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Object documentation Business Hours and Business Appointments  Locate the document in its SAP Library structure

Definition

Information required for optimizing contact with your business partners.

Use

Using business hours and business appointments, you can record the best times to contact your business partners. Business hours indicate when the party concerned is open for contact, and provide the basis for scheduling your business appointments.

Business appointments can be used to generate call lists.

Due to the complexity of the data involved, business hours and business appointments are not included in the data exchange of business partner master data from SAP CRM to SAP ECC. However, part of this data can be transferred in two particular cases, this being when goods receiving hours and visiting hours have been created using only simple rules.

Business Hours

Types

Business hours indicate when the party concerned is open for the following types of contact:

      Telephone calls (calling hours)

      Visitors (visiting hours)

      Deliveries of products (goods receiving hours)

Structure

Business hours are made up of the following information:

      Type of rule and period for which it applies, exceptions, such as not on non-working days, and the calendar on which the data is based.

      The type of recurrence, which in turn determines what data you can specify. A weekly recurrence, for example, offers a more complex set of rules than a monthly recurrence.

Business hours can be created for business partners corresponding to accounts, and for contacts which are assigned to an account for which business hours have been defined. Only calling hours and visiting hours are available for contacts.

When business hours are created for a contact, these apply with respect to an account, and therefore an account has to be selected before data can be entered.

You also have the option of creating your own schedule types. To do this, you create a new entry in view V_TB049 (table TB049) in the customer namespace.

See also: The Appointment Calendar (BC-SRV-GBT)

 

Business Hours: Simple Appointment Rules

It is possible to restrict the options available for working with business hours to a set of simple appointment rules in the following cases:

      Goods receiving hours: This applies to accounts, and provides simple weekly rules.

      Visiting hours: This applies to contacts, and provides simple weekly rules.

This enables data exchange in situations where this is required. Goods receiving hours and visiting hours cannot be distributed if they:

      Contain complex rules, such as combinations of weekly and monthly appointment rules

      Contain exceptions

      Are not valid weekly

You make the required settings in Customizing for Customer Relationship Management, by choosing Business Partner Basic Settings Select Simple Form of Goods Receiving Hours/Visiting Hours.

 

Business Appointments

Types

Business appointments indicate when the following types of appointment have been agreed with the party concerned:

      Telephone calls

      Visits

      Deliveries

Structure

Business appointments are made up of the following information:

      Type of rule and period for which it applies, exceptions, such as not on non-working days, and the calendar on which the data is based.

      The type of recurrence, which in turn determines what data you can specify. A weekly recurrence, for example, offers a more complex set of rules than a monthly recurrence.

Unlike business hours, you can create more than one complex rule for each rule type, each with its own validity.

Customizing Options

      You define the types of appointment rules and necessary settings in Customizing for Customer Relationship Management, by choosing Master Data Business Partner Basic Settings Define Time-Dependent Appointment Rule Categories.

Example

You require a time-dependent appointment rule that is valid a fortnight after Easter each year. You can calculate the annual date for this appointment rule using a function module.

      You define the periods for business appointments in the Customizing activity Define Periods for Appointment Rules.

 

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