SAP CRM Service

SAP CRM offers predefined Business Role for the service professionals of your company – Service Professional (SERVICEPRO).

With this role SAP standard functionalities related to the service agreement, service contracts, service plans and service order management, etc. can be performed by the service professionals.

SAP CRM Service is accessible from different channels of the SAP CRM. Following are the service features which could be performed from the WebClient UI:

• With service order management and service ticket management it offers to maintain and track on-going service process and to analyze completed sales process performed by your company.
• Similarly complaint management enables you to keep track of and to analyze complaints against product or service provided by your company.
• Product registration allows your service employee responsible to search, create and maintain Installed Bases or Objects.
• With the help of knowledge search, it is possible to quickly search for the solution for a known problem.

SAP CRM Mobile Service application is offered to fulfil the requirements of the field service representative. These applications run on offline mode and can be synchronized with the CRM servers.

Internet Customer Self-Service (ICSS), which is a web based application and can be used by the internet users for CRM Service. Similar to the WebClient, it provides following service functions:

Installed Base Management and Objects

• Your company sells the products to the customers. The installation of these products at customer’s site is represented by the Installed base management in SAP CRM service.
• Also it supports management of objects within your own organization.
• Organizations sells products and provides services, an object is globally unique tangible or intangible instance of these products or services.
• You can do customizing settings in CRM system to have customer-specific object families.
• The structure of installed base is maintained with the help of its components.
• IBase Management is supported by different channels like WebClient UI, IC WebClient, mobile service and ICSS.
• With IBase management is possible to manage complete life cycle of a product installed at your customer’s site from the time it is installed until it is dismantled.
  As part of IBase Management you also maintain general data for the installed base and its components:

IBase management has integration with the service transactions like service contract and service request. In service contract it represents the objects for which your company has agreed to provide service.

IBase is maintained in a tree structure with a header node which represents IBase and components as different sub nodes. IBase management provide following IBase components.

• Product components – Existing products in the CRM product master data can be assigned to an IBase as a component.
• Text components
• IBase components – It is possible to use an IBase component in another IBase as its component
• Objects – Objects created as part of IBase management can be assigned to the IBase. One object can only be assigned to one IBase, i.e. it cannot be copied.
• Customer-specific component types – It is also possible to create customer-specific components and use them into the IBase.

It is also possible to have dependent information maintained for an IBase. This includes information such as related business partners or service documents. Following are the details maintained for an IBase header:

 

• General Data:
  • IBase ID
  • External ID
  • IBase category
  • Status
  • Description
  • Authorization Group
• Name and Address
• Parties Involved
• Service Contracts – Service contracts in which this IBase has been used.
• Attachments
• Qualification Requirements – This is used to maintain the qualification of field service employee required to be assigned.
• Service Transactions – Service transactions in which this IBase has been used.
• Service Level – This could be service profile or response profile and are used as part of service management.
• Components – This shows the list of components which are part of this IBase
  Following are the details maintained for IBase components:

• General Data:
  • Component ID
  • Description
  • Identification
  • Component Type
  • Installed Base
• Name and Address
• Parties Involved
• Service Contracts – Service contracts in which this IBase has been used.
• Attachments
• Service Transactions – Service transactions in which this IBase has been used.
• Qualification Requirements – This is used to maintain the qualification of field service employee required to be assigned.
• Counters – Counters can be assigned to IBase components or objects. It is a measure for usage or wear and tear on an object. When a predefined reading for counter is reached the system can trigger a maintenance order. It also helps in recording the service history or product consumption.
• Components – This shows the list of components which are part of this IBase

  Service Agreements, Service Contracts and Service Plans
  Service agreement is a CRM service transaction. It is of type “Group Contract”. It is a long-term agreement with a particular business partner or a group of business partners. It can include details related to the agreement with customer on price, billing, SLAs and services. It does not include the target value or the target quantity. With service agreement can directly be linked to a service order or it could have a service contract, with reference to which service orders can be created. During service order processing if system finds service contract then processing of service agreement determination will not take place.

Service contracts define agreement with customers which defines scope of services with predefined conditions for a specified timeframe. It specifies the entitlement of customer to service levels and includes product list which contains services and service parts that are covered. Price agreements for services and parts are also maintained within the contract. The service contract thus represents service data, object list, product list, release list pricing agreement and billing plan.

Service profile and response profile defines the service level in CRM service. Service profile indicates the conditions which define when the services defined within service contract can be executed. Response profile defines the timeframe in which the service should have started and by when it’s processing should have completed. These profiles are maintained in CRM customizing.

Service Contract Determination can be configured in the customizing. It is possible to manually enter a contract or the system determines the contract automatically. This settings are done while creating transaction type in customizing for a service process.

CRM service plan lets you can model a plan for the recurring service and also perform it such that you can service an object in a planned fashion throughout its complete life cycle. It supports creation of follow-up service transactions like quotation, service order, activity, etc. at specified time. In the service interval you define rules which specify that for a particular object when and which service needs to be planned, offered, or performed.

Service Order Management

Service orders in SAP CRM can be created via different channels like IC WebClient UI, Web Channel (ICSS) and mobile device. It is possible to create a service order as a follow-up document to service agreement or service contract. It consists of header and item part. Items in a service order can be in tree structure forming item hierarchy.

Resource Planning Application is used by the resource planners to dispatch the service order to the service technicians. It also supports managing and analysing the data related to the service representative employees (service technicians).

In the form of Reference object, IBase (components), objects or products can be entered in the service at header or item level. Depending upon the main reference object entered in the service order, the list of relevant products is displayed for the order items. This functionality is called product proposal. For pricing, CRM pricing procedure could be used which calculate the price based on the conditions maintained for the discounts and surcharge calculations for a particular item.

Following can be used as line items for a service item:

• Service Items: A service order item also contains accounting indicator information, which represents the account which will be the settlement cost receiver. The service to be performed is described by the service product item. Product type of this service product item is a Service. Conditions and planned durations related information of the service are included in this service product item. It is possible to assign a service product item to an existing service contract. In CRM service processing can be triggered by an item which contains service product. Thus, a service product item describes the service to be performed. Object list of service order can contain IBase components, objects and products.

• Service Part Items: A service part item in a service order is a product of type material. It supports planning, controlling and documentation of the required service part components. It could be assigned to a service contract.
• Sales Items: A sales product item in a service order is a product of type material. In service process, the required parts could be sold using it. This also supports ATP checks for the product to be delivered as in the Sales process.
• Expense Items: An expense item in a service order is also a product of type material and it represents the additional expenses of the service representative during a service process.
• Tools Items: Tool item is used while the service is carried but which itself is not consumed. A product of type Material or an object could be used as Tool item.

The customers included in the services order along with the reference objects could be used in the contract determination process which leads to the presentation of available contracts at a particular time for the concerned customer and the reference object. It also leads to the determination of service level agreement (SLA) dates.

For the reference object entered in the service order, system can automatically perform warranty check which is to check if warranty exists for the reference object or not. If exists, warranty data for the reference object is displayed in the details of service order header or item.

After performing service, service technician can confirm it with the implementation of the Service Confirmation process. Service Confirmation document is created as a follow-up document to the service order and its structure is similar to that of the service order, i.e. header data and item data as possible in the service orders. It contains the data related to the service performed such as actual work performed, materials consumed, timeframe which can include travel time and overtime along with working time, etc. It is possible to create multiple confirmations for a single service order. It also updates the IBase (if any) is involved in the service confirmation.