Configuration for Collaboration between two

SAP Solution Manager Service Desks

(Value Added Reseller and Customer)
November 2009
Contents
1. General information................................................................................................................................ 3

2. Activities in VAR Solution Manager.......................................................................................................... 5

a. Create Connection............................................................................................................................... 5

b. Configure Interface to Solution Manager Service Desk ........................................................................ 9

c. Create Value Mapping ....................................................................................................................... 10

d. Define Extended Interface Mapping .................................................................................................. 15

e. Set Text Filter .................................................................................................................................... 16

f. Set up Automatic Forwarding of Messages to VAR Customer Service Desk ........................................ 17

g. Schedule a Background Job for Resending of Failed Actions .............................................................. 21

3. Activities in VAR Customer Solution Manager........................................................................................ 22

a. Create Connection............................................................................................................................. 22

b. Configure Interface to Solution Manager Service Desk ...................................................................... 23

c. Create Default Value Mapping........................................................................................................... 24

d. Define Extended Interface Mapping .................................................................................................. 24

e. Set Text Filter .................................................................................................................................... 24

4. Best Practice ......................................................................................................................................... 25

a. Process Overview .............................................................................................................................. 25

b. Actions Overview .............................................................................................................................. 27

5. FAQ ....................................................................................................................................................... 28

a. Enhanced Business Partner Mapping ................................................................................................. 28

b. Set Status Value to Display Only in VAR Service Desk ......................................................................... 29

c. Where to Find the External ID of the Message? ................................................................................. 32

d. How to Set Up a Trace for Incoming/Outgoing Data in the Solution Manager Service Desk
Interface? ................................................................................................................................................. 32

e. Target Transaction Type from External Service Desk .......................................................................... 33

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1. General information
Multiple SAP Solution Manager Service Desks can exchange messages between each other. A special use
case is the message exchange between the Solution Manager Service Desk of a Value Added Reseller
(VAR) and the Solution Manager Service Desk of a VAR customer. To make this happen some
configuration has to be done in the VAR Solution Manager and also some configuration in the Solution
Manager of the VAR customer.

At help.sap.com you can find a description of the general collaboration of two Service Desks:
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_sm40/helpdata/en/8a/b0278648ac4f058a7111c3f9b60feb/frameset.htm

Minimum Requirements:

VAR: SAP Solution Manager ST 400 SP19, (SP18: without the automatic forwarding functionality)
VAR Customer: SAP Solution Manager ST400 SP15

Important: Prerequisite for the below described configuration is the implementation of SAP Note 1379076

IMG activities for the connection of VAR Solution Manager Service Desk to Solution Manager Service Desk
of a VAR customer. You have to perform the below described configuration for each connected Service
Desk.

The activities have to be done in both Solution Manager systems:

IMG SP15-17:

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IMG SP18+:

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2. Activities in VAR Solution Manager
a. Create Connection
To connect two SAP Solution Manager systems, a classic ABAP RFC connection is recommended.

i. Create RFC user to login from external Service Desk

This user is required in the VAR customer Service Desk system to open the call to the VAR Solution
Manager Service Desk (send message). It will be stored in the RFC connection from the VAR customer
Solution Manager to the VAR Solution Manager.

1. Define user name.

2. Select user type System.

Important: You have to create a system user in both systems, in VAR Service Desk and in the
VAR customer Service Desk as well, for logon in an interactive target system.

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 ii. Assign Roles to the RFC User

You should assign the following roles to the RFC user in the SAP Solution Manager of the VAR:

SAP_SUPPDESK_ADMIN
SAP_SUPPDESK_INTERFACE
SAP_SUPPDESK_PROCESS

Important: For more information on Service Desk roles, please refer to SAP Note 834534.

iii. Maintain AISUSER Table

Go to transaction AISUSER and assign an S-User and customer number to the RFC user. This is necessary
for forwarding “Very High” messages outside business hours to SAP.

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 Important: The S-User should have authorization to create customer messages and send customer
messages to SAP. For more information, please see the guide Configuration Service Desk for VAR
SAP Solution Manager 7.0 EhP1 ST 400 available in the SAP Support Portal under
http://service.sap.com/~form/sapnet?_SHORTKEY=00200797470000089947&_SCENARIO=0110003
5870000000202&

iv. Create Business Partner for the RFC User

Create a business partner (type: Person) for the RFC user:

Go to transaction BP.
Create a new business partner of type Person and maintain all necessary data in the Address tab.
Select the BP role Employee
Select the Identification tab and go to the Employee Data group box.
Enter the RFC user ID in the User Name field.

v. Create RFC Destination

You should create a RFC connection from VAR Service Desk to the VAR customer Service Desk.

