Using Monitoring and Analytical Functions

The warehouse management monitor is the primary tool used by warehouse managers and employees for information about the current situation in the warehouse, enabling them to initiate the appropriate responses to critical situations. It also contains alert monitoring capabilities that highlight actual and potential problematic situations in the warehouse and provides exception handling tools.

The warehouse management monitor offers the following features:

• Node hierarchy tree
• Parent and child data
• List and form views
• Methods
• Hotspots
• Customizing options

The node hierarchy tree is defined for a warehouse management monitor and contains all of the assigned nodes representing different object classes. The tree is used solely for navigation purposes. You can use the node hierarchy tree to display, in the upper view area, object information for a specific node, based on selection criteria.

The warehouse management monitor contains nodes for object classes relating to the following:

• Documents such as warehouse requests (WRs), warehouse orders (WOs), warehouse tasks (WTs), and physical inventory documents

• Processes such as stock and bin, and resource management

• Alerts such as overdue waves or overdue deliveries without goods issue/goods receipt

SAP delivers two predefined warehouse management monitors:

• SAP - SAP Standard Monitor:

  This is the standard monitor, containing all available nodes.

• CR_EX - Examples of SAP Crystal Reports:

  SAP Crystal Reports provide a highly formatted and user-friendly presentation of analytics data returned by specific queries. This monitor only includes a limited number of nodes and, for the correct display, the SAP Crystal Reports ABAP List Viewer (ALV) Adapter must be installed on the EWM system.

A customer can define own monitors, reusing the standard nodes and also adding custom nodes.

Apart from the navigation tree, you have two sub-screens. One sub-screen is used to display the data of the parent objects. The other sub-screen displays the data of the child objects.

By default, object information is displayed as a list view. The list view is displayed in an ALV grid, and offers all standard ALV functions, including sorting, filtering, and printing.

You also have the option of toggling to a form view for a selected object. The form view provides a focused view of the object and more-detailed information than the list view. The form view is displayed in an HTML viewer.

When object information is displayed in either view area, you can call methods to perform actions on selected objects.

By using hotspots for output fields in the ALV list, the corresponding user interface can be called for an object. For example, choosing the warehouse task number by clicking on it calls the warehouse task display transaction.

You can use the standard SAP monitor, or you can create your own monitors for the particular needs of your company in Customizing.

Regardless of whether you use the standard SAP monitor or your own monitor, the end users can tailor it to their needs by either creating variants for the standard nodes, or creating new variant nodes, based on the standard nodes. A user can also hide nodes or complete branches that they do not need, or create nodes with a given layout for the ALV list view.

There are several user parameters specifically for the Warehouse Management Monitor available. The most important are as follows:

• /SCWM/MON: For assigning the default monitor.
• /SCWM/MON_NO_DBLCLCK: Disable double-click in Warehouse Management Monitor. This disables the method call on the double-click event. For example, performing a double-click on an outbound delivery order header line immediately triggers the delivery item selection. User parameter is "X".
• /SCWM/MONNAV: Instead of a new session, the information is shown in the same session when selecting a hotspot. User parameter is "X".
  Note

  Most hotspots by default open in a new session (which is affected by this user parameter), but some by default don't open a new session.
• /SCWM/MON_NO_TREELAY: This disables the saving monitor tree layout. A new feature since SAP S/4HANA2020 is that the Warehouse Management Monitor is opened with the same nodes expanded as those in the previous session. With this parameter set, the monitor is always started in its initial view, all nodes are collapsed. The user parameter is "X".

Measurement services use key figures delivered by the warehouse. Examples of warehouse key figures are as follows:

• Outbound or inbound deliveries that have left or arrived in the warehouse

• Number of handling units (HUs)

• Number of open warehouse tasks or warehouse orders

First, you require basic measurement services. Then, to evaluate the key figures, you use tailored or calculated measurement services.

Basic, Tailored, and Calculated Measurement Services

Basic measurement services are the key figures that can also be found in the warehouse management monitor to display, for example, a list of warehouse tasks, and show the total number of these warehouse tasks. They have assigned the functions modules for queries, selection screens, and the node profiles that define them for the warehouse management monitor. They are grouped in basic measurement service groups.

Note

Several basic measurement services are predefined and can be used. SAP Note 1178089 describes how you can define your own basic measurement services.

For a tailored measurement service, you assign a selection variant to a basic measurement service to specify the key figure that you want to see. It is based on the basic measurement service that you select. For example, you are only interested in open warehouse tasks. Additionally, you can assign upper and lower threshold values for alerts and exceptions that can be triggered if thresholds are violated.

In a calculated measurement service, you connect multiple tailored measurements services in a mathematical formula. Here, you can check the effectiveness of your warehouse or the performance of your employees.

