The most critical areas to be considered when implementing SAP CRM Service Management with ECC are the following-

Master data

Service contracts

Billing

Service costing

Logistics integration

MASTER DATA

• Equipment is created in SAP ERP, either from a delivery (serialized material where the serial number profile is configured to create equipment) or from the production order.
• On saving the equipment, the data is replicated to SAP CRM via middleware
• On the SAP CRM side, an iObject of type “0401”is created and an IBase component is also created.
• If the equipment is a child of another equipment, for example, a sub-item in a Bill of Materials (BOM), and the parent equipment has previously been distributed to SAP CRM, then the child equipment is attached to the parent.
  As a result, the IBase component for the child is attached into the IBase of the parent.
• Standard information from the equipment such as serial number, material number, and so on is copied over.
• If the parent has not yet been replicated to SAP CRM, then a new IBase is created with a new component.
• The moment the parent becomes available in CRM, the child component is moved under the parent, and the IBase for the child is marked as  “Deleted”. 
• If there are partner records to the equipment in SAP ERP, then the partners are also replicated across.
• The partners can be assigned either to the IBase component itself or to the iObject (depends on configuration of the object family) .
  

Integration to SAP ERP Equipment Master

• Information exchange (at the equipment level) to the iObject level is bidirectional
• In customizing, you can choose between creating IBase components vs. creating iObject structure
• Equipment configuration can also be loaded from SAP ERP
  • A prerequisite for this is that the configuration knowledgebase has been loaded.

Middleware technical data

Replication object: EQUIPMENT, EQUI_CONFIG (only for configuration), SERIALNUMBER (to download pure serial numbers)

BDoc type: CRM_EQUI_DMBDOC, CRM_EQUI_CONF

• BAdI CRM_EQUI_LOAD is provided by SAP to influence data during the download process
• A standard implementation is provided: CRM_EQUI_LOAD_STDIMP and method PERFORM_LOAD takes care of creating the iObject and IBase, as mentioned previously.

Limitation with the standard load program
SAP creates a new IBase for every “functional location”in SAP ERP, which does not work if you want to see all equipment across all functional locations for a single customer in one IBase
A custom implementation of BAdI CRM_EQUI_LOAD fixes this problem

• To enable delta download of equipment changes from SAP ERP to SAP CRM, you need to make an entry in transaction BF31 (in SAP ERP) with event code PM000020, APPL - BC-MID and Function EQUIPMENT_COLLECT_DATA.
• The following set types are used by SAP CRM to store basic information on the equipment:
  
  COM_TA_R3_ID –contains the following fields:
  •  
    • TAR3_ID: Technical Asset Number
    • TAR3_STRUCTURE_CODE: Structure Indicator
    • TAR3_CATEGORY: Category of Technical Asset
    • TAR3_TYPE: Type of Technical Asset
    • R3MATERIAL_ID: Material
    • R3SERIAL_NO: Serial Number (this is an alternative ID)
    • R3BATCH_ID: Master Batch DEF.
    • COM_TA_MANUFAC –Manufacturer Information
    • MANUFACTURER_ID: Manufacturer
    • MANUFACT_COUNTRY: Country of Manufacture
    • MANUFACT_REGION: Manufacturer Region
    • MANUFACT_MODEL: Model Description
    • MANUFACT_PART: Manufacturer Part Number
    • MANUFACT_SERIALNO: Manufacturer Serial Number
    • CONSTRUCTION_DATE: Date of Manufacture

  The iObject is much richer in functionality than the equipment master and it makes sense to move equipment/IBase maintenance from SAP ERP to SAP CRM.

SERVICE CONTRACTS- KEY ELEMENTS

A service contract is a long-term agreement that contains the following key ingredients:

• Type of service contract –Gold, Silver, Maintenance, Repair, represented by products in the Product Master
• Products purchased by the customer that the contract covers (Object List)
• Types of services/spares that the contract includes (Product List)
• Service Level Agreements (SLAs) –Service Profile and Response Profile
• Pricing agreements (special prices for services/spares as agreedupon with the customer)
• Pricing conditions (service contract price)
• Billing parameters (one-time vs. billing plan)
• Period of coverage
• Cancellation procedure
  Automatic contract validation during service processing and escalation management when breaching SLAs
• Rule-based pricing, billing, and accounting of warranty costs
• Possible to have a quotation before creating actual contract
• Integration into FI-CO for revenues from the billing plan and costs from service orders created against the contract.