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Select Create for a new connection of type 3:

Enter necessary data (RFC destination has to be upper case):

Save settings and test the conneciton.

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b. Configure Interface to Solution Manager Service Desk

The IMG activity Configure Interface to Solution Manager Service Desk configures the interface
between the VAR Service Desk and the VAR customer Service Desk.

Choose Add.
Enter a name and specify the RFC connection for the external service desk system.
Choose Service Provider Customer as type of the external Service Desk.
Choose System User BP as method to get the reporter. This recommended option enables the system
to use the business partner of the RFC user as the reporter.

Save settings.

Select the external service desk interface row and activate the interface as shown in the picture below.

Save settings.

Important: The interface has to be configured in both systems.

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c. Create Value Mapping

As a part of the configuration you should also specify how the data (such as message priority, text types,
category, etc.) from the VAR Service Desk is mapped onto the data from the VAR customer Service Desk
(and vice versa).

The following picture provides an overview of the mapping process between the VAR Service Desk and
the VAR customer Service Desk.

Important: Incoming and outgoing Value Mapping should be created in both systems.

Important: For SAP Solution Manager ST 400 SP21 and lower you should implement SAP Note 1408329.
This note ensures that value mapping is not defined for attributes which should not be synchronized.

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There are two types of Value Mapping:

Explicit Value Mapping: you define a target value for each source value of a particular attribute

The settings are stored in the tables Value Mapping (1) and Value Mapping (2). They can be
accessed via the IMG activity Define Value Mapping for Service Desk Interface.

Alternative Value Mapping: all values of an attribute will be either mapped to a specified value
(Example 1) or forwarded identically (Example 2).

Example 1:

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 Example 2:

The Settings are stored in the tables Alternative Value Mapping (1) and Alternative Value
Mapping (2). The tables can be accessed via the IMG activity Define Value Mapping for Service
Desk Interface.

Important: Alternative Value Mapping is only considered if there is no explicit value mapping
defined for the particular attribute.

Value Mapping can be generated either automatically or manually. These options are described in the
next sections of this guide.

The Value Added Reseller should compare the customizing settings of his Service Desk with the settings of
the customer’s Service Desk in order to specify the value mapping.

Important: It is recommended to create the refined value mapping in the VAR Service Desk. In the VAR
customer Service Desk it will be sufficient to generate the alternative value mapping as described in
section 2.c.i.

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 i. Create Value Mapping Automatically

Via the IMG activity Configure Interface to Solution Manager Service Desk you can generate alternative
value mapping between the VAR Service Desk and the VAR customer Service Desk automatically.

To do so, please select the service desk interface row, for which the default value mapping should be
generated, and select the Generate push button as shown in the picture below. There are two options
available:

Overwrite Old Values: overwrites existing mapping

Do Not Overwrite Old Values: does not overwrite existing mapping, only missing mapping values
are generated.

Save settings.

The automatically generated values are written in the tables Alternative Value Mapping (1) and
Alternative Value Mapping (2).

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 ii. Create Value Mapping Manually

The IMG activity Define Value Mapping for Service Desk Interface provides four activities to create value
mapping manually:

The activities Alternative Value Mapping (1) and Alternative Value Mapping (2) enable you to make the
following settings:

All values will be forwarded identically. For example, message priority of incoming messages is
mapped 1:1 as shown in the picture below:

All values will be mapped to one value. For example, the category of all incoming customer
messages will be set to ‘space’:

Save settings.

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Further, you can refine your settings in the activities Value Mapping (1) and Value Mapping (2). You can
define a target value for each source value (Explicit Value Mapping). These settings override the data
mapping from activities Alternative Value Mapping (1) and Alternative Value Mapping (2).

Recommendation for VAR use case: The text type SU99 of incoming VAR customer messages should
be mapped 1:1. All other text types should be mapped to the text type Additional Information (SU30).

Incoming text type SU99 can be mapped 1:1 in table Value Mapping (2):

Mapping incoming text types to SU30 in table Alternative Value Mapping (2):

d. Define Extended Interface Mapping

The IMG step Define Extended Interface Mapping for Service Desk Customizing enables you to publish
your modifications in the interface mapping and is only relevant, if you have modified the SAP CRM
Service Desk Customizing and do not use the standard SAP objects.

For example, you can change the default business partner function (SLFN0002) for the reporter to
SLFN0008, as shown in the picture below:

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e. Set Text Filter

Via the IMG activity Set Text Filter, you can define which text types are not to be transferred to the VAR
customer Service Desk.
Choose New Entries.
Select the External Service Desk ID using the input help.
Enter the text type that you do not want to be transferred (according to the text profile for the
transaction types that you use for the SAP Solution Manager Service Desk).
Save your entries.

