Purchase Order Item Group

A set of purchase order items that the customer considers to be related.

A purchase order item group (PO item group) contains items that refer to the same ERP document or that fulfill other customer-defined grouping criteria. The purchase order items of a group can be linked with predecessor-successor relationships.

Groups can be created automatically or manually. Automatic grouping assigns PO items that refer to the same ERP document to one group. SAP Supply Network Collaboration (SAP SNC) automatically groups PO items when it receives a purchase order from the customer’s back-end system. SAP SNC groups according to the following ERP documents:

Sales order
Production order
Purchase requisition
WBS element

On the Web user interface (Web UI) of SAP SNC, the customer can create PO item groups manually according to other criteria or change automatically created groups.

PO item groups enable customers and suppliers to consider dependencies between different purchase orders or purchase order items. Dependencies can occur, for example, when the customer outsources individual production steps to different contract manufacturers. Related purchase order items refer to the same ERP document (for example, to the same sales order or production order).

Using PO item groups, customers and suppliers can identify and select related PO items on the SAP SNC Web UI. If exceptions occur for a PO item, such as delays, customers and suppliers can find the successor items that are affected (see Purchase Order Item Exception).

Using groups, customers and suppliers can also consider dependencies between work orders (WOs) that are related to grouped purchase order items.

To use PO item groups, you must activate the business function Supply Network Collaboration 1 (SCM_SNC_GEN_1).

Structure

Group Elements

A group must contain at least two PO items.

Multiple Assignment of a PO Item

A PO item can be assigned to different groups. This is, for example, relevant if a PO item refers to different ERP documents. Automatic grouping creates a group for each ERP document and assigns the PO item to it.

Group Indicator

On the SAP SNC Web UI, the group indicator shows whether an object (PO, PO item, or WO) is related to a PO item group. For more information, see Group Indicator.

Internal and External PO Items in Automatically Created Groups

The customer can manually assign any PO items to an automatically created group, even if the PO item does not refer to the ERP document for which the group was created. If a PO item does not refer to the grouping document, it is an “external PO item”. An “internal PO item” is a PO item that refers to the production order for which the group was created.

Example Example

If a group is created based on a particular purchase requisition, and a manually added item in the group does not refer to this purchase requisition, or refers to another purchase requisition, this item is a external item.

End of the example.

Group ID

An automatically created group is identified by the number of the grouping document (ERP document).

Note Note

A group can contain external PO items, which refer to other ERP documents.

End of the note.

If you create a group manually, SAP SNC assigns the group a number from a number range interval.

Sequence

The PO items of a group can be linked with predecessor-successor relationships. The sequence can be defined automatically or manually, as follows:

Sequencing during automatic creation or update of groups
For a group that was created automatically based on a production order or a purchase requisition, SAP SNC determines the sequence during automatic grouping based on the operation number (production order) or the supplier-goods recipient relationships (purchase requisition). For more information, see Automatic Grouping.
Manual sequencing
On the SAP SNC Web UI, the customer can sequence the PO items of a group manually. Manual sequencing is available both for manually created groups and automatically created groups.

For sequencing, the following basic rules apply:

Each PO item can only have one successor PO item.
Multiple PO items can have the same successor.
In a sequence consisting of two or more PO items, a PO item is only allowed to occur once.

In addition, automatic sequencing considers rules that are specific to groups based on purchase requisition and production orders. For more information, see Automatic Grouping.

Grouping Documents and PO Items

The ERP document of an automatically generated group is called “grouping document”. The grouping document is visible on the Purchase Order Item Groups screen. You can also see the ERP document in the header area of the Work Order Details screen.

The following table shows at which PO level a particular ERP document is transmitted to SAP SNC:

ERP Document	PO Level	Comment
WBS element	Item	None
Sales order	Item	None
Production order	Item	None
Purchase requisition	Item or schedule line	If different schedule lines of a PO item refer to different purchase requisitions, automatic grouping creates different PO item groups, one for each purchase requisition.