the functionmodule POC_RAISE_EVENT.

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Example for the usage of field level changes: Reporting on field changes ofsome key fields of the sales order with Bex Web Analyzer.

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Current versions of SAP NWBC support sidepanels for applications. AProcess Observer sidepanel can be attached to the applications, to displayimportant process information (like KPI values and status, related businessobjects and process participants) and to navigate to the process monitor.

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Current versions of SAP NWBC support sidepanels for applications.Streamwork, as well as notes & attachment sidepanels work on processinstance level within the process monitor, and with process definitions in theprocess definition viewer.

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The general idea of the Concept Gateway is to enable the developer, whichusually doesn‘t have the SAP Application expertise, to consume Information fromSAP Backend SystemsThe Concept Gateway builds on standards like ODATA, meaning SAP BackendData are exposed as REST based Services.Consumption Tools supporting the ODATA open standard and the concept of a„service meta document“ can help the developer to understand the Data serviceand support him in building a first skeleton of code that he can refine. Actuallythis concept is available as a product called NW Gateway.

So, we have applied these concepts to build a new Data Service called „ProcessGateway“ as part of the NW Gateway SP04.

One important aspect of that Data service was to build an easy to consumeResource Model that also supports the usual ODATA capabilities like navigatingbetween entities and filtering information.The other important capability of such a Process Gateway Data Service is to beable to connect to different SAP Process Orchestration Infrastructures like a NWBPM or Process Observer enabeld Suite System. That means that the ProcessGateway Data Service not only provide easy access to process information butalso a uniform access.

Resources are part of NW gateway (SP 04).The appropriate backend release to support this is required nevertheless (701SP12, 702 SP 10, 731 SP04).

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Reuse Views for HANA-based real-time analytics with Process Observerdata are delivered with Suite HANA Live for EhP4 for ERP 1.0 SP03. Thevirtual data models (VDMs) are contained in package sap.hba.eccfnd701.Find the documentationat:http://help.sap.com/saphelp_hba/helpdata/en/51/6ba91eb92a4f4ee10000000a421bc1/content.htm?frameset=/en/D5/BF8F06004C4AA1B26C3B45002F9AD4/frameset.htm

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Procure-to-Pay Instumentation for Process Observer in SCNhttp://scn.sap.com/community/bpm/blog/2013/07/08/instrumentation-for-procure-to-pay-process-on-item-level-in-process-observer

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MDG supports create and change requests for master data like material orbusiness partner. The initial change is done on the SAP MDG-Hub servertriggerend by a MDG change request workflow. The master data is thendistributed to client systems, where additional workflows can be triggerendand further, client specific data can be maintained.Process Observer can be used to monitor the workflow cross MDG-hub andclients.

MDG instrumentation for Process Observer will be provided with RDS„MDG Content Accelerator“.

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For details see SCN Blog: Monitoring of cross system workflows with SAPProcess Observer (http://scn.sap.com/community/mdm/master-data-governance/blog/2012/06/11/monitoring-of-cross-system-workflows-with-sap-process-observer)

The graphical sidepanel is also available for other applications.

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Process Object Builder 1.0 is planned for ramp-up in August 2012. ProcessObjects from Process Object Layer (POL) are instrumented to use ProcessObserver for monitoring. The target is to monitor the entire orchestratedprocess using Process Observer.

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Process Observer provides log data as input to BP Analytics [BPMon] onSAP Solution Manager for further processing.This functionality can be achieved using customer-specific extensions.This functionality is not available in standard as of yet.

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SAP OPInt 1.0 supports the following business event provider systems• SAP Business Suite Applications (via Business Suite Foundation

Process Observer)• SAP Business Workflow (via Workflow Façade)• SAP NetWeaver Process Orchestration (via BPM Process Façade)Please see appendix for required release/SP levels

Future releases of SAP OPInt will enable you to connect to non-SAPenvironments and scenarios:• SAP NetWeaver Process Integration (Integration Visibility) for 3rd party

business application integration, message flow event integration into abusiness scenario (e.g., a start or end event of a phase) and B2Bconversation events

• SAP NetWeaver Cloud Integration (Cloud Integration Visibility)• Sybase Event Streaming Platform (ESP) for complex event pattern

consumption• SAP Operational Process Intelligence Extensibility (e.g., to build

Non-SAP integration of providers, for instance a social---media adapter)– offering a generic method to implement a non-SAP data model

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Process Observer is delivered with Software Component Business SuiteFoundation (SAP_BS_FND).It is currently available for the software component versions SAP_BS_FND7.01, 7.02, 7.31, 7.46 and 7.47The Business Suite Foundation is part of almost all Business Suite productbased on Web AS ABAP.For details on your products, please consult your System LandscapeDirectory.

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To adopt Process Observer follow these steps:

• Check available application content or RDS provided• Enhance or create Process Definition in the POB Repository• Add missing Events to the application, if necessary• Enhance the Process Log, if necessary• Create spcific analytics content and dashboards for your processes, asrequired

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Information Resources:

Process Observer in SCN (http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-24983)Overview page of Process Observer in SCN that contains links torelevant articles, including blog post on how to setup process observerand create first process definitions for logging.Process Observer in SAP Help Portal(http://help.sap.com/erp2005_ehp_06/helpdata/en/33/14dd25b1964c6b8b44cf5b9d757b81/frameset.htm)Application Documentation of Process Observer in SAP Help Portal.

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Process Observer...•supports monitoring and analytics of yourbusiness processes

• is an available Suite Component with low TCOfor the customer

• is enabled for mobile applications and HANA

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