Procurement Scheduling Agreement (SCM-APO-CPR-SCH) 

Definition

Outline Agreement against which materials are procured at predefined points in time over a certain period.

Structure

A scheduling agreement consists of a number of items, for each of which a certain form of procurement is defined. The following forms of procurement exist:

·        Standard

·        Consignment

·        Stock transfer

·        Subcontracting

Procurement scheduling agreements with account assignment can also be planned in SAP APO. (See APO Scheduling Agreements with Account Assignment)

In the schedule lines, the total quantity of the material specified in the scheduling agreement item can be split up into different quantities with delivery dates/times.

You send scheduling agreement (SA) releases (specific types of delivery schedule) to the vendor, which inform the vendor of the quantities you want and when they should be delivered. (See Creating Scheduling Agreement Releases and Outputting Scheduling Agreement Releases)

In the Release Creation Profile you can define the conditions under which releases are generated against a scheduling agreement. You assign a release creation profile to a scheduling agreement item in the external procurement relationship. See also Release Creation Profile (APO Scheduling Agreement)

You can display the releases transmitted to a vendor at any time. (See also Processing Scheduling Agreement Releases)

 

Scheduling agreements from the OLTP system (which is usually an SAP R/3 system) are represented in the SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer (SAP APO) by “external procurement relationships”.

The OLTP system can be an SAP R/3 system or another system. The following processes and functions relate to the use of an SAP R/3 system with an SAP APO system. For this reason the following section refers to an SAP R/3 system, rather than an OLTP system.

External procurement relationships belong to the Master Data  in SAP APO. They represent Purchasing Info Records, Contracts and Scheduling Agreements from your SAP R/3 system in your SAP APO system and make available all the data necessary for material procurement planning. (See also External Procurement Relationship)

 

In SAP APO, a distinction is made between two forms of scheduling agreement:

·        OLTP Scheduling Agreement

The delivery schedule lines for and releases against OLTP scheduling agreements are generated in the OLTP system. You specify this in the additional data for the scheduling agreement item by choosing the setting Generate and output SA release in R/3 for the External Planning indicator.

The OLTP scheduling agreement in the SAP R/3 system is usually a scheduling agreement with the document type LPA, for which the Release Docu. indicator has been set under Scheduling Agreement → Define Document Types in Customizing for Purchasing.

For more information see Procurement Using an OLTP Scheduling Agreement and Prerequisites for the OLTP Scheduling Agreement.

·        APO Scheduling Agreement

The schedule lines and releases for APO scheduling agreements are generated in the SAP APO system. You specify this in the additional data for the scheduling agreement item by choosing the setting Generate and output SA release in APO for the External Planning indicator.

As a rule, the APO scheduling agreement in the SAP R/3 system is a scheduling agreement with the document type LP.

For more information see Procurement Using an APO Scheduling Agreement and Prerequisites for the APO Scheduling Agreement.

You should note that you must not have any items with different External Planning settings in a scheduling agreement because this leads to problems in the message determination process. In other words, all items of a scheduling agreement must be planned either in the SAP APO system or in the OLTP system.