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f. Set up Automatic Forwarding of Messages to VAR Customer
Service Desk

In this step you will add an action that enables the automatic forwarding of messages to the customer
Service Desk in case of automatic message exchange with SAP.

Go to transaction SPPFCADM.
Select the application CRMD_ORDER and select the Define Action Profile and Actions push button:

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 Select your Service Desk action profile and create a new action with the following settings:

It is recommended to set the Sort Order for Display to value, which comes after the sort order of
basic actions, such as AI_SDK_STANDARD_UPDATE_DNO. Further, this value should be before the
sort order of actions that depend on Z_EXT_AUTOFORWARDING.

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 Choose a Method Call as Permitted Processing Type of Action and select the
AUTO_FORWARD_ICT_TO_THIRD method as shown in the picture below:

Save your entries.

Go back to the initial screen of SPPFCADM and select the push button Condition Configuration
Select your Service Desk action profile and add the newly created auto forwarding action as
shown in the picture below:

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 Go to the Schedule Condition tab and select ICT_AUTO_FW_COND as schedule condition.

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g. Schedule a Background Job for Resending of Failed Actions

If a message is sent from VAR Service Desk to the VAR customer Service Desk, the sending action can fail,
because the message is locked in the customer system.

This report repeats failed automatic external service desk calls that can be caused, for example, by locked
messages in the VAR customer Service Desk. The report ICT_RETRY_FAILED_ACTIONS (available for
SP 19+) repeat the sending procedure.

It is recommended to schedule this report as a background job executed every 15 min.

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3. Activities in VAR Customer Solution Manager
a. Create Connection
To connect two SAP Solution Manager systems, a classic ABAP RFC connection is recommended.

i. Create RFC User to Login from Central Service Desk

This user is required in the VAR Service Desk system to open the call to the VAR customer SAP Solution
Manager Service Desk (send message). It will be stored in the RFC connection from the central to the
external Service Desk system.

1. Define user name.

2. Select user type System

ii. Assign Roles to the RFC User

Proceed as described in section 2.a.ii of this guide.

iii. Create Business Partner for the RFC User

Proceed as described in section 2.a.iv of this guide.

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iv. Create RFC Destination

You should create a RFC connection from the VAR customer Service Desk to the VAR Service Desk.
Proceed as described in section 2.a.v of this guide.

b. Configure Interface to Solution Manager Service Desk

The IMG activity Configure Interface to Solution Manager Service Desk configures the interface between
the VAR Solution Manager Service desk and the VAR customer Service Desk.

Choose Add.
Enter a name and specify the RFC connection for the external service desk system.
Choose Standard as type of the external Service Desk.
Choose System User BP as method to get the reporter. This option enables the system to use the
business partner of the RFC user as the reporter.

Save settings.

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Select the external service desk interface row and activate the interface as shown in the picture below.

Save settings.

c. Create Default Value Mapping

Since the values mapping is performed in the VAR Solution Manager, the data can be taken over
unchanged. This is configured by the default mapping, e.g. automatically generated alternative value
mapping.

To create the default value mapping, please refer to section 2.c.i.

d. Define Extended Interface Mapping

Please refer to section 2.d.

e. Set Text Filter

Please refer to section 2.e.

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4. Best Practice
a. Process Overview

STAT_RP_IB: Status Value for Initial Replicated Messages (incoming)

STAT_PS_OB: Status Value for Sent Proposed Solution (outgoing)
STAT_FW_OB: Status Value for Sent Outgoing Message
STAT_AC: Status Value for Message Received for Processing
STAT_CL: Status Value for Confirmed Messages
STAT_RJ_IB: Status Value for Rejected Proposes Solution (inbound)

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Step 1 and 2: The message is sent to the VAR Solution Manager
VAR Customer VAR

Action SLFN0001_ADVANCED_SEND_THIRD

Parameter STAT_FW_OB (optional) STAT_RP_IB

Step 3 and 4: VAR sends the message back to the customer

VAR Customer VAR

Action AI_SDK_SP_SEND_THIRD

Parameter STAT_FW_OB

Step 5 and 6: Customer sends the message back to VAR

VAR Customer VAR

Action SLFN0001_ADVANCED_SEND_THIRD

Parameter STAT_FW_OB (optional) STAT_AC

Step 7 and 8: VAR sends a proposed solution to the customer

VAR Customer VAR

Action AI_SDK_SP_SOL_THIRD

Parameter STAT_SP (optional) STAT_PS_OB

Step 9 and 10: Customer rejects the proposed solution and sends the message back to VAR
VAR Customer VAR

