Johan van Zijl

–Update: Please note there are issues with this Enhancement after applying CRM 7.0 SP 5 & 6. I will try to get hold of the fix, but it may better to investigate other options–

Overview

This post describes the enhancement of the IC WebClient using the Business Transaction Search in CRM 5.0. The Business Transaction Search (BT Search) allows you to define an index table that can be used as an alternative to the standard reporting framework.

As this is really too much to information to put into a post, I just placed an extract here, and created a PDF(containing code, screen shots, etc) that can be download here:

Inbox BT Search Documentation

Benefits

The BT Search allows you to overcome a number of common problems encountered in the Inbox, namely:

• Poor performance
• Custom Search Fields
• Inconsistent Search Results

The typical IC WebClient Project deals with all 3 of the above problems. Poor performance is almost inherent to the standard Inbox as the database structure of the One Order Framework is extremely flexible, but complex.
If you add custom search fields to the Inbox, you must either implement filters in the AFTER_SEARCH method of BADI CRM_IC_INBOX_BADI or you must implement BT Search. Using filters is always a bad idea, as performance suffers and they lead to unexpected results.
Finally, the Inbox is used to select Interactions, Service Tickets, Follow Ups, Sales Orders, etc. All of these transactions have different customizing settings and it is sometimes impossible to align all of them in the standard Search Results. BT Search allows you to do this.

Steps

The BT Search allows you to define an Index Table in the IMG. The IMG transaction will generate the following components for you:

• A Database Table that will be your “Index”
• An initial load report for populating the Database Table
• A Badi Implementation (ORDER_SAVE) used to populate the delta entries to the Index when a document is saved.

However, you will have to modify the generated Report and Badi in order to achieve the desired results.
You must also create an Implementation of Badi CRM_IC_SOS_INDEX in order to determine the Index to be used.
An implementation of Badi CRM_IC_INBOX_BADI will also be required for doing some fancy footwork.
The rest of the document will describe the required steps in more detail.

Enhancement Scenario

The enhancement described in this document caters for the following requirements:

• An Index only for Service Tickets and Follow ups
• Multiple Customer Specific Search Fields
• Customer Specific Result Fields

Caveats

BT Search completely replaces the standard search. It’s a lot of work as you really end up rebuilding the entire search logic of the Inbox. The BT Search is not a simple enhancement. It needs a lot of tweaking. This document assumes that the reader has an understanding of One Order documents, their customizing and ABAP knowledge.

This document is only applicable to CRM 5.0. The BT Search functionality has changed significantly in CRM 2007 and many of the problems and solutions described here will hopefully not be encountered. I have not verified this beyond the point of looking at the customizing tables in CRM 2007.
This document does not deal with adding additional search parameters to the UI or the BOL. That is a separate topic on its own. Here we assume it has already been done.

I have not tested this Index with an Inbox containing Workflow Items or E-mails as well. Some code in this document may be incompatible with Workflow/E-mail Items, but I just don’t know.