Measurement Services Uses

Measurement services can be used in the following:

• Operational planning in Labor Management and for the calculation of engineered labor standards

• The Warehouse Cockpit

• BI Content for SAP EWM

You schedule the report /SCWM/R_MS_RESULT_READ to either update the database table /SCWM/MS_RESULT, or write a logical or local file. You can start the report also with the transaction Start Measurement Services (/SCWM/MS_RESULT).

Warehouse Cockpit

You can use the Warehouse Cockpit to display your warehouse key figures and defined Easy Graphics Framework (EGF) objects graphically, and to evaluate or monitor them using defined chart types. It enhances text-based SAP solutions, and was developed to be implemented in a strategically-oriented warehouse. The Warehouse Cockpit supports analytical functions when managing a warehouse using SAP EWM.

Measurement services can be defined in a productive system or in customizing of a test system. The assignment to the Warehouse Cockpit depends where the measurement service is defined. When the measurement service is defined in Customizing, it can be assigned to the Warehouse Cockpit in Customizing and transported. Measurement services which are not defined in customizing have to be assigned in the transaction /SCWM/EGF_COCKPIT (Configure Measurement Services in the Warehouse Cockpit). They can be distinguished by the EGF Object key. Measurement services which are not defined in Customizing automatically start with an underscore (_).

What you need is an analytical tool that facilitates the transition from an administration-oriented warehouse to a strategically-orientated warehouse. SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence (BI) provides data warehousing functionality, a business intelligence platform, and a suite of business intelligence tools. Relevant business information from productive SAP applications and external data sources can be integrated, transformed, and consolidated in BI with the toolset provided. BI provides flexible reporting, analysis, and planning tools to support you in evaluating and interpreting data, and tools for distributing information.

SAP delivers BI Content for SAP EWM to enable you to analyze your warehouse, offering key figure functions and functions for graphical analysis, monitoring, and control.

BI Content is a preconfigured set of role-related and task-related information models that are based on consistent metadata in SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence. BI Content provides selected roles within a company with the information that the roles need to perform their tasks.

This information model includes integral roles, workbooks, queries, InfoSources, InfoCubes, DataStore objects, key figures, characteristics, update rules, and extractors for SAP applications.

BI Content can be used in the following ways:

• As is, in specific industries
• Adapted, so that you can work with it to any degree of detail
• As a template or as an example for customer-defined BI Content

InfoArea 0WM consists of BI Content for SAP EWM. You can use it to conduct actual and planned data analyses for warehouse management, using reporting methods. This enables you to develop a strategy to improve efficiency in your warehouse. You can plan your work better, develop your warehouse strategy, and monitor and constantly check how individual scenarios affect your business targets.

The data basis provided by the BI Content contains, for example, the following data flows:

• Measurement Service Results

• Executed Workload

• Exceptions

• Warehouse Order - Warehouse Task

• Delivery Items

• Storage Bins

• Value-Added Services

• Strategic Planning

To verify the picking and outbound worked as requested, the proof of delivery is a valuable tool. When you use SAP ERP, the proof of delivery is registered in the ERP system and can be uploaded into SAP EWM. You can then use the Warehouse Management Monitor to review these PODs. The data can also be uploaded to SAP Business Information Warehouse for reporting purposes to see information on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

SAP EWM offers you the possibility to maintain the daily average number of full-time equivalents (FTEs) working in the warehouse, the labor costs per FTE per day, and the daily fixed costs for your warehouse. This information can be used for the purposes of analysis in BI. The defined query provides information, such as the following:

• Daily average ratio of the number of outbound delivery items per FTE

• Daily average ratio of total costs per outbound delivery item

• Labor costs per FTE, fixed costs, and total costs for the warehouse

• Daily FTE average

With the seamless integration of analytics features in SAP S/4HANA, you can benefit from a variety of analysis options in an environment with simplified data model, new user experience, advanced processing and deployment options suitable to your business needs. Transactions and analytics are frequently handled separately. However, in most cases, business processes consists of a recurring sequence of transactions and analytics, so that analytics are embedded in the daily work with transactional data.

All the analytical tools consume Core Data Services (CDS views), which make up the Virtual Data Model (VDM) of SAP S/4HANA. In addition, to use CDS views of type analytical queries, you must set up the Analytic Engine, which is used to evaluate and execute analytical queries at runtime.

The end user can use the SAP Fiori Launchpad to access both transactional and analytical applications coming from SAP S/4HANA system. The user can navigate between the applications, which enables insight to action in real time without need for data replication.

The Embedded Analytics approach is recommended for operational reporting, not for historical data reporting. For this purpose, and also to include other data sources, you still use SAP BW.

With the Warehouse KPIs - Operations app, you can view an overview of key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to your warehouse operations, for example, the total number of open warehouse tasks to be processed on the current date. On the overview page, you can see different types of KPI cards. As a warehouse clerk, these cards help you to better manage and process your daily tasks.