Internet Release (SAP Library - Purchasing (MM-PUR))

Internet Release

Use

The main difference between Internet releases and "normal" releases is that the former are not transmitted to the vendor via the traditional communication channels (i.e. printed out and sent via the regular postal service, or transmitted as a fax or EDI message). Instead the vendor is able to view such releases in the Internet and acknowledge them where applicable.

You can specify which release type (FRC and/or JIT schedule) is to be treated as an Internet release - and that the vendor can acknowledge the latter - in the release creation profile.

Integration

A prerequisite for the use of Internet releases is that the Supplier Workplace has been installed in your SAP System, and that the relevant vendors have access to the Workplace via the Internet.

For more information, refer to the documentation on the Supplier Workplace (section Displaying and Acknowledging Scheduling Agreement Releases).

Prerequisites

You can use this function only if you:

Use scheduling agreements with release documentation (in the standard system, document type LPA)
Have specified in Customizing for Purchasing that a message is to be generated for each release

In Customizing for Purchasing, you must set the Rel.mess indicator under Messages ® Output Control ® Message Determination Schemas ® Define Message Schemas for Scheduling Agreement Release/Expediter ® Assign Schema ® Scheduling Agreement Release/Expediter.

You can specify the following on the Internet tab page in the release creation profile:

Which release type is to be treated as an Internet release (Activate Internet release indicator), and whether conventional messages are additionally to be generated for transmission to the vendor.

Note

Please note that the generation and outputting of conventional messages does not determine whether an Internet release counts as having been outputted.

Internet releases count as "outputted" either immediately they are generated or once they have been acknowledged by the vendor. This is controlled via the Acknowledgment by vendor indicator.

Whether the vendor is to acknowledge the releases in the Supplier Workplace (Acknowledgment by vendor indicator).

This enables you to specify that the Internet release does not count as outputted until it has been acknowledged by the vendor in the Supplier Workplace.

Otherwise – i.e. if you do not select the Acknowledgment by vendor indicator in the release creation profile – the relevant Internet releases count as "outputted" immediately they are created.

Note

If a release does not yet count as "outputted" (i.e. the output date and output time fields are not yet populated) it will be overwritten at the time of the next release creation process.

If you are using SAP Automotive, you can also specify that the vendor is to be informed by e-mail when internet releases have been created. These can then be viewed and acknowledged (if such acknowledgment is required) by the vendor in the Supplier Workplace.

Features

The Internet release supports the following business process:

The releasing entity no longer sends releases via the media printer, fax, or EDI, but instead makes them available to the vendor via the Internet.

The vendor regularly checks up on his current Internet releases in the Supplier Workplace.

There the vendor can view and explicitly acknowledge the relevant releases.
The Internet release counts as "outputted" when it has been acknowledged by the vendor. In contrast, "normal" releases count as "outputted" immediately they are printed out and/or transmitted to the vendor via printer, fax, EDI etc.

Once the vendor has acknowledged the Internet release, the latter is treated in the SAP System as a "normal" release outputted via the message output facility.

As an alternative to the acknowledgment function, you can specify that Internet releases are to count as "outputted" immediately they are created or when blocked releases are themselves released (cleared for issue).

In this case, the vendor merely notes the existence of the Internet release without having to explicitly acknowledge it.

Note

In the overview of the releases you can see whether conventional messages are additionally generated in the case of an Internet release, and whether the vendor has yet acknowledged an Internet release.

You can see, for example, that:

Additional conventional messages are generated for an Internet release

No additional conventional messages are generated for an Internet release

An Internet release has been acknowledged by the vendor

The vendor confirmation is still open