Creating Prepack Articles in FMS

There are different types of article masters that one can create in FMS. Previously we discussed the creation of Generic Article Master in FMS – Click here. In this document we will take a look at how we can create a Structured Article. There are different types of structured articles – Sales sets, Displays and Prepacks which can be used for different business scenarios based on whether they are purchased, sold and kept in inventory together or not. The common factor making it a structured article is that they are made up of a number components. So inherently they will have a Bill of Material which shows the quantities of the components they are made up of.

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Author: Tharaka Perera

  Creating Prepack Articles in FMS by Malith Tharaka Perera on Scribd

Free Goods Determination in SAP

Free goods is a standard SAP delivered functionality that can be implemented to handle promotions such as “Buy 2 get 1 Free”. In this case, you have 2 scenarios to look at.

1 – Buy 2 get 1 free – In this case customer is only paying for 1 item and physically getting 2. This scenario is known as “Inclusive”

2 – Buy 2 and get 3rd item free – In this case, customer only pays for 2 items and he get’s another item for free. This scenario is known as “Exclusive”

Let’s see how we can configure the inclusive free goods scenario in SAP. Fee goods use the famous condition technique in SAP. Please click here to read about the condition technique in SAP.

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Author: Anupa Wijesinghe

Free Goods Determination in SAP by Anupa Wijesinghe on Scribd

Schedule Job for STO Delivery Creation

In this document we will take a look at how we can schedule a background job to create outbound deliveries for STOs using the delivery due list in SAP. (similar to delivery creation for sales orders) 

Typically this is done using VL10B transaction and can be automated and scheduled as a batch job if the business has a requirement for automation of the creation of STO deliveries.

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Author: Tharaka Perera

Schedule Job for STO Delivery Creation by Malith Tharaka Perera on Scribd

Generate an email with an Excel attachment from an ABAP program

There are business requirements where you need to generate emails with or without attachments based on a custom logic in an ABAP program. This document describes how to generate and email using an ABAP program.

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Author: Harsha Thelikorala

Generate an Email With an Excel Attachment From an ABAP Program by Harsha Thelikorala

Finance Document Park and Release

Having multi-level control of the documents being parked is a requirement of many finance departments. 

SAP offers the park and post functionality and the ability to block and release documents before a payment could be made for an invoice.

This document will detail out the basic configuration steps for document park and release functionality.

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Author: Gayani Karunathilake

Finance Document Park and Release by Gayani Karunathilake

Inter company Stock Transport Order Processing

Companies with plants in multiple locations typically have the requirement to transfer stock between plants. The STO (stock transport order) process is used to handle this transfer systematically in SAP. 

However if these plants belong to different Company Codes then we need to use the Intercompany STO process. This requires several configuration steps and prerequisites to be in place for this solution to work and entities can benefit from the ability to monitor stock in transit, traceability through document flow and ability to account for delivery costs on the stock transport order.

In this document we will discuss the prerequisites and configuration that needs to be in place to achieve the Inter company Stock Transport Order process in SAP.
Please click here to read the invoice creation part of this process.

• For Intra Company Stock Transport Order Processing, please click here.
• For Rush Stock Transport Orders in SAP Fashion Management Solution (FMS) (Where delivery get created automatically at STO save), click here.
• For stock transport orders between storage locations, please click here.

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Author: Tharaka Perera

Intercompany STO Process by Malith Tharaka Perera

Rush Stock Transport Orders in FMS (Immediate Delivery Creation at STO Save)

Most of us are familiar with “Rush sales order processing” in SAP. This is to create a delivery document as soon as a sales order is saved in SAP. If you’re working in SAP IS-AFS (Industry Solution – Apparel and Footwear) or SAP FMS (Fashion Management Solution) system, the allocation process (Commonly known as ARun) should take place in background automatically. (In FMS, “ARun” will execute in background only in case if the Site / Article is setup as “ARun” relevant).

We have similar setup for stock transport orders (STO), where we can automatically create a delivery document in the supplying site (plant), when stock transport order is saved in SAP. This process also known as immediate delivery creation at stock transport orders or Rush STO. Similar to above rush sales order scenario, Allocation / ARun needs to be executed in background in SAP IS-AFS or SAP FMS for rush STO’s. 

• For Intra Company Stock Transport Orders (Stock transport between between plants in the same Company), please click here.
• For Inter Company Stock Transport Orders (Stock transport between between plants in different Companies), please click here.
• For stock transport orders between storage locations, please click here.

Today we will discuss how we can configure a new rush stock transport order type (STO) in SAP FMS. 

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Author: Anupa Wijesinghe

Rush Stock Transport Orders in FMS (Immediate Delivery Creation at STO Save) by Anupa Wijesinghe

How to configure an Organization Structure in SAP FMS

In every SAP implementation, first activity is to understand the business requirement in detail and map those in SAP. This time of the project is commonly known as blue print phase. During blue print phase, one of our key activities is to identify and map their organizational chart into SAP format. This org chart is commonly known as organization structure in SAP. Unlike in any other SAP industry solution, IS-Retail and SAP FMS is different in terms of the plant (Site) creation. Plant (Site) creation is known to be a configuration in all other SAP versions, where as IS-Retail and SAP FMS having it as a master data. Today we will see how to configure a sample organization structure in SAP FMS. 

