This virtual data model (VDM) provides a comprehensive view of inventory information for the store network. It aggregates inventory data from internal locations to depict the inventory position in SAP ERP for Retail, unprocessed sales, unprocessed sales documents, and stock valuations in near real time. This helps you to identify potential out-of-stock and out-of-shelf scenarios in a timely manner to prevent lost sales, and to optimize your workforce by identifying critical areas for intra-day physical inventories.
This virtual data model serves as the basis for customer-designed queries to answer the following questions:
What are current critical stock levels, including the valuated stock, unprocessed sales quantities, and safety stock?
What is my current store inventory?
Is it time to reorder new stock for certain locations?
Based on consumer demand trends, do I have enough stock at a particular store?
For more information on unprocessed sales, see Creating Worklists for POS Transactions.
The inventory visibility query view (InventoryVisibilityQuery
) is included in this VDM. This view allows users to display inventory information from SAP ERP for Retail, such as material1 stock types, stock quantities and valuation values, material stock thresholds, and plant and material characteristics, together with the current material stock calculated based on information from SAP ERP for Retail and SAP Customer Activity Repository.
Caution
InventoryVisibilityQuery
is a view that is intended to be used as a template and is not intended for productive use. It includes an extensive set of characteristics, measures and master data that may not be required for your business and that, as a result, can unnecessarily slow down the performance of the query view. Therefore, you can use the InventoryVisibilityQuery
as a template to build several smaller, targeted query views which consume the reuse views listed below.
The report query view is supported by several reuse views, including the following:
Inventory visibility (InventoryVisibility
)
This view obtains inventory information, such as the material stock types, stock quantities and valuation values, and material stock thresholds from SAP ERP for Retail, along with the current material stock calculated based on information from SAP Retail for ERP and SAP Customer Activity Repository.
Inventory visibility, current stock (InventoryVisibilityCurrentStock
)
This view is a leaner version of the InventoryVisibility
reuse view, designed specifically to calculate current stock while optimizing performance during data retrieval.
Inventory visibility stock quantities (InventoryVisibilityStockQuantities
)
This view obtains material stock quantities from SAP ERP for Retail.
Inventory visibility with sales order reserved quantity (InventoryVisibilityWithSalesOrderReservedQuantity
)
This view will calculate sales document quantities based on reserved quantities subtracted from available stock in SAP ERP for Retail.
Material valuated non-special stock facts (MaterialValuatedNonSpecialStockFacts
)
The view obtains an overview of the stock for material, not including special stock, from SAP ERP for Retail.
Material plant data (MaterialPlantData
)
This view obtains plant master data for materials from SAP ERP for Retail.
Plant (Plant
)
This view provides general data, such as the plant name and address, customer and vendor numbers, and distribution channel.
Material (Material
)
This view provides general data, such as the material name, type, group, and category.
Master data for company code (CompanyCode
)
This view obtains company code master data from SAP ERP for Retail.
Description Names of units of measure in different languages (UnitOfMeasureName
)
This view obtains language-specific descriptions of units of measure from SAP ERP for Retail.
Sales document quantities (SalesDocumentQuantity
)
This view obtains material stock quantity based on reserved quantities obtained from unprocessed sales orders.
These views are built on the following business objects:
POS transaction
Material
Plant
Some important measures and attributes are
Inventory visibility (InventoryVisibility
) view
The view provides general data, such as the plant, material, and company code.
The view provides information about values including the unrestricted-use, the in-transit, and in-transfer stock quantities and valuated values at cost and retail, unprocessed sales, total valuated stock quantity and valuated value (valuated at cost and retail), safety stock quantity, current stock quantity and valuated values at cost and retail, cost per stock unit, and the sales price per stock unit.
Material (Material
) view
The view provides general data, such as the material name, type, group, and category.
Plant (Plant
) view
The view provides general data, such as the plant name and address, customer and vendor numbers, sales organization, and distribution channel.
