https://archive.sap.com/documents/docs/DOC-31056

SAP Business Workflow enables the design and execution of business processes within SAP application systems: Workflow processes are delivered as content in the SAP Business Suite. Additionally, customers can not only enhance those workflows provided by SAP, but they can also create their own workflows. SAP Business Workflow is at the heart of the SAP system. Through integration with Organizational Management and standard SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence for reporting and analysis, this enables you to manage business processes which fit into your organization, the application, and which can be used for auditing and business process compliance.

The future direction and recommendations from SAP are outlined in this document:

Workflow and Orchestration Solutions from SAP – Overview and Positioning

Companies have the following needs: 

• Approval processes - such as purchase requisition, purchase order, and invoice approval. 
• Definition of specific processes - processes that are repeated often and that must follow specific business rules. For example, business partner creation. After each business partner is created you need to set up additional information such as credit limit, contact information, and technical information for data exchange with the business partner. Another example is the hiring process. 
• Revision of processes - processes that could be audited, or areas where you want proof of execution for Sarbanes Oxley compliance, or other government or corporate policy regulations.

Companies gain the following benefits from SAP Business Workflow:

• Many SAP applications deliver workflows as content with the SAP application. ERP, CRM, SRM are examples of SAP applications that provide ready-to-use workflows. You can change these workflows to reflect your company processes by using the graphical workflow builder or build your own from scratch. 
• You can do detailed reporting on the process itself. For example, reporting on how many times each workflow executed, what was the average execution time, how long did it take people to react to items in their inbox, etc. 
• There is a great deal of knowledge available on business workflow. 
  • Discussion forum:  BPM and SAP Business Workflow 
  • Wiki:  SAP Business Workflow FAQ

More Information

The following documents and eLearnings give you an overview of SAP Business Workflow.

Special workflow topics:

• SAP Business Workflow: Extended Notifications  (PDF 453 KB) 
• SAP Business Workflow integration with non-SAP workflow applications  (PDF 1395 KB)

eLearning:

• Creating your first SAP Business workflow  elearning shows how to build a simple workflow, including how to test a workflow and adding an event to the workflow. 
• Start With Reference Workflows  elearning walks you through a little known transaction SWUS_WITH_REFERENCE, which allows you to copy work item ids. 
• Archiving SAP Business Workflow Items  elearning walks you through the steps to archive workflow items. 
• Workflow: Old Technical Log Features Back  elearning walks you through the settings that bring the old technical log back. 
• Using SWI2_DIAG Diagnosis of SAP Workflows with Errors  elearning contains instructions on how to use the SWI2_DIAG transaction to be proactive in catching workflow errors. 
• Adding a start condition to Workflow created from scratch  elearning that explains how to add a start condition to your workflow. 
• Using the Event Trace for SAP Business Workflow  elearning walks you through using the event trace to know what events are happening in your system. This knowledge enables your workflow design to build on what SAP delivers. 
• Extending a business object with SAP Business Workflow  elearning walks through adding custom attribute and event to existing SAP object, and uses it in a workflow. 
• Expert guide to new features in SAP Business Workflow  - this eClass walks you through the new workflow capabilities in Web Application Server (WAS) 6.20, 6.30, 6.40, and in SAP NetWeaver 7.0. Matching presentation can be seen  here .

  
Business Process Tools in SAP NetWeaver: 

• Workflow and Orchestration Solutions from SAP – Overview and Positioning
• Revisiting SAP Business Workflow

SAP Business Workflow and the Universal Worklist

Using Workflow With ABAP, Web Dynpro and UWL    

For more information about the Universal Worklist, see this document:  Central Access to Tasks

SAP Business Workflow and Guided Procedures

Using Forms in Workflows and Guided Procedures   

For more information visit the  Business Process Management and Composition  space and read this  document .