Team Purchasing 
This function allows an employee to take over a team shopping cart from another employee. As a prerequisite, either the original requester or an SRM administrator must nominate the user as a purchasing substitute.
Integration
This function is used in the business scenario Self-Service Procurement.
You have to use the process-controlled workflow framework to use team purchasing. Team purchasing is not available with the application-controlled workflow framework.
Differences with Shopping on Behalf of Other Users
In both team purchasing and shopping on behalf of other users, a person other than the requester is involved in processing the shopping cart. However, the two functions are used in different situations:
If someone shops on behalf of another user, typically a single person works with the shopping cart from the start of the requisitioning process. For example, a purchasing assistant or secretary creates a shopping cart for a manager and follows the process through until the confirmation or invoice is created. Only the person on whose behalf the shopping cart is created can take over the shopping cart or the follow-on documents.
In team purchasing, any user who is defined as a procurement substitute can take over the shopping cart. Within this process, several users can be involved and can take over the team shopping cart from each other. This can be useful, for example, in the following situations:
An employee leaves the company, and the successor later takes over this person's responsibilities.
An employee is sick, and a colleague takes over the shopping cart.
A team of employees works in shifts, and a shopping cart that is time-critical must be processed by a colleague working in a different shift.
Prerequisites
For the Organization
You have made the following settings in Customizing for SAP Supplier Relationship Management under 
SRM Server 
Cross-Application Basic Settings Define Transaction Types
:
You have allowed team purchasing.
You have defined whether all employees can define purchasing substitutes or whether only administrators are allowed to do this.
You have defined whether purchasing substitutes must be in the same organizational unit of the company as the original requester of the shopping cart.
For Individual Employees
For employees, the following additional prerequisites apply for working with team shopping carts:
What You Want to Do |
Prerequisite |
|---|---|
Mark a shopping cart that you have created as a team shopping cart |
A purchasing substitute has been defined for you, either by yourself or by the SRM administrator |
Find and edit team shopping carts created by other users |
You have been defined as a purchasing substitute for the users whose shopping carts you want to find and edit. |
As an employee, you can define purchasing substitutes and see for whom you are a substitute in the SAP NetWeaver Portal under Home Personalization SRM User Settings User
Account .
Features
Working with Team Shopping Carts
When creating or changing a shopping cart, you can mark the shopping cart as a team shopping cart. By doing this, you allow purchasing substitutes to take over and process the shopping cart, if necessary.
As a purchasing substitute, you can perform the same activities as the original requester, once you have taken over the team shopping cart. For example, you can edit the team shopping cart, create related confirmations or goods receipts, and delete the team shopping cart.
You can display information about who has taken over and processed a team shopping cart in the General Data area of the shopping cart under Document Changes: Display.
Finding Team Shopping Carts
The retrieval mechanisms provided in the SAP NetWeaver Portal, that is, the Personal Objects Worklist (POWL) and the advanced search, allow you to find team shopping carts if you are a purchasing substitute. You can use a predefined POWL query that lists team shopping carts and a query that lists confirmations related to team shopping carts.
Note
You can only see team shopping carts that belong to colleagues for whom you are a purchasing substitute.
If you use the advanced search to find a team shopping cart or its follow-on documents, you can refine the search in the following ways:
What You Want to Do |
What You Should Know |
|---|---|
Find team shopping carts that belong to specific team members |
You must select the Show Only Team Shopping Carts checkbox before you can enter the name of the team member to whom the shopping cart belongs. |
Find only confirmations that are related to team shopping carts |
You must select the Show Only Team Cart Confirmations checkbox that is available as part of the search criteria for confirmations. |
Taking Over Team Shopping Carts
If you are a purchasing substitute and want to take over a team shopping cart, you have the following options:
You display the Shopping Cart Details and take over the cart from there.
You select a team shopping cart in the POWL and take it over.
Note
The Take-Over button is only active for team shopping carts.
You can only take over team shopping carts that have the status saved.
Functions for SRM Administrators
As an SRM administrator, you can do the following in the SAP NetWeaver Portal under SRM Administration:
You can specify purchasing substitutes for employees under SRM Administration: In the POWL category Internal Business Partner, choose the Employee query. Click on the number of a specific employee, and choose User Account.
You can search for a shopping cart and mark it as a team shopping cart. You can do this under
Application Monitors Shopping Cart Monitor Search for Shopping Carts .
From the search results, select a shopping cart and choose the Team Cart pushbutton.