Sales Order Processing for Service Parts (TPOP) (SAP Library - mySAP Customer Relationship Management)

Sales Order Processing for Service Parts (TPOP)

Purpose

This business process allows you to process sales orders within Service Parts Management and to trigger the creation of orders directly. You do not deliver to the customer yourself, but rather transfer delivery of the goods to an external vendor. The external vendor accepts the purchase order that results from the sales order, and thereby takes on responsibility for fulfilling the sales order. You can decide to always transfer delivery of a certain product to an external vendor, or to do so only if you do not have the product in your own warehouse stock. In this process, which is known as third-party order processing, the valid vendors are determined via sourcing in SAP SCM Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO). When a product is entered, the system creates a subitem (third-party item) that contains the vendor determined from SAP APO. The higher-level item is not relevant for delivery or billing. When you save the sales order, the system creates a planned purchase order in SAP APO. This planned purchase order is released depending on the order processing time of the vendor. After you have saved, SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) triggers creation of a purchase order in SAP ECC.

As long as the planned purchase order has not been converted into a purchase order, it is still possible to make limited changes to order items on condition that no availability check has taken place. This means that you can react more flexibly to business changes when you are processing sales orders. In normal sales order processing in which data is replicated in SAP CRM and SAP ECC, it is not possible to make changes immediately after saving.

Prerequisites

General Prerequisites

● The system configuration for service parts management is active. You can find more information about this in the SAP Implementation Guide (IMG) at Customer Relationship Management ® Transactions ® Basic Settings ® Activate System Configuration for Service Parts Management.

● SAP SCM Extended Warehouse Management is activated.

● You use the availability check with SAP Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO).

Prerequisites for SAP CRM

● You have created two item categories in SAP CRM. The first serves as the higher-level item, the second as the third-party item. You make the required settings in the SAP Implementation Guide (IMG) at Customer Relationship Management ® Transactions ® Basic Settings ® Define Item Categories.

● You have created a separate ATP profile that you assign to the third-party item. You make the settings for this in the IMG at Customer Relationship Management ® Basic Functions ® Availability Check ® Availability Check with SAP APO ® Define ATP Profile. A requirements profile is assigned to the ATP profile in SAP APO. The system uses this to determine check instructions.

Prerequisites for SAP ECC

You have maintained the required product master data in SAP ECC for sourcing in SAP APO, and created and used transactions CFM1 and CFM2 to activate an integration model that can be used to transfer data on products, vendors and purchasing info records to SAP APO.

Prerequisites for SAP SCM Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO)

Sourcing is used within third-party order processing to determine procurement documents and valid vendors. In order for SAP APO to be able to carry out sourcing, you have to make the settings for sourcing.

You make these settings in the IMG for SAP SCM at Advanced Planning and Optimization ® Global Availability Check (Global ATP Check) ® General Settings ® Maintain Business Event and Maintain Check Mode and Maintain Check Instructions and Maintain Requirements Profile.

For more information, see SAP Library for SAP SCM at SAP Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO) ® Global Available-to-Promise (Global ATP) ® Advanced Availability Check Methods ® Third-Party Order Processing in the Global ATP ® Settings for Sourcing.

Restrictions

The following restrictions apply in this business process:

● You cannot configure products.

● If a third-party item in the sales order contains a kit, the kit components are not transferred to the purchase order.

● A product substitution by the vendor is not supported with the order confirmation or the shipping notification.

● Delivery control indicators in the sales order are not supported for third-party items.

● Texts in the order header cannot be copied automatically to the purchase order.

● Batch characteristics are not transferred to the purchase order.

● The purchase order quantities are rounded during source determination in SAP APO; the rounding profiles in SAP ECC are not used for this.

● When the vendor reports in the order confirmation that he is unable to deliver the entire purchase order quantity, the availability check is not triggered automatically to determine a different source of supply.

● You cannot carry out Controlling for an individual third-party item.

● The document link from the sales order in SAP CRM and purchase order in SAP ECC are not displayed in the dialog transaction for the purchase order.

