SAP CRM - in short - for Beginner

What is SAP CRM

It is a Customer Relationship Management application provided by SAP, which comes with a set of methodologies and tools which helps the organization to manage customer relationship in an organized manner.
It is a part of SAP business Suite.
It reduces the cost and increases the company’s decision making capabilities.

Benefits of SAP CRM

It provides proven, scalable, standalone, enterprise
strength sales & marketing application
Improved customer services
It enables agents to create and route service tickets using interaction center.
Standardization by streamlining business processes.
Consolidation and simplification
Flexibility-sales force work the way they want to work.
Increased ability to meet customer demands and ward-off stiff competition.
Use of single database model.
Loyalty and profitability
Easy to use

SAP CRM Business Role

Business role is a crucial aspect while configuring web UI as required by an individual.
It displays CRM functions in the form of BSP applications in the CRM Web client.
Business role is assigned to the end-user using the PFCG ROLE ID attribute.
How to create a business role:-
      – Create a PFCG Role
      – Create a Business Role and in the PFCG Role ID field put the PFCG role created in          the first step.
      – Assign the user to the PFCG role created in the first step.
      – Add that Business Role in the SU01 Role tab.

Middleware in SAP CRM

Middleware is inbuilt within the SAP CRM.
It enables the SAP CRM to interact with other SAP and Non-SAP Systems.
Generally it is used for data exchange and mapping.
Middleware controls what data should flow in and out of the CRM.
The basic item in CRM Middleware is the Bdoc.
A Bdoc - Business Document can be defined as a set of transaction statements, which represent a logical object. It is like an envelop of all business data that is necessary to run a business process like A sales document.

GUID Concept

It is a Global Unique Identifier.
Acts as a primary key for all the CRM Tables by identifying master and transaction data uniquely in the system.
With GUID you can prevent number range conflicts and allow for easier access to CRM tables.
GUIDs are created using the function module “GUID_CREATE” in SAP CRM.
two GUIDs produced on any two computers at any time can never be the same.

Important tables Related to Business Partner in CRM

BUT000 - BP: General data ,Contains Business Partner Number
BUT020 - BP: Addresses
BUT050 - BP relationships/role definitions
BUT100 - BP: Roles
ADRC - Addresses
ADR2 - Telephone Numbers
ADR6 - Contains Email – Id of the Business Partner
TSAD3 - Table containing the Title text against a Title No.

Important tables Related to Order in CRM

CRMD_ORDER_INDEX - Contains Header as well as Item details for a
Business Transaction.
CRMD_LINK - Transaction GUID set for all the Business
Transactions
CRMD_ORDERADM_HEADER - Contains the Header Information for a Business Transaction.
CRMD_ORDERADM_ITEM- Stores the Item information for a Business
Transaction.
CRMD_CUSTOMER_ ITEM – Additional Site Details at the Item Level of a Service Contract
CRMC_PROC_TYP - Master table Business Transaction Type
CRMC_PROC_ASSIGN -Transaction Type and its Transaction Type Object.

CRM ABAP

ABAP is used in SAP CRM for programming, since it is the proprietary programming language of SAP.
CRM ABAP is more module specific than a pure ABAP.
CRM applications are generally written in object oriented manner.
Instead of using user-exits generally BADIs are used.
Data is read via function module or class method.
The business logic in CRM applications are UI independent.

Business Transaction Programming Basics

CRM_ORDER_READ - This function module is used to get the details of any business transaction in CRM based on the given Header GUID, Item GUID or both.
The structure IT_REQUESTED_OBJECTS is passed to fetch the required details ( sub-objects) only.
SAP has provided a report CRM_ORDER_READ for the same for testing purpose. You can pass Business Transaction Number (Object ID), Header GUID or Item GUID to this to get the required details.
Like CRM_ORDER_READ , there are specific read Function modules for each and every sub-object data.

CRM_ORDER_MAINTAIN
– This function module can be used to modify and create the data in the Business transactions. It takes the data of the sub-objects in the import tables and the information of modified data in a changing parameter CT_INPUT_FIELDS.
– SAP has provided a report CRM_ORDER_MAINTAIN for the same for testing purpose.
– Like the CRM_ORDER_MAINTAIN, there are maintain function modules for each and every specific sub-object.
CRM_ORDER_SAVE :
– This function module is used to make changes to a document in memory/buffer.
– CRM_ORDER_SAVE allows you to save those changes made by CRM_ORDER_MAINTAIN, in database.
CRM_ORDER_INITIALIZE :
– It is used to clear the buffer memory and lock maintenance .
After calling the CRM_ORDER_SAVE, you need to call the following function modules in the proper order to make the save successful and to initialize the order.
1. BAPI_TRANSACTION_COMMIT
2. CRM_ORDER_INITIALIZE 

Service Tickets in SAP CRM 

If a customer faces any issue he can raise the issue with the vendor via any medium e.g. Fax, telephone, email, etc.
If he doesn’t get the issue resolved, he can raise the ticket into CRM.
Provisions are there in the SAP CRM to create ticket, follow-up ticket, modify a ticket, actions, linked-ticket, and ticket error.
You can set priority to the ticket as well.
As well as there is a provision to check the status of ticket in SAP CRM.
These tickets are also useful to track all customer inquiries.

Some Useful links

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAP_CRM /
Enhancing SAP CRM UI
http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/CRM/How+to+Guide+- +Enhancing+the+UI+in+CRM+7.0
SAP CRM Middleware
http://scn.sap.com/community/crm/master-data-and- middleware/blog/2012/03/21/sap-crm-middleware-basic-overview
CRM Business Transaction Programming Basics

http://www.abapprogramming.net/2011/09/sap-crm-business- transactions.html