Scheduling Agreement Release Creation 

Use

In the SAP APO system, scheduling agreement (SA) releases take the form of operative and forecast/planning delivery schedules.

You can use this function to create operative delivery schedules or forecast/planning delivery schedules against APO scheduling agreements.

SA releases against OLTP scheduling agreements (that is, forecast and JIT delivery schedules) are created in the OLTP system.

You use the release creation profile (APO scheduling agreement) to define the conditions under which releases issued against a scheduling agreement item are generated. You assign a release creation profile to an item of a scheduling agreement in the external procurement relationship.

You can also set in the external procurement relationship whether the operative delivery schedule, that is its schedule lines, is transferred to the SAP R/3 system when the release is created or when it is output in the SAP APO system. You define this in the update liveCache field (10 – At Time of Generation of Operative Delivery Schedule, 40 – At Time of Output of Operative Delivery Schedule).

Integration

If you use Internet releases, then your vendors can display and acknowledge these releases in the Supplier Workplace, which your vendors can access over the Internet.

To make this possible, you must select Internet Rel. in the external procurement relationship and set the update of the liveCache there accordingly (70 – At Time of Confirmation of Operative Delivery Schedule in SWP). You make these settings to define at what time the schedule lines are transferred to the connected OLTP system (generally an SAP R/3 system).

In this case, the schedule lines are only transferred to the SAP R/3 system when the vendor acknowledges the release in the Supplier Workplace.

For further information on the Supplier Workplace see the SAP Library for Materials Management (MM) under Supplier Workplace.

For Internet releases, no actions are generated at the time that the release is created.

For more information see Procurement Using an APO Scheduling Agreement.

Prerequisites

In the release creation profile, which you maintain in Customizing for Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO) under Supply Chain Planning → Collaborative Procurement, you can specify when and how often SA releases are to be generated.

If you create a release using the release creation report (/SAPAPO/PWB_RELEASE_CREATE), the system determines the date of the next release creation (provided that you have defined a planning calendar in the release creation profile).

We recommend that you choose a suitable date for the periods when maintaining the planning calendar, because the system only creates releases during release creation if the next creation date lies before 12:00 on the same day.

For example, in the external procurement relationships, 26.04. 14:00 has been defined as the next release date.

You execute the release creation report at 18:00.

The system does not create a release for this external procurement relationship because the time for the creation of releases is after 12:00.

The release creation report does not create the release for this external procurement relationships until the next day.

For more information see Prerequisites for the APO Scheduling Agreement and Release Creation Profile (APO Scheduling Agreement).

Features

Scheduling Agreement Release Creation

You can create operative and forecast/planning delivery schedules. In addition, you can first carry out a test run to see which SA releases would be created.

You can display a detailed log listing all the relevant scheduling agreement items.

An SA release can be stopped if it differs from the last-transmitted release to such a large extent that the tolerance check reveals a major change in the overall delivery schedule situation that is outside the specified tolerances.

See also Stopping and Releasing SA Releases

In addition to the delivery schedule lines, the SA release you transmit to your vendor can also include up to nine of the most recent deliveries received for a scheduling agreement item.

You can specify whether and how many of the last deliveries are to be shown in an SA release in the release creation profile under Collaborative Procurement in Customizing for Supply Chain Planning.

Scheduling Agreement Releases in the Product View and the Product Planning Table

In the product view, on the Periods tab page, or in the product planning table, you can also create SA releases for selected delivery schedule lines.

If you enter or change a requirement in the product planning table, choose ENTER. The system issues a message advising you that the order or schedule line was created successfully or (if applicable) with a delay.

To generate scheduling agreement releases you must carry out the following steps:

1.       Select the chosen item (SchLne) and choose .

2.       In the context menu, choose Create Operative Delivery Schedule or Create Forecast/Plng Schedule.

You can also display existing SA releases from the menu.

       1.      To save, choose .

Operative delivery schedules are displayed as new orders with the category SAg Rel. Forecast/planning delivery schedules, that is long-term requirements (fixed) that are transmitted to the vendor and are not delivery-relevant, are not displayed.

The new data completely replaces the last transmitted data in the liveCache. In the SAP APO system, only the operative delivery schedules are needed in the liveCache: forecast/planning schedules are not needed.

The liveCache contains the following categories: SchLne, SAg Rel., and PO memo (shipping notification).

The database contains additional data on operative delivery schedules, forecast/planning schedules, and acknowledgments.

See Processing APO Scheduling Agreements in the Product Planning Table and Product View

The purchase order (PO) history contains information on goods and invoices received. Since there should be no superfluous PO history in the SAP APO system (that is data that is already present in the SAP R/3 system), the data is newly imported from the SAP R/3 system by Remote Function Call (RFC) each time it is needed.

You can notify your vendor of up to nine last deliveries in an SA release. The SAP APO system determines the last deliveries relating to the relevant SA item at the time of release creation and includes them in the SA release output.

This provides the vendor with more exact information about which deliveries you have already received at the time of release creation (that is, which data the SA release is based on).

See also Inbound Delivery, Goods Receipt and Invoice/Credit Memo

Activities

From the menu, choose Supply Chain Collaboration → Collaborative Procurement → Scheduling Agreement Releases → Create Releases.

Enter the necessary data (for example, location and product) and choose .

A window appears, showing you:

·        How many scheduling agreement items have been selected.

·        How many operative and/or forecast/planning delivery schedules have been created.

If you are using a detailed log, the system will show which scheduling agreement, which location, which product, and which item were taken into account in the SA release creation process.

 

For more information on outputting scheduling agreement releases and how you can process previously created/outputted releases, see Outputting Scheduling Agreement Releases and Processing Scheduling Agreement Releases.