SAP CRM 7.

0 Interview Questions
with Answers
SAP CRM interview questions can cover a very wide range.
Here is a sample of questions that a typical CRM functional Consultant can be ex
pected to
face.

Q 1. What is the typical landscape for a CRM project? What is the maximum
number of landscapes that you have worked on in a project.
A. CRM landscape typically has a minimum of three environments.
Development
Test (Quality Assurance)
Production
Though in a number of cases, there is also the Sandbox Environment, Training
Environment and a pre-Production environment all set up as separate physical box
es.

Q 2. What is the difference between technical consultant and functional consulta

nt
with respect to their roles and responsibilities?
A. A functional consultant is typically responsible for running workshops, inter
viewing
clients to get requirements, mapping these on to the Software, deciding the best
way to
customize the solution to meet these requirement keeping the client's future pla
ns in mind.
A technical consultant is typically responsible for suggesting suitable technica
l solutions for
gaps, setting up the system infrastructure, doing the developments, testing them
, ensuring
that performance is not affected etc.
In the CRM world in particular, the role between the technical & functional cons
ultants is
blurring with there being a large overlap.

Q 3. Explain the general ways of how a CRM can be enhanced?

A. There are several ways to enhance the CRM system. Some of them are:
- Transaction Launcher
You can add external applications to the CRM WebClient User Interface using the
transaction launcher and SAP ITS (Internet Transaction Server). These could be f
or
example,
- Web sites of your choice
- Transactions in an ERP system
- Administration transactions in the CRM system

- BSP Components Workbench

This is at a technical level and typical changes carried out are e.g. Adding a c
ompletely
new View.
It assist with the Component Enhancements.

- UI Configuration Tool
Allows to make changes such as:
Adding or removing fields
Changing field labels
Adding Headers
Making fields mandatory
Displaying assignment blocks (direct, lazy)
Customer specific changes to the UI must be performed using a Role Configuration
Key

- Easy Enhancement Workbench

Easy Enhancement Workbench (EEWB) is a development tool that does not require
technical knowledge to be used.
It automatically creates transportable ABAP objects, updates events and implemen
ts
BADIs.

Q 4. How Do Modification-Free Enhancements Work?

A. You can perform modification-free enhancements at predefined positions in cod
e.
There you have anchor points or enhancement options, as they are called in the
terminology.
At these points you can insert your enhancements. You can do this without chang
ing the
compilation unit that you are enhancing. The inserted implementations are proce
ssed at
the appropriate position in the compilation unit, but they are themselves not pa
rt of this unit.
They cannot, for example, belong to another package. Let us take a look at the
example of
a source code enhancement in a report in order to illustrate this better. We ar
e not looking
at details of coding, but the key steps.
Anchor point, at which you can plug in an enhancement.
Enhancement which is executed here but is itself not a physical part of the code
it is
plugged into
You can to a certain extent compare this enhancement technology with a closet sy
stem
where you can insert various elements at particular positions. Instead of drilli
ng the wood in
the side walls, you can insert various boards and other elements where the manuf
acturer
has already inserted hooks or holders at important positions.
There are different types of holders or attachments at various positions. At ea
ch holder
type, you can insert exactly one type of element: boards at small dowel position
s, CD
elements at wider dowel positions, and drawer elements at multiple dowels. It se
ems like
the elements are an integral part of the entire closet but, in fact, they are at
tached to the
closet parts through holders.
The different enhancement technologies correspond to these different types of el
ements
described above. These technologies become attached at different types of anchor
points
or enhancement options of the Repository objects.
Therefore, you cannot simply insert enhancements into Repository objects at any
position
you like without modifications, but only where there are so-called enhancement o
ptions in
place. At these enhancement options, you can also attach only certain elements s
o-
called enhancement implementation elements.
A concept that standardizes and structures all previous enhancement possibilitie
s cannot
do without a certain amount of complexity. The structure it is based on, however
, is
extremely simple.
. On the one hand, you have hooks or, to put it correctly, enhance
ment options
where you can insert enhancements. There you define enhancement options, which i
s why
one can speak of the definition side.
. On the other hand, you have enhancement implementation elements
that you
can affix to these hooks or enhancement options.
The rest is simple detail: There are various types of hooks or enhancement optio
ns, and
there are also various enhancement implementation elements. The enhancement opt
ions
are grouped together to enhancement spots and these, in turn, to even larger uni
ts.
The same applies to units on the implementation side. Between the different uni
ts of a
side and between those of the implementation and definition side, you have assig
nments
of different cardinality.

