Purchase Order Collaboration: Standard Process

This process describes how the customer and supplier can process purchase orders using purchase order collaboration in SAP Supply Network Collaboration (SAP SNC). This process does not use the approval process. This process description does not describe in detail the message format that the customer or supplier uses in their back-end system.

Note Note

We deliver standard mappings for the integration of SAP SNC with certain SAP back-end systems. There are no mappings available for the relevant message formats for integration with other customer back-end systems and for integration with supplier back-end systems. You must define these mappings yourself.

End of the note.

Prerequisites

In Customizing for Supply Network Collaboration, under Delivery Confirmation Control Set Confirmation Control , you have defined that confirmations and ASNs are mandatory or optional (default setting).
You use the default settings for changeability of purchase order items. Check the settings in Customizing for Supply Network Collaboration, under Basic Settings Changeability of Purchase and Replenishment Order Items Create Change Profiles for Purchase Order Itms and Replenishment Order Itms .
Customer and supplier always transfer purchase orders and confirmations as complete purchase orders. Purchase order collaboration does not support change transfer.

Process

The customer creates a purchase order in his or her back-end system and sends the purchase order as a message to the SAP SNC system. and sends this to SAP SNC.
The customer can also send the purchase order to the supplier back-end system. In the supplier back-end system, a relevant mapping is used to depict the purchase order as a sales order. The supplier can include the sales order as a firm demand in his or her planning and can process the delivery to the customer on the basis of the sales order.

Note

Note that in purchase order collaboration with subcontract orders, an SAP system cannot map component requirements in the sales order.

End of the note.
To display the purchase order that the customer sent to SAP SNC, the supplier calls purchase order collaboration on the SAP SNC Web UI. The supplier can be informed automatically about newly arrived or changed purchase orders, such as by e-mail or fax, using purchase-order-specific alerts and alert notifications. The supplier therefore only has to call SAP SNC when he or she needs to respond.
The purchase order has the Updated by Customer distribution status and the Open header status. The item status is also Open.
To inform the customer about when the supplier can deliver which quantities of the ordered end product, in SAP SNC the supplier creates confirmation schedule lines for the items of the purchase order. For subcontract orders, the supplier also creates any necessary component requirements that accrued during the manufacture of the end product, in addition to the confirmation schedule lines. The supplier has the following options to create confirmation data in SAP SNC:
- The supplier creates the confirmation data manually on the Web UI.
- The supplier sends the confirmation data from his or her back-end system to SAP SNC with a ReplenishmentOrderConfirmation XML message. To generate the ReplenishmentOrderConfirmation, the supplier can, for example, create sales order schedule lines in the sales order in his or her back-end system and map this information to a ReplenishmentOrderConfirmation.
  
  Recommendation
  
  We recommend that the supplier confirms purchase orders in SAP SNC either only manually or only using ReplenishmentOrderConfirmations.
  
  End of the recommendation.
  
  The supplier cannot change request schedule lines and (for subcontract orders) request component requirements of the purchase order.
  
  If the supplier cannot fulfill a whole purchase order or an individual purchase order item, he or she can manually reject the purchase order or purchase order item in purchase order collaboration. SAP SNC generates an alert to inform the customer about the rejection.
If the supplier has completed the manual processing of the confirmation data on the Web UI and wants to send the purchase order with confirmation data to the customer, he or she publishes the purchase order. The purchase order acquires the Published by Supplier distribution status. If the supplier generated the confirmation data in his or her back-end system and sent it to SAP SNC with the ReplenishmentOrderConfirmation, SAP SNC publishes the purchase order automatically.
After publication, at first the purchase order is no longer changeable on the purchase order details screen in SAP SNC. As a result, the supplier cannot process the purchase order manually here, such as change confirmation schedule lines or add new confirmation schedule lines. It is not until after the customer has changed the purchase order in his or her back-end system and sent the changed purchase order to SAP SNC that the purchase order can be changed again (Updated by Customer distribution status) and the supplier can create the relevant confirmation data. However, if the supplier is using the purchase order worklist, he or she can also change the published purchase order confirmation data without an update from the customer, by using the Change Confirmations query.

Note

For subcontract orders, the supplier can publish confirmation schedule lines and component requirements in SAP SNC in one step (after the supplier produces the end product and knows the component requirements). It is, however, also possible to firstly publish the confirmation schedule lines and only publish the component requirements after the production of the end product.

End of the note.
SAP SNC sends the published purchase order with the confirmation data as a ReplenishmentOrderConfirmation to the customer back-end system. The ReplenishmentOrderConfirmation is sent first to SAP NetWeaver. SAP NetWeaver maps the ReplenishmentOrderConfirmationto the message format of the customer and sends the message to the customer back-end system.
In the standard system, SAP SNC sends the XML message directly in the background. However, you can also change the configuration so that SAP SNC uses the Post Processing Framework (PPF) to send the XML message. For more information, see Publication of XML Messages.
If the supplier sends the delivery to the customer, he or she publishes an ASN with reference to the purchase order items in SAP SNC. The supplier can create the ASN manually in SAP SNC or send it from his or her back-end system to SAP SNC. SAP SNC creates an ASN-Confirmed schedule line for the purchase order and sends the published ASN to the customer back-end system.
When the customer receives the delivery, he or she sends a goods receipt message referring to the ASN from his or her back-end system to SAP SNC. SAP SNC updates the GR quantity in the ASN and in the ASN-confirmed schedule line of the purchase order item. SAP SNC updates the GR quantity in the request schedule line of a purchase order item when the customer sends a corresponding updated purchase order with GR data from his or her back-end system to SAP SNC.