ADVANCED FEATURES IN SAP EWM WAREHOUSE MONITOR

This blogs tries to explore the various features and basic customization options which comes out of the box in SAP EWM Warehouse Monitor from business user point of view.

Motivation behind exploring features of Monitor and why it is important for business users?

Most of the time we just use the standard monitor nodes but whereas business users are curious about getting most out of the warehouse monitor features.

It triggered my thought process on what if business users would be able to customize the monitor without any technical help or complex configuration of nodes.

Below blog will show how SAP has made it so simple to customize the variant nodes derived out of standard nodes without advanced technical know-how.

Let us start from a quick overview of SAP EWM “Warehouse Monitor” features and to finish with creating custom node for an interesting use case.

Warehouse monitor is a central tool in EWM which is in addition to monitoring capabilities can also be used to execute work in the warehouse.

• It lets the manager / supervisor to monitor and control different warehouse activities.
• Comprehensive view of inbound, outbound and internal processes with related documents.
• Highlights potential problematic situations such as overdue deliveries.
• Predefined reports for most of the processes.
• Can execute work in the warehouse such as confirmation of tasks, change queues for resources, release waves and many more
• Adaptive and flexible to suit customized requirements.
• Create own monitor with own reports and methods.
• Create or hide nodes for a user specific view of the warehouse activities.

Before we jump into configuration, let us understand the basic structure of the warehouse monitor

• Monitor primarily consists of a document and a process view. The left sub screen displays the hierarchical tree holding all relevant object classes (e.g., WOs, VAS orders, resources, etc) that are assigned to predefined nodes which are expandable by clicking the arrow next to them.

• Once double clicked on nodes, selection criteria pops up. Then in the right side of the monitor result of the report entered by selection criteria opens up with two sub-screens.

• Above image shows display of the parent data ( e.g, all overdue WOs for picking in activity area ….) and one beneath to display child data (e.g, all warehouse tasks that are included in the selected WO).

Following activities able to perform in monitor sub-screens.

• Direct accessibility to transactions and navigate to display detailed data (for example can go to WO confirmation or cancellation).
• Perform actions for the selected objects using one of several methods available.
• Use ALV functions for printing, sorting, filtering, change layout, save variants and many.

• Display alerts raised due to various exception scenarios like overdue situations.

Let us explore the available options to customize the Warehouse monitor according to business requirements

We can create a completely new monitor with own content Or we can enhance the SAP standard monitor and choose to make changes for all users or only for specific users.

Following are commonly used options to tailor the SAP standard monitor.

• Hide the nodes which are not relevant
• For standard nodes, create selection criteria variants
• Create variants of standard nodes (Explained with an use case below)
• Create own nodes variant based on standard nodes (Not covered in this blog)
• Create new methods to execute work based on business needs (Not covered in this blog)

Option – 1 Hiding nodes or branches

We can right click on the folder and select “Hide Node” option but it will be user specific and still other users can see the node.

To reactivate the node, select the “SHOW HIDDEN NODES” button from the menu bar.

Option – 2 Creating selection variants for standard nodes

Option – 3 Creating Variant Nodes of Standard Nodes

In this below case, we will see how to create a variant node in monitor based out of standard node. Let us assume that a warehouse supervisor wants custom node in monitor for checking the list of ODO’s which are picking completed but PGI not yet done.

We simplify this requirement by creating a variant node, so that warehouse supervisor no need to enter every time the variant details.

Step by step process as below….

Hope you have enjoyed some of the simple but yet powerful features available in the warehouse monitor which comes handy to warehouse supervisors for efficiently monitoring the day-to-day operations in complex warehouses..

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Thanks for your interest in this blog. I would be happy to get feedback / comments on improvising the content.

Keep sharing your thoughts…

Quick link to SAP EWM community resources below:

Please follow the SAP Extended Warehouse Management topic: (https://community.sap.com/topics/extended-warehouse-management)

Post and answer questions:
(https://answers.sap.com/tags/01200615320800000705)

you can also read other posts on the topic (https://blogs.sap.com/tags/01200615320800000705/)

Reference:

SAP Press – SAP Extended Warehouse Management: Processes, Functionality, and Configuration

Authors – M.Brian Carter, Joerg Lange, Frank-Peter Bauer, Christoph Persich, Tim Dalm