Assigning Allocation Groups to Customer Service Areas 

Use

Customer service representatives (CSRs) need to manage all sales orders for their region. For this reason, the system must determine the customer service area (CSA) for each sales order. The CSA is one of the criteria for determining allocation groups.

One CSA can contain several allocation groups. However, an allocation group can only be assigned to exactly one CSA.

Similarly, one CSR can be responsible for multiple CSAs. However, each CSA can only be assigned to exactly one CSR. This prevents a CSR from mistakenly affecting sales orders in another CSR’s region.

Integration

The way in which the system determines CSA's is similar to how it determines allocation groups. (See Requirements Grouping for more information on allocation groups.) CSA determination is triggered you create or change sales orders, and is integrated into the allocation group determination process.

The system first checks the criteria for building an allocation group. The CSA could be one of these criteria, such as when the origin CSA is a key field in the allocation group table. Another nonkey CSA field is generated automatically if the allocation group table is linked to a CSA.

When you save (update) a sales order, the system assigns each schedule line to an allocation group table. Each allocation group table is assigned to a CSA as well.

The system does not automatically assign a CSR. If you want the system to assign a CSR to a new CSA, you use the CSA Handling Report (/AFS/ARUN_CSA_HANDLING). This report will give you greater flexibility in changing CSAs or changing the relationship between allocation groups and CSAs.

Prerequisites

The allocation group table contains one line for each allocation group. You need to create only one allocation group table; however, it is possible to create multiple tables if you wish. You create the allocation group table in Customizing for AFS Allocation Run  ® ARun Optimizer ® Permanent Grouping ®  Allocation Group Table Generation.