This blog is the third in a series of 4 blog posts. In the first blog we gave a rough overview of the possible integrations of SAP Field Service Management (FSM) with various SAP backend systems. In the second blog we explained how and why we integrated SAP Service Cloud with SAP FSM. In this part, we will explain why and in which scenario you should integrate your S/4HANA Cloud Service with SAP FSM. We will integrate both platforms using SAP Integration Suite as a middleware.
As a short recap, we shortly explain what S/4HANA Cloud Service and SAP Field Service Management are in the next two paragraphs.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a complete cloud ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system with integrated intelligent technologies including AI, machine learning and advanced analytics.
It consists of a multitude of areas which covers the different business processes of your company such as Asset Management and Service.
SAP Field Service Management is a cloud solution that consists of a cloud backend and a mobile application. The cloud backend allows your planner to create and manage service calls. These service calls can be assigned and scheduled to internal technicians and or external crowd technicians.
The mobile application allows the technician to process these service calls where he can register everything concerning the job (checklists, working time, travel time, expenses, spare parts consumed, etc).
This solution helps your technicians with real-time, automated workforce scheduling & dispatching and provides self-service options for field service needs.
The SAP FSM solution has a lot more functionalities and features. These are explained in another blog of us.
The S/4HANA Cloud system is a powerful cloud ERP system which allows you to manage your Asset and Service Management very efficiently. As the name itself says, the SAP Field Service Management is a system dedicated to everything concerning field service management. Combining the strong S/4HANA Cloud backend with the very user-friendly SAP FSM frontend allows you to have a better internal service handling and deliver a better service towards your customers.
One way of how this integration allows you to work is that the service orders are created in S/4HANA Cloud based on
This service order will be transferred to SAP FSM where the planner can plan the service order via a very clear dispatching board. The technician will receive a notification on his mobile device (Windows, Android or iOS) that a new service order is available and planned for him. On this mobile application the technician can register his work and travel time, expenses, problem cause(s) or follow a step-by-step walkthrough guide which helps him to solve the problem.
The main benefit for your company is that you will have a more efficient service process for internal service or for service towards the customer. Both systems connect seamlessly which will generate less fragmented data across the different systems. Your back-office personnel can work with agile applications allowing them to plan, follow up and evaluate the work registered by the technicians. While the technician will be working with one of the best mobile applications giving them all the tools needed to execute his work, look up additional information on site and register everything that is needed.
As explained in the beginning we integrate S/4HANA Cloud with SAP FSM using SAP Integration Suite as a middleware (S/4HANA <-> Integration Suite <-> SAP Field Service Management).
How the integration is done between S/4HANA Cloud and SAP Field Service Management is explained in the following steps:
1. Prepare S/4HANA Cloud
To prepare the S/4HANA Cloud system you will have to create an outbound technical user so you can connect S/4HANA Cloud to the Integration Suite. After this you will have to set-up the Communication Systems and Communication Arrangements in S/4HANA Cloud. This configuration allows you to send and receive the Business Partner data, Product data, Service Call data and all the other needed object data from S/4HANA Cloud to SAP Field Service Management via SAP Integration Suite. As final step in the preparation you must configure the Event Handling.
2. Prepare SAP Field Service Management
To prepare the SAP Field Service Management you must enable the FSM Connector and create an FSM Client which is used to connect from S/4HANA Cloud to SAP Field Service Management.
3. Configure SAP Integration Suite
For integrating S/4HANA Cloud with SAP FSM via SAP Integration Suite you can use the predefined package provided by SAP called: “Integration of Service in SAP S/4HANA Cloud with SAP Field Service Management”. This package already contains 15 integration flow artifacts and 2 value mapping artifacts. The integration flows (iflow) are automated workflows used to synchronize data. One iflow is used to synchronize one object in one direction, for example from S/4HANA Cloud to SAP Field Service Management or the other way around.
The value mapping artifacts are needed to map more complex objects such as S/4HANA Service Order priority with FSM Service Call priority. In order to activate the different iflows you must configure them. For this the URLs of your S/4HANA Cloud system and SAP Field Service System are needed. Together with credentials created in the previous steps, FSM account, etc.
4. Data migration
If you already have a S/4HANA Cloud system with existing data, you will have to replicate this data to the SAP Field Service Management system. This can be done in multiple ways. During our demo set-up we used the Data Replication functionality from the S/4HANA Cloud system. Another possibility is to extract the data from your S/4HANA Cloud system in Excel, manipulate the data so it fits to the data model of SAP Field Service Management and upload it via the Data loader from SAP Field Service Management.
When you prepared both systems and configured the SAP Integration Suite iflows, the newly created master data will be transferred automatically from one system to the other system.
This concludes the overview of the integration of S/4HANA Cloud with SAP Field Service Management, using SAP Integration Suite as a middleware. In the next blogpost of this series, you can find more details about the integration of SAP S/4HANA OnPrem PM/CS backend with SAP Field Service Management!
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