To interpret your Inventory Visibility Analysis data, it is important to understand the calculation of certain measures included in the views in this VDM:
Measure | Explanation of Calculation | Calculation |
---|---|---|
| Provides valuated stock of a material held and owned by a company that is not subject to usage restrictions. | The amounts are obtained from the |
| Provides the stock quantity being transferred on the basis of stock transport orders. With this, purchasing in the receiving store is involved. | The amounts are obtained from the |
| Provides the stock quantity being transferred as the result of transfer postings in Inventory Management, but not the quantity being transferred on the basis of stock transport orders. No purchasing in the receiving store is involved. | The amounts are obtained from the |
| Provides the stock quantity included in unprocessed sales. | The amounts are obtained from the |
| Provides the current stock position, which is the valuated stock of a material held and owned by a company that is not subject to usage restrictions adjusted by the stock quantity included in unprocessed sales. | "UnresUseStockQuantity" - "BaseQuantity" |
| Provides the current stock position with the reserved quantity obtained from unprocessed sales orders. | “CurrentStock” - “OrderQuantity” |
| Provides the total valuated stock quantity. | The amounts are obtained from the |
| Provides the total valuated stock at cost. | The amounts are obtained from the |
| Provides the total valuated stock at sales price. | The amounts are obtained from the |
| Provides the valuated stock cost per unit. | if(("TotalVltdStockQuantity" != 0), (double("TotVltdStockValueInCoCodeCrcy") /double("TotalVltdStockQuantity")), 0) |
| Provides the valuated stock cost per unit for the unrestricted-use stock. | "UnresUseStockQuantity" * "CostPerStockUnit" |
| Provides the valuated stock cost per unit for the current stock. | "CurrentStock" * "CostPerStockUnit" |
| Provides the valuated stock cost per unit for the stock in-transit, that is, when purchasing in the receiving store is involved. | "InTransitStockQuantity" * "CostPerStockUnit" |
| Provides the valuated stock cost per unit for the stock in-transfer, that is, when no purchasing in the receiving store is involved. | "InTransferStockQuantity" * "CostPerStockUnit" |
| Provides the valuated stock sales price of each stock unit. | if( ("TotalVltdStockQuantity" != 0), (double("TotStkValAtSlsPrInCoCodeCrcy") /double("TotalVltdStockQuantity")), 0 ) |
| Provides the total value of the unrestricted-use stock at sales price. | "UnresUseStockQuantity" * "SalesValuePerStockUnit" |
| Provides the total value of the current stock at sales price. | "CurrentStock" * "SalesValuePerStockUnit" |
| Provides the total value of the stock in-transit at sales price. | "InTransitStockQuantity" *"SalesValuePerStockUnit" |
| Provides the total value of the stock in-transfer at sales price. | "InTransferStockQuantity" *"SalesValuePerStockUnit" |
| Provides the quantity of the article that should be available in the store to satisfy unexpectedly high demand in the coverage period. | The value is obtained from the |
| Provides the quantity of the article that should not be exceeded at a store. | The value is obtained from the |
| Provides the quantity that defines the lower limit for safety stock. The store’s stock should not fall below this level. | The value is obtained from the |
The views use the following filters:
The InventoryVisibilityStockQuantities
view filters the material stock category (BSTTYP
field empty, corresponding to valuated material stock category) from the MARC_KeyNonValuated
private view in SAP HANA Live for SAP ERP.
The most important tables and views from which data is retrieved are:
/POSDW/TLOGUS
(unprocessed sales movements for articles) - SAP Customer Activity Repository
MARD
(storage location data for material) - SAP ERP for Retail
MARC
(plant data for material) - SAP ERP for Retail
MARA
(general material data) - SAP ERP for Retail
T134M
(nonvaluated stock) - SAP ERP for Retail
MBEW
(material valuation) - SAP ERP for Retail
T001W
(plants/branches) — SAP ERP for Retail
MAST
(material to bill of material link) — SAP ERP for Retail
STPO
(bill of material item) — SAP ERP for Retail
VBAP
(sales document item data) – SAP ERP for Retail
VBUP
(sales document item status) – SAP ERP for Retail
VBFA
(sales document flow) – SAP ERP for Retail
1 The terms material, article and product, as well as the terms plant, store and location, are used interchangeably in the naming of SAP HANA views and fields, and, as a result, in this documentation.