Purchase Order Collaboration Process

This process describes how the customer and supplier can process purchase orders using purchase order collaboration in SAP Supply Network Collaboration (SAP SNC). For that, the customer uses SAP SNC, and the supplier uses SAP SNC, UI add-on for purchase order collaboration.

This process description does not describe in detail what happens in SAP SNC during the process. For the actions performed by the supplier, the process description focuses on the UI add-on for purchase order collaboration.

For more information about the purchase order collaboration process in SAP SNC, see the SAP Library for SAP SNC at http://help.sap.com/snc.

Prerequisites

The customer has made the necessary settings:

In SAP SNC, the customer has set up the purchase order collaboration process according to their business needs. For example, the customer has defined whether confirmations and ASNs are mandatory or optional, and they may have set up an approval process.
In Customizing for Supply Network Collaboration, under SAP SNC, UI Add-On for Purchase Order Collaboration Confirmation Define Time Available to Confirm PO Items , the customer has defined how the system calculates the time until when a supplier should react to a purchase order item that the customer has transferred to SAP SNC.
The customer has made the assignments between supplier users and business partners.

Process

The customer creates or updates a purchase order in their back-end system, and sends the purchase order as a message to the SAP SNC system.
To display the purchase order that the customer sent to SAP SNC, the supplier logs on to the UI add-on for purchase order collaboration for SAP SNC.
The purchase order item appears as an item to be confirmed. Its collaboration status is either New, or Changed, depending on the previous actions of the customer.
To inform the customer about when the supplier can deliver which quantities of the product ordered, in the UI add-on for purchase order collaboration the supplier creates confirmation schedule lines for the items of the purchase order.

The supplier cannot change the request schedule lines 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 the UI add-on for purchase order collaboration.
If the supplier has completed the manual processing of the confirmation data in the UI add-on, and wants to send the purchase order with confirmation data to the customer, he or she publishes the purchase order confirmation.
After publication, the purchase order item can be found under Confirmed Items worklist. The supplier can reconfirm this purchase order item, that is, he or she can change confirmation schedule lines and add new confirmation schedule lines.
The SAP SNC, UI add-on for purchase order collaboration sends the published purchase order with the confirmation data to the customer back-end system.
In case an approval process is set up in SAP SNC, the confirmation schedule line may get rejected by the customer (in the automatic process or manually). In case the purchase order item still has quantity to be confirmed, the item enters the next confirmation cycle, and reappears under Purchase Order Items to Confirm. Its collaboration status is Rejected Confirmation.
If the supplier sends the delivery to the customer, he or she publishes an ASN in the UI add-on for purchase order collaboration, with reference to the respective purchase order items. The supplier creates the ASN manually in the UI add-on. The supplier can create an ASN referencing one or more purchase order items. SAP SNC creates an ASN-Confirmed schedule line for the related purchase order items, 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 their back-end system to SAP SNC. SAP SNC updates the goods receipt quantity in the ASN and in the ASN-confirmed schedule line of the purchase order item. The UI add-on displays the updated data in the ASN worklists.