PDC Goods Movement Scenario 

Use

With the function PDC Goods Movement, stores are in a position to create and correct their goods receipts with PDC units.

Goods movements can be carried out for different reasons, for example:

·        Stock removals to other stores

·        Putaways from other stores without reference documents

·        When posting broken, spoiled or opened goods 

·        Stock adjustments

·        Stock transfers to other cost centers (for example, snacks and coffee)

To make it possible for a store employee to enter goods directly from their location (shop shelf, storage bin, empties warehouse) a scenario has been developed to enable simple and flexible processing.

With their PDC unit, an employee is always in a position, for example, to go to the spoiled goods, scan the bar code, check in the PDC unit whether the goods and text coincide and then plan for the goods to be posted.  To enable this to happen the employee can always access the most up to-date information quickly. 

After goods movements have been entered in the PDC units and the data has been transferred to the central ERP system, the remainder of the process is then posted largely automatically.

To enable processes, such as correcting posting errors, to be carried out in SAP Retail Store, the Correction and Release Monitor is an integrated instrument in the process.

Prerequisites

To be able to use the PDC interfaces for SAP Retail Store Goods Movement, the same prerequisites apply as when using SAP Retail Store Goods Movement without PDC.

It is particularly important that in the central ERP system the settings are available in MM Customizing.

To be able to use the RFC/IDoc-based procedure, you must choose PDC procedure 2 in Customizing for SAP Retail Store Goods Movement (Logistics – General ® SAP Retail Store ® Goods movement ® Basic Settings for Goods Movements/Stock Transfers).

Procedure

When using PDC units the goods movement process is as follows:

...

       1.      Preparation (downloading)

As different checks must be carried out in order for a goods movement to be entered, before posting is triggered in the central ERP system the employee must have the possibility to perform the checks directly from the PDC unit.

However, a check can only take place if the PDC unit contains the corresponding data. For this reason, master data (for example, articles, vendors, external stores and business transactions) is made available in an interface.

PDC units that are operated offline must contain all the information in the memory. To be able to prepare data quickly and easily it is necessary to keep the data ready in packages (for example, articles for each merchandise category) in a file in the interface. 

Preparation of the data is only triggered for stores for which the current day’s date is within the opening time stored for the site master.

Article, Merchandise Category and Assortment Data

See the interface description for goods receipt

Store and Vendor Data

Goods movements and stock transfers often require a reference to a vendor or a receiving store – this must also then be available in the PDC unit. However, only data that is directly related to your own store is prepared here.

This then creates an XML document containing vendor and store data for the respective target store.

Business Transactions and Customizing

To classify goods movements, the business transactions are needed in the PDC unit. Indications on controlling the required entry fields and reasons for the movement, as far as these are necessary, are also transferred. 
This then creates an XML document containing business transactions and Customizing settings for the respective target store.

       2.      Postprocessing for goods movements (uploading)

The entered data can be sent to the central ERP system at the end of every procedure (online) or each time the PDC unit is unloaded (offline).

The ERP system assigns the settings stored in SAP Retail Store Customizing, such as movement type, special stock flag, cost center, G/L account and BAPI movement code.   Storage locations are assigned to the items (storage location determination).

Corresponding processes that are flagged in the business transaction in Customizing are stored in the database with entered header and item data so that they can be released/corrected at a later date. 

Posting

Posting takes place immediately after release takes place using SAP Retail Store.
Goods movements that are not flagged for release in the business transaction are automatically posted immediately with the MM function module. 

       3.      Correcting and Releasing

Using SAP Retail Store the procedures stored in the database are displayed in the form of a list. This list displays the header information for each procedure, for example, movement number, business transaction, goods receipt/issue, date of creation, processor, status of the document (incorrect, for release or posted) and, if necessary and if it refers to the entire document, an error message. Permission to release is granted in the business transaction.

The documents are separated, and can be called, according to stock transfers and other goods movements. They can be processed individually using a selection button. This button takes you straight to item processing in SAP Retail Store. Error messages concerning items are displayed directly underneath the item in item processing. While it is in process the document is locked. Posting takes place using item processing. After the data has been correctly posted, the program goes to the Correction and Release Monitor. The status is set to processed and a success message is displayed along with the article document number in the document header.

A correction can only be made if there was a posting error, for documents with a release flag and as long as posting has not yet been completed.

       4.      Error handling

Errors that arise when data is entered in the PDC unit are dealt with immediately by the employee.  The following checks can be carried out directly from the PDC unit:

§         Minimum shelf-life

§         Is the EAN available?

§         Is the article available?

§         Is the unit of measure available?

§         Is the vendor available?

§         Is the transfer store available?

§         Is the reference document available?

At the point of goods receipt for a purchase order an underdelivery or overdelivery check can be carried out.

Master and movement data is available for all these checks.

Download

As the reports and function modules responsible for preparing and downloading data are supposed to run in the background it is necessary for a log of all the processes to be kept. These function modules write information messages in object/subobject W_SRS/PDC_GM and write the store number to the application log as an external number. Errors that arise are stored there as error messages. Transferring data to the target system is done, either synchronously or asynchronously, using the call parameter.

Uploading and Posting

Errors that arise at the point of posting are highlighted in red and displayed using the Release Monitor. This means that the possibility exists to display and postprocess the procedure in the store using SAP Retail Store. 

In this case a message is sent to SAP Retail Store.

Message on Troubleshooting

The mail procedure available in SAP Retail Store is used to send a message about an incorrect posting to the responsible employee.  The employee is informed using a popup.

As happens in the ERP system, selection is achieved using work items and function assignment. The function modules from the SAP Business Workflow are used to do this.

All of the sample processes described above require the PDC units in the store to be supplied with data first.  To do this, RFC interfaces (SRS_PDC_GM_STRUCTURE, SRS_PDC_GM_MATDATA_OUTBOUND and SRS_PDC_GM_OUTBOUND) are available. These are supplied with data by programs R_SRS_PDC_ASSORT_STRUCT_OUT, R_SRS_PDC_GM_DATA_OUT, R_SRS_PDC_MATDATA_OUT and R_SRS_PDC_GR_CUSTOMIZING_OUT.

Information on existing assortment list groups is forwarded using interface SRS_PDC_GM_STRUCTURE.

Interface SRS_PDC_MATDATA is used to supply article data.   The quantities entered are then transferred to the ERP system and posted using interface SRS_PDC_SO_INBOUND.

Result

Article items entered with the PDC unit are posted in the central ERP system in line with the settings in inventory management.