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.

The following dispatching options are available for Service Orders:

• Manual assignment of a Service Employee Group

• Dispatching using pre-defined 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 Back end.

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 pre-defined 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 email, or editing form templates for Service Orders, Service Quotations, and Service Contracts. Output Management is available for:

• Service Quotations
• Service Orders
• Service Contracts