Action SLFN0001_ADVANCED_SEND_THIRD

Parameter STAT_FW_OB (optional) STAT_RJ_IB

Step 13 and 14: Customer confirms the message

VAR Customer VAR

Action SLFN0001_ADVANCED_CLOSE_THIRD

Parameter STAT_CL

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b. Actions Overview

Action Description Method

VAR

AI_SDK_SP_SEND_THIRD Send to External Service PASS_ICT_SEND_TO_THIRD

Desk

AI_SDK_SP_SOL_THIRD Send Solution to External PASS_ICT_PROPOSE_SOL_TO_THIRD

Service Desk

AI_SDK_SP_SYNC_THIRD Synchronize with Ext. PASS_ICT_SYNC_TO_THIRD

Service Desk

Z_EXT_AUTOFORWARDING Autoforwarding to External AUTO_FORWARD_ICT_TO_THIRD

Service Desk

VAR Customer
SLFN0001_ADVANCED_CLOSE_THIRD Close Message in Ext. SOL_ICT_PPF_CLOSE
Service Desk

SLFN0001_ADVANCED_SEND_THIRD Send to External Service PASS_ICT_SEND_TO_THIRD

Desk

SLFN0001_ADVANCED_SYNC_THIRD Synchronize with Ext. PASS_ICT_SYNC_TO_THIRD

Service Desk

The VAR customer is recommended to deactivate the action "Send message to SAP"
(SLFN0001_ADVANCED_SEND_SAP)

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5. FAQ
a. Enhanced Business Partner Mapping
This section describes how to define the Processor in the Customer Solution Manager as the Reporter in
the VAR Solution Manager (in case a business partner with the corresponding email address exists).

Create an implementation in the following BAdI:

Following coding can be used as an example:

DATA: ls_reporter TYPE ict_incident_person,

lv_partner TYPE bu_partner,
lv_email TYPE ad_smtpadr,
lv_lines TYPE i,
lt_bupa_search_res TYPE TABLE OF bus020_search_result,
ls_bupa_search_res LIKE LINE OF lt_bupa_search_res.

READ TABLE i_incoming_data->a_ict_persons INTO ls_reporter WITH KEY person_id

= i_incoming_data->a_ict_head-agent_id.

lv_email = ls_reporter-email.

IF lv_email IS NOT INITIAL.

CALL FUNCTION 'BUPA_SEARCH'

EXPORTING
iv_email = lv_email
TABLES
et_search_result = lt_bupa_search_res.

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 SORT lt_bupa_search_res BY partner.
DELETE ADJACENT DUPLICATES FROM lt_bupa_search_res COMPARING partner.
DESCRIBE TABLE lt_bupa_search_res LINES lv_lines.

IF lv_lines = 1.
READ TABLE lt_bupa_search_res INDEX 1 INTO ls_bupa_search_res.
lv_partner = ls_bupa_search_res-partner.
ENDIF.

IF lv_partner IS NOT INITIAL.

CALL METHOD i_mapped_data->change_reporter
EXPORTING
i_reporter = lv_partner.
ENDIF.

ENDIF.

This leads to the following behavior: If a business partner with the email address of the Processor of the
message within the Customer Solution Manager exists (and is unique), then this business partner will be
set as the Reporter of the message, otherwise the default logic (e.g. business partner of the system user is
defined as Reporter) applies.

b. Set Status Value to Display Only in VAR Service Desk

To improve the use of the Service Desk for the VAR processor, it could make sense to deactivate the
manual setting of the user status ‘Customer Action’ and Solution Proposal’. Otherwise it could happen
that the processor forgets to trigger the corresponding action for interchanging the message with the
external Service Desk. According to the best practice process, these user statuses are set automatically by
the customizing parameter.

To establish this, you need to do the following steps:

Implement your own implementation of BAdI CRM_ORDER_STATUS. Add to the filter value your
necessary status, for example ‘Customer Action’ and ‘Solution Proposal’.

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As interface class you can use CL_IM_SOLMAN_ICT_STATUS. Activate the implementation.

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After implementing this BAdI, the system shows the following behaviour for messages which has been
created by the external Service Desk.

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c. Where to Find the External ID of the Message?
The external ID of the message is displayed on the Context tab in the message:

d. How to Set Up a Trace for Incoming/Outgoing Data in the

Solution Manager Service Desk Interface?
Via the IMG activity Define Extended Interface Mapping you can activate(X) or deactivate(Space) the
trace for incoming/outgoing data, as shown in the picture below:

Important: It is recommended to activate the trace for troubleshooting only, and then to deactivate it again
(default: space).

Via the report ICT_DOWNLOAD_SNAPSHOT you can download the results of the trace:

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e. Target Transaction Type from External Service Desk
The transaction type, in which the external Service Desk message is created, is specified in transaction
DNO_CUST04.

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