● Billing scenario ‘B’ (customer invoice before vendor invoice) is only supported when automatic goods issue settlement is used in SAP ECC. This billing scenario is not supported when the invoice is entered manually or via Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).

Process Flow

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

1. Create sales order (SAP CRM)

You create the sales order with the corresponding order items. It is also possible to create an order with reference to a quotation that has already been created. The system then copies the items from the quotation.

A user-defined communication channel can trigger creation of a sales order. As soon as an order item has been created, the system transfers the requirement to SAP SCM.

2. Enter product (SAP CRM)

3. System triggers sourcing/ATP (SAP CRM)

A global availability check and sourcing are carried out in SAP APO. For each order item in SAP CRM, the system triggers sourcing in SAP APO via the ATP profile in order to determine a vendor for the requirement quantity. A requirements profile is assigned to the ATP profile in SAP APO. The system uses this to determine check instructions. In the check instructions you have activated third-party order processing either directly or via the rule-based ATP check.

Sourcing is completely integrated with the global availability check in SAP APO and executes a vendor search. You can activate third-party order processing in the check instructions by choosing how you want the system to start sourcing and which sourcing method you want to use for it. There are two different options here:

○ If you want the products to be delivered exclusively by external vendors, the system performs sourcing directly at the external vendors without evaluating internal locations. For this, SAP APO requires corresponding purchasing records, delivery plans and contracts that are transferred from SAP ECC.

○ If you only want to have products delivered by external vendors occasionally, that is to say, if you are unable to deliver the product from your own warehouse stock, choose an ATP profile in which both internal and external vendors are evaluated. In this case, the external vendor is treated like an internal location in SAP APO, and is integrated into location determination in the rule-based availability check.

You can also choose the vendor manually. If you have already specified a vendor as the source of supply in SAP CRM, SAP SCM does not carry out any further sourcing. In this case, SAP SCM merely checks the validity of this vendor and confirms the requirement in its full amount if the vendor is valid.

4. System checks sourcing/ATP and vendor (SAP SCM)

5. Determine and maintain conditions (SAP CRM)

Maintain conditions. The system uses condition technique to determine the prices and values of the individual items.

6. Perform credit check (SAP CRM)

7. System performs a credit check (SAP ECC)

The system performs an initial credit check. In doing this, the system uses the classification of the payer of the sales order that is stored in the master data. Depending on the result of the check, the system performs any follow-up actions that may be required, for example, setting a status in the order header.

8. System triggers vendor requirements (SAP CRM)

9. System creates vendor requirements (SAP SCM)

When the sales order is saved, the system updates the requirements records for the vendor location. Scheduling determines a delivery date.

10. System creates planned purchase order (SAP SCM)

When processing the order item SAP CRM creates a subitem and assigns an external vendor. This subitem receives the status Delivery Blocked.

When the sales order is saved, the system creates a planned purchase order in SAP APO, and SAP CRM receives a document flow record for the planned purchase order.

After the planned purchase order has been created it is still possible to make limited changes to order items. As long as the planned purchase order has not been converted into a purchase order, you can, for example, change or recheck the requirement quantity.

You can use a report (transaction /SAPAPO/TPOP_POREL) to convert the planned purchase order into a purchase order in accordance with the order processing time of the vendor. In this case, the status Delivery Blocked is reset for the order item. When the status is reset, SAP CRM can trigger the creation of the purchase order. This means that the release of the planned purchase order is transferred to SAP CRM and leads to a status change of the item. When the purchase order is created in SAP ECC, SAP ECC transfers a reply to SAP CRM so that SAP CRM can update the document flow.

For more information, see SAP Library for SAP SCM at SAP Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO) ® Global Available-to-Promise (Global ATP) ® Advanced Availability Check Methods ® Creation and Conversion of a Planned Purchase Order.

11. Send order confirmation to customer (SAP CRM)

12. Monitor status of order (SAP CRM)