ENHANCED FUNCTIONS:

• Service contracts can be limited by quantity/value and the call-off list can be viewed from the contract itself
• Service plans can be used to generate and track periodical service/maintenance plans
• Service agreements allow the sale of “corporate” service contracts
• Support for payment by credit, debit, and other payment cards when using SAP ERP Billing
• Usage-based billing (Pool Contracts)
• Warranty Claim Management using CRM Case Management
• Improvements to service plans

Comparison with SAP ERP

• SAP CRM service contracts can be managed better than SAP ERP contracts, as renewals can be managed as new line items within existing contracts
• Revenue Recognition (time and service) in conjunction with SAP ERP Controlling
• Prerequisite –use of Internal Orders in SAP ERP
• Billing possible in SAP CRM or SAP ERP
• Contracts can be defined at the IBase, IBase Component, or iObject level
• Product List defines which services are covered by the contract
• This list can be flexibly defined by a combination of products, product categories, and partner product ranges (with exclusion rules)
  It’s possible to set up one contract with different line items representing different contracts you have for the customer and the equipment
• For example, you can have a regular contract line item, a quantity/value-based contract item, and a service plan item (PMI) all in the same contract
• Strong integration into SAP ERP FI-CO for billing and costing as in SM
• Several SAP NetWeaver® Business Intelligence (SAP NetWeaver BI) reports are available that analyze a contract and its profitability.

Migrating from SAP ERP

• There is no standard download program for SAP ERP service contracts migrating into SAP CRM contracts
• Either a custom download will have to be created or the contracts will have to be migrated manually
  • Prerequisite to running a custom download would be to download the equipment master
• Due to the flexibility of SAP CRM contracts, the mapping from SAP ERP to SAP CRM can be designed in many different ways
• Therefore, SAP does not provide a standard download

 WARRANTIES IN SAP CRM

Warranty – a promise made to the customer that does the following:

• Guarantees that a product is without defects
• Provides validity for a specific period
• Defines entitlements for repair or exchange of defect parts wholly or in part without charge
• Flexible creation and maintenance of warranties representing the warranty entitlements applicable for certain products
• Registration of warranty assignment to customers’ products and tracking of entitlement provided to a customer through product lifecycle
• Recognition and validation of warranty entitlement during all service-related business processes

Warranty analytics
Information provided about the amount of products with or without warranty. 

• Expired warranties monitored per installed base and individual object
• Warranty expense analysis
• Flexibility in defining start and end date rules for the warranty
• Different types of warranties – time-based, counter-based, both
• Warranty period and coverage can be defined as well
• All services and spares that are covered by the warranty can be defined as well as warranty exclusion rules

Assignment and Tracking of Warranties

Product master

•  
  • Warranty information for individual objects created with reference to a product, such as product registration via e-service
  • Warranty information for non-individualized customer products, such as complaint processing for consumer products

Individual object

•  
  • Assigned automatically when referencing a product master.
  • Enablement of date attributes for individual objects such as delivery date or installation date to be used for start date determination.

Installed base component

•  
  • Rule-based or manual maintenance of warranty start date.

Comparison with SAP ERP Service Management

• Warranty is its own object in CRM Service
• It can be created automatically when an equipment is downloaded from SAP ERP to SAP CRM
  The validity dates will be defined by date rules
• Warranties in SAP ERP cannot be downloaded, but they can be easily recreated in SAP CRM during the equipment download process
• Extended Warranties, which are paid for by the customer, can be modeled in a couple of ways:
  • As service contracts with their own pricing
  • As a service product that is added to a billable service order so as to charge the customer.
    • Along with this the existing warranty assignment dates can be extended