Working with Service Orders

Service Orders are either created directly or based on reported requirements, for example, Service Requests or Service Order Quotations. Planning comprises the required services and materials, namely, spare parts.

When orders are checked, they can be released and are ready for execution.

A task for a technician is planned using a service order.

Assigned spare parts can trigger a purchasing process.

As with all other former SAP CRM documents, a service order consists of header and item data. Each transaction type is assigned to a leading business transaction category. A service transaction is a business transaction category of its own.

The service process functions are controlled by a transaction type and item categories. A service order can be created with reference to a service agreement or service contract. Based on the main reference object that you entered in the service order, you can display a list of relevant products for the order items. This functionality is called product proposal.

If an executing service employee is assigned in the service order item to another company code and the intercompany posting is blocked or not allowed for the company code of this employee, the system reacts with an error message. The check is performed for service and expense items.

Using the intercompany check, you can enable or disable intercompany postings or to allow intercompany postings only for specific combinations of sender and receiver company code.

Service processing is triggered by an item that contains a service product. The service product item describes a service. The item is used to document customer wishes (for example, with reference to dates) and contains planning-relevant data.

Planning-relevant data includes the service group that is responsible for the performance of a service, dates, the number of persons necessary for the execution of a service, the estimated duration, and quantity.

• Weekend

• Public Holiday

• Junior

• Senior

• Describes the required service component for an onsite service

• Includes information about the planned quantities and conditions

• Displays the current status

Expense items are represented by products of type Material. Expense items can express planned expenses (for example, Parking Fee). Actual expenses can be confirmed using service confirmation.

If you work with Fixed Price Items, the quantity of planned services and components are later on used for billing. If the number of working hours or the number of service components in a Service Confirmation differs from Service Order planning, this is not taken into consideration during in the billing process.

When you create a service order, you link the individual items to form a hierarchy by entering the number of the superior item in the Higher-Level Item field. When values from sub-items are cumulated, this value is assigned to the higher-level item.

Pricing conditions can either be duplicated in all assigned sub-items or applied to the cumulated value of all assigned sub-items.

The following basic functions for Service Orders are available:

• Category

  You can assign categories at header and/or item level and group Service Orders according to defined criteria, for example, type of asset.

• Reference Object

  You can assign a Technical Object for which a service is required at header level of a Service Order. The following assignments are available:

  • Product

  • Functional Location

  • Equipment

  • Reference Product

  • Serial Number

• Product Proposal

  You can define common products proposed when creating a new Service Order.

Item-based accounting enables you to record and analyze cost and revenue in real-time that have incurred in the service order items and service contract items, and to report the profitability of services performed.

Item-based accounting is provided for the following in Service:

• Item-based Accounting for Service Orders
• Item-based Accounting for Service Orders with Advanced Execution
• Item-based Accounting for Service Contracts

The topics Item-based Accounting for Service Orders with Advanced Execution and Item-based Accounting for Service Contracts will be explained later on in this course. In the following, you'll find out further details regarding Item-based Accounting for Service Orders

In item-based accounting, cost and revenue are processed along with the lifecycle of the service order and the related items.

The key capabilities of Item-Based Accounting for Service Orders can be summarized as follows:

• Planned cost and revenue calculation
• Financial reporting and margin analysis
• Event-based revenue recognition (EBRR)

The financial costing flow of Item-based Accounting for Service Orders can be described as follows:

1. Initiate the service: The system creates the account assignment object (controlling object) for the items that are added to the service order.
2. Plan the service: The planned cost and revenue that incurred for the service order items is recorded.

   • Planned cost is recorded in the service order items.

   • Planned revenue derives from the price that includes, for example, any discounts or rebates that have been defined for the service order item.

3. Execute the service: The actual cost that has been incurred for the service order item and that has been confirmed by means of a service confirmation is recorded.
4. Trigger billing for the service: The actual revenue that derives from the price of the performed service and that is charged to the customer in billing is recorded.

   • For service order items, actual revenue derives from the service confirmation items that are billed.

   • For fixed price service order items, revenue derives from the fixed price service order items that are billed.

