The QPPD offers the possibility to start follow-up processes. These allow functionally dependent objects to be updated after a change has been made to an object. These can be implemented individually for the customer. It is possible to process the subsequent processes synchronously or asynchronously with bgRFC/qRFC in parallel.

A follow-up process in QPPD, or follow-up process for short, is a process that is processed synchronously or asynchronously after an object has been saved.

Use cases

Often QPPD objects are linked to other QPPD objects or ECC objects, such as the sales order/production order. Customer processes may require that further, functionally dependent/linked objects have to be generated/updated/checked after a change has been made to one object. Thus, changes to additional objects are potentially required. Although these objects are functionally dependent, they are technically independent of each other. In particular, these dependent objects may exist on another SAP or legacy system. 

Example

A mill brand or also steel brand contains specifications for the chemical analysis. These had to be updated/adjusted, e.g. by changing the available data or by versioning the chemical analysis data. The mill brand is in turn used in different steel grades, which define the tests for a material. The customer process stipulates that analysis-related tests in the steel grades must also be adjusted under certain circumstances after the plant brand has been updated. The high cardinality between plant brands and steel grades, as well as the uncertainty regarding processing locks, means that synchronous updating is not an option in the technical implementation. Therefore, a customer-specific follow-up process is created which implements this process.

Structure

To implement follow-up processes, Customizing settings must be made and ABAP classes created if necessary. The following subpages explain the necessary steps.