How are teams configured? 

Before you start modifying a team configuration, you need to understand how teams are set up in Responsibility Management. 

Business processes such as procurement, sales, or finance are represented by team categories. Team categories contain all responsibilities and team functions relevant to the business process. Team types are derived from the team categories and inherit the responsibilities and functions. Team types are associated with specific business processes. If you want to modify a team configuration you do so on team type level. 

The advantage of using teams and functions for Responsibility Management is that it’s easy to configure and the process of detecting the right persons comes out-of-the-box. We recommend that you model teams for business areas of up to 1,000 employees. 

Modify a team configuration 

You can easily modify team configurations predelivered by SAP if they don’t meet your requirements. 

You log in as a business process configuration expert and start configuring with the Manage Your Solution app. Select the SAP Central Business Configuration link that takes you to the Project Experience app. On the Activities tab select Product-specific Configuration and then select the Configuration Activities tab. Search for Responsibility and you’ll see the various configuration options for Responsibility Management. 

Assign the configuration to a transport request and release it after finalizing your changes

Customize team types, responsibilities, and functions

Depending on your system configuration, you can also use Configure Your Solution, filter for the Application Platform and Infrastructure application area and the Responsibility Management subapplication area. You’ll find the corresponding features there.

You have multiple options for adapting an existing team configuration:

• Create new team types
• Modify responsibilities
• Modify functions

Let’s look at some examples of how this works. As a reference we’ll use the procurement example discussed in the previous blog post, Responsibility Management: Create Your Teams.

Example 1: New team type with reduced responsibilities and functions

If you want to modify the responsibilities and functions available with a predelivered team category, you can simply create a new team type. The team type inherits the responsibility definitions and functions from the team category by default. In the next step you can adapt these responsibilities and functions to your requirements.

Sample use case

You want to create a specific team type only for operational purchasers that supports an easy setup of teams and avoids misconfiguration. To do that, create a new team type and remove all responsibilities and functions that you don’t need for your business processes. The relevant responsibility definitions for our procurement example are Company Code, Material Group, and Supplier. The only relevant role is Operational Purchasing.

Define the team type

Select Define Team Types in the Configuration Activities; a new page opens. Enter a team type name, select the procurement team category, add a team type description, and choose Save. The new team type inherits the responsibility definitions and the functions from the team category.

Create a new team type

Exclude responsibility definitions

Select the new OPPUR_FOCUS team type and choose Exclude Standard Responsibility Definitions. Choose New Entries. Use the value help to select all responsibility definitions you want to exclude from your team type. In our example, these are Material, Plant, Purchasing Category, Purchasing Group, and Purchasing Organization. Save your changes.

Remove responsibility definitions for the new team type

Exclude functions

Select the new OPPUR_FOCUS team type and choose Exclude Functions. Choose New Entries. Use the value to select all the functions you want to exclude from your team type. In our example, these are Strategic Purchasing and Workflow Administration. Save your changes.

Exclude functions for the new team type

After transporting your changes to the target system, you can start using the custom team type in the Manage Teams and Responsibilities app.

Custom team type OPPUR_FOCUS

In the Responsibility Definitions section, you see only the three filter options that were not excluded.

Custom responsibility definitions with reduced filters

When you choose Functions in the Team Member section, only the option Operational Purchasing is left after excluding the other functions.

Custom member functions reduced to Operational Purchasing

Example 2: Enhanced responsibilities and functions for a team category

You can also enhance the responsibilities and functions for a team category predelivered by SAP. For instance, you want to add the responsibility definition Purchase Contract Type. And you also want to add the Manager function so you can detect managers when critical issues occur.

Enhance responsibilities

To enhance responsibilities for a team category you first need to create the new responsibility and then assign it to the team category.

Define a new responsibility

Select Define Custom Responsibility Definitions in Configuration Activities; a new page opens. Enter a meaningful name for Resp. Def. Name that serves as the ID. Choose the appropriate CDS view and the matching CDS field by using the value help. Enter a name for Resp. Def. Ext. Name that is displayed on the UI. Save your changes.

Custom responsibility definition

By the way, when you’re logged in as an administrator, you can also use custom fields from CDS views that you can create with the Custom Fields. Or you can use the Custom CDS Views app to create your own CDS views.

Assign a responsibility definition to the team category

In the next step you need to assign the custom responsibility to the procurement team category. Select Assign Custom Responsibility Definitions to Team Category in Configuration Activities; a new page opens. Use the value help to select the PROC team category and the custom responsibility definition Z_PURCHASECONTRACTTYPE. Save your changes.

Map custom responsibility to team category

Enhance functions

If you want to enhance functions, you need to define the new functions and map them to one of the team category’s function profiles.

Define a new function

First select Define Functions in Configuration Activities. A new page opens, and you see a list of all the available functions, including the entries for procurement.

When you select New Entries, a new list opens. You can enter new member functions in it. In our example we’ll add MANAG: Manager. After choosing Save, the new entry is displayed in the list of all functions.

Custom function

Map the function to a function profile

In the next step you need to assign the function to the function profile for procurement that is linked to the procurement team category. Select Define Function Profiles in Configuration Activities. Select the purchasing profile (PROC) from the list of function profiles.

Function Profile PROC Purchasing

Then choose Function Profile to Function Mapping; a new window opens. In the value help, search for MANAG and select Save. You can see the new entry in the list of all purchasing functions.

Map custom function to procurement profile

After transporting your changes to the target system, you can see the enhanced team configuration in the Manage Teams and Responsibilities app when you create a new team. Select the predelivered team type Strategic Purchasing.

Enhanced standard team type STPUR

In the section Responsibility Definition, you can see the custom value Purchase Document Type.

Custom responsibility definition Z_PurchaseContractType

You can also select the custom function Manager for team members.

Custom function Manager

Interested in learning more?

For more information, see SAP Help Portal for Responsibility Management in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP S/4HANA, and SAP Business Technology Platform.