5. Complete the service: Finalize the service processing in the service order.
6. Utilize Event-Based Revenue Recognition: Event-Based Revenue Recognition for the service order is used to recognize cost and revenue in real time that have occurred for the service order items.

You can check the expected cost and revenue, see the margin, and update the relevant data in a service order in your service planning process. The tab Planned Cost and Revenue is available at both service order header and item levels for you to view the relevant data. The planned cost and revenue of a service order are based on the planned cost and revenue of items in the service order.

You can view two types of planned cost and revenue data:

• Baseline: When the status of a service order has been set to Released for the first time, the planning process of a service is considered as completed. The cost and revenue that have been planned up to this point are considered as the baseline of planned cost and revenue. It represents the original data at the initial stage of the planning process.
• Ongoing: While the baseline of planned cost and revenue serves as a basis for comparison, the ongoing planned cost and revenue reflect the continuously updated data when changes occur in the service planning process.

You can update the baseline of planned cost and revenue by choosing Update Baseline under the Planned Cost and Revenue tab. This function enables you to manually trigger a recalculation of the baseline of planned cost and revenue of a service order after the initial release of the service order.

The planned cost for different item types is defined and/or calculated as follows:

An intercompany service order is a business transaction used to distribute a service between two companies with different company codes that belong to the same organization.

Example: Company A sells a service to a customer and uses an intercompany service order to distribute the service to company B. Company B receives executes the service and posts the revenues from the service as costs (accounts payable) to the company A.

You can only use fixed-price service items for intercompany service orders. The items that are billed based on the consumption of time and materials cannot be used for intercompany service orders.

If an executing service employee is assigned in the service order item to another company code and the intercompany posting is blocked or not allowed for the company code of this employee, the system reacts with an error message. The check is performed for service and expense items.

Using the intercompany check, you can enable or disable intercompany postings or to allow intercompany postings only for specific combinations of sender and receiver company code.

The following dispatching options are available for Service Orders:

• Manual assignment of a Service Employee Group

• Dispatching using predefined Dispatching Rules

You can use SAP Field Service Management for planning and dispatching Service Orders. Additionally, further features and functionalities harmonize service processing.

SAP Field Service Management is aiming at faster resolutions, increased productivity, and reduced costs.

The core capabilities for SAP Field Service Management are as follows:

• Customer Self Service

  The Customer Self-Service application is a self-service portal that allows your customers to scan equipment labels to more easily initiate service calls.

• Planning and Dispatching

  The Planning and Dispatching application comprises the following features:

  • Create service calls and activities.
  • Assign service calls the right response using the Best Matching Technician feature.
  • Manually drag and drop service calls and activities to the planning board.
  • Attach smartform templates to a service call or activity.
  • View service call and activity information, such as current execution stage.

• Mobile Field Service

  The Field Service Mobile app is used by technicians to do everything, for example, completing service calls and sales orders, executing checklists, viewing current inventory, providing quotations for sales and service, effort and expense management, and time and schedule management.

• Smartforms

  The Smartforms and Feedback app is a dynamic smartform designer and management tool used to create documentation and guidelines for service execution. It provides a robust, flexible design interface in which designers can assemble smartforms to suit any scenario. It also provides an intuitive library management interface with which to manage templates.

• Analytics

  The SAP Field Service Management Analytics and Reporting dashboard allows you to visually track key performance indicators, so that managers can see at a glance how departments, teams, and employees are performing. Dashboard reports are the quickest and most effective means of representing data in an understandable and actionable manner.

SAP Field Service Management also offers the following advanced capabilities: crowd service, Experience Management solutions from SAP and Qualtrics, SAP Litmos Training, Internet of Things, and Integration to Backend.

When all relevant planning details have been assigned to the Service Order, you release the Service Order. The service technicians can start with their work.

As a service planner, you can use this app to access a worklist of all the service orders that match the predefined selection criteria. The order list contains the information on Service Orders in the form of a table and allows you to process orders and assigned objects, for example, Sold-To-Party directly. You can configure the list layout, sort table columns, and define variants for the result list.

SAP S/4HANA output management enables you to use output functions such as printing, sending e-mail, or editing form templates for Service Orders, Service Quotations, and Service Contracts. Output Management is available for:

• Service Quotations
• Service Orders
• Service Contracts