Q 5. We are planning to implement Employee Interaction Centre (EIC). We can do i

t
either in CRM or ERP. What is your advice?
A. If the focus is on native HR functionality requiring process depth within you
r EIC service
offering, then the ERP option is recommended.
Relevant functionalities not yet available with the SAP CRM EIC deployment optio
n include
the handling of concurrent employment scenarios employee authentication integrat
ion to
HR processes and forms.
The SAP CRM solution provides greater depth of Interaction Center related functi
onality
that is not available within the ERP solution.
These functionalities include:
Campaign management
Case management
Multi-tenancy capabilities enabling client switch & BPO environments
Standard help desk processing methodology including service request handl
ing &
problem management
Intent driven interaction
Billing and charging for delivered services
User interface flexibility and personalization
Is CRM already in place, planned or a potential future need/consideration?
If not, from a technical standpoint - why take on the overhead of CRM?
The ERP based solution is geared towards implementations involving a central HCM
system running on ERP 6.0 and customers who want a HR specific call center solut
ion to
support HCM Service Delivery.
If so, it is likely that the EIC will ultimately be realized within the context
of the SAP CRM
Interaction Center. Consideration should also be given to note 1256691 indicatin
g that "the
functions provided in Enhancement Package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0 for the Employee
Interaction Center component (PA-EIC) constitute the final range of functions."

SAP's direction is to establish one common shared services platform based on CRM
technology and other SAP Business Suite components to offer functions following
the
latest business trends such as multi-functional shared services.
The CRM technology will thereby be further leveraged to build this shared servic
es platform
in additional to providing functional enhancements for comprehensive scenario co
verage
across shared service center topics.

Q 6. We sell computer hardware, and need to log customer technical issues. We

have been debating whether to use Service Tickets, Service Order, Complaints
Management or Cases. Could you explain what each of these are and when they
might be used?
A.
Service Ticket Management
The service ticket is the most common type of service-related business transacti
on.
Service tickets are commonly used as the default transaction for logging product
defects,
bugs, or any other technical issues.
After creating a service ticket as a follow-up transaction to the interaction re
cord, agents
can perform technical analysis of problems (using multi-level categorization) an
d provide
solutions within defined service-level agreements (SLAs). If necessary, agents c
an also
dispatch or escalate service tickets to second-level support using pre-defined b
usiness
rules.

Service Order Management

Service orders are very similar to service tickets (in fact they share the same
underlying
technical structure) but are used whenever it is necessary to schedule a repair,
installation,
or other field-service related appointment -- especially if spare parts/service
parts are
required.
Unlike service tickets, which do not support spare parts/service parts, the serv
ice order
allows agents to assign the relevant spare parts/service parts required for a re
pair,
maintenance or installation.

Complaint Management
Complaints are a very specific type of service transaction. In SAP CRM, complain
ts are
created as follow-up documents to support product returns, exchanges, or refunds
. A
complaint is appropriate when a customer has a problem or issue with delivery sh
ipment
or billing invoice.
Agents can create a complaint from a reference document such as sales order or b
illing
invoice. Agents can also generate appropriate follow-on tasks such as credit/deb
it
memos, QM notifications, free-of-charge shipments, and returns.
In SAP, complaints are NOT used to record situations in which a customer is call
ing to
"complain" about bad service or defective products; rather interaction records a
nd service
tickets are best suited for such situations.

Case Management
Cases are also a very specific type of service transaction.
In SAP CRM, cases are created as follow-up documents to group together multiple
documents or objects related to a single root cause or issue.
For example, a company might create a case for keeping track of all of the servi
ce tickets
related to a particular product recall, service outage, insurance claim, crimina
l
investigation, etc. Cases are not created to log individual customer issues or p
roblems;
rather service tickets are typically used for such situations.

Q 7. What are the difference between Interaction Record and other Business
Activities?
A.
When an interaction record is created the system creates an anchor' document flow
link
(relationship type INTO with object type CRMCICANCH). This differentiates an int
eraction
record from all other Activity Business Objects (BUS2000126).
This additional anchor is used in navigation: when navigating from the interacti
on history or
inbox to an interaction record, the system will use this anchor to determine whe
ther an
activity is of type interaction record or not. An interaction record typically h
as other screens
than a normal business activity.
The BW extractor makes also use of this anchor object to differentiate interacti
on record
related statistics from regular business activities.

Q 8. We are an existing SAP CRM customer upgrading to SAP CRM 7.0 and are
debating whether to convert all of your pending Interaction Center (IC) service
tickets to the new CRM Web Client service request format. What would be your
advice?
A.
Prior to SAP CRM 7.0, the service ticket was the business transaction recommende
d by
SAP for service issues related to the Help Desk in the IC.
However, as of SAP CRM 7.0, SAP introduced a new business object type called the
service request, which can be used in the Interaction Center, as well as in othe
r CRM
business roles such as the Service Professional role.
New customers should use the service request rather than the service ticket.
Existing customers who are already using the service ticket should migrate to th
e new
service request when possible (although you can still continue to utilize the IC
service
ticket). In order to facilitate the migration, it may be necessary to create a c
ustom report to
handle the conversion of open (pending) service tickets to service requests.