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Author: Anupa Wijesinghe

  How to Configure an Organization Structure in SAP FMS

Strange text appear in the sales order header

Sometimes when you try to create a new sales order, you would have seen that some strange text appear in the sales order entry screen, without even configuring sales order text determination. (If you want to know how to configure text determination in SAP, click here)

This behavior is not acceptable for business users. This is commonly known as “Dummy Text” in SAP terminology. Today we will look at what we need to do to get rid of such dummy texts.

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Author: Anupa Wijesinghe

  Strange Text Appear in the Sales Order Header

Process Inbound IDOCs Using Serialization

When there is a dependency between IDOC message types while processing or distributing, IDOCs must be processed in a serialized manner. 

In order to achieve this requirement, IDOC serialization must be used.

i.e. Vendor Master, Customer Master, Material Master, etc.

If you want to read about how we can process Inbound IDOCs from PI Using Serialization; please click here.

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Author: Harsha Thelikorala

  Process Inbound IDOCs Using Serialization by Harsha Thelikorala

How to Configure Delivery Creation Transaction VL10X

Based on various business requirements it is possible to use VL10X transaction for delivery note creation. As an example we use VL10C for sales order line item delivery document creation, VL10E can be used to create delivery documents for schedule lines, etc.

Therefore it is necessary understand how to configure this transaction based on your business requirement. SAP has given a provision to configure this transaction via a functionality called "Delivery Scenario" and "List profile (Role)". These fields can be seen under the "User Role" tab of the VL10X transactions.

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Author: Anupa Wijesinghe

  How to Configure Delivery Creation Transaction VL10X by Anupa Wijesinghe

Intra Company Stock Transport Order Processing

It’s often required to transfer stock between plants in a same company code. For example, if one plant has stock, which is required by the other plant, you need to have a mechanism in SAP to do that. As part of the SAP process, you should be able to track the stock in transit and print all documents required for that as well. Plant to plant stock movement in SAP is known as Stock Transport Orders in SAP (STO).

• For Rush Stock Transport Orders (Where delivery get created automatically at STO save), click here.
• For Inter Company Stock Transport Orders, please click here.
• For stock transport orders between storage locations, please click here.

Let’s see how we can configure Inter Company STO process today.

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Author: Anupa Wijesinghe

  Intra Company Stock Transport Order Processing

How to activate AFS top node check (JS Partner) by sales organization

Earlier we discussed about the error message that we have seen in IS-AFS system at sales order creation. i.e; Top node XXXX for ship-to YYYY not maintained or ship-to is not valid

Message no. 8W321

Click here to read more about the JS partner function in IS-AFS.

This is a global setting in the AFS system and therefore you cannot activate/ de-activate it only for a given company code or for a sales organization.

But in todays business world it is very common that one company acquire another company. Lets say both companies were on SAP IS-AFS and one has the top node heck activated and other doesn’t. Now when you try to migrate customer master date from top node de-activated SAP system to the tope node active SAP system, you will get above mentioned error message. 

In such a scenario you have 2 options to manage this situation.

1. Do the necessary master data change in the partner functions to have “JS” partner assigned to all ship to parties

2. Control the top node check error message for a given sales org / company

Today we will discuss about the 2nd option mentioned above.

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Author: Anupa Wijesinghe

  How to Activate AFS Top Node Check (JS) by Sales Organization

Customer Master Field Settings per Company Code

Sometime back we discussed how we could set customer master fields visible, hidden or mandatory using customizing of account groups. Click here to view the documentation. Those customizing settings at the account group level will applicable for all company codes that you operate in your SAP system. Today we are going to discuss about a business requirement where you have to share the same account group for customer master creation, but want to have different field settings based on the company code.

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Author: Anupa Wijesinghe

  Customer Master Field Settings Per Company Code

IDoc Processing

IDoc (Intermediate Document) is a standard SAP document format which enables the connection of various systems. It’s a very common mechanism that’s used in today’s SAP world to transmit data from one source to the other. Therefore it’s always added advantage to know how IDoc’s can be handled and common transactions that is used in SAP for IDoc processing. 

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Author: Anupa Wijesinghe

  IDoc Processing by Anupa Wijesinghe on Scribd

How to determine different number ranges for sales orders based on the sales organization

The sales document number that you see in SAP is created out of the number range attached to the sales document type in configuration. 

As the number range is assigned to the sales document type, you cannot determine different number ranges for the same sales document type in different sales organization. For example, if you have two sales organizations in the system and you want to have two different number ranges for sales document type "OR" for those two sales organizations, then SAP standard number range setting cannot be used directly. But this is a very common business requirement when you have multiple company code or sales organization using same sales document type. Therefore SAP has give the provision via user exits in the sales order creation.
Please click here to view how you can determine different number range for delivery documents based on the shipping point.

If you want to know how you can determine a different number range for billing documents based on the sales organization, please click here.

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   How to Determine Different Number Ranges for Sales Orders Based on the Sales Organizaton

Invoice Split Logic in SAP

 For certain business requirements, you need to define customer specific invoice split criteria. This can be achieved using below method.

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   Invoice Split Logic in SAP

Mass document change in SAP (IS-AFS)

Same like mass change transaction "MASS" in SAP standard (R/3), there are additional mass change transactions specifically for IS-AFS (Industry Solution - Apparel and Footwear). (Click here to see more detail about standard "MASS" transaction). 

These IS-AFS specific mass change transactions are;

• /AFS/MDC - Mass Document Change
• /AFS/MCC - Mass Customer Change

The main reason to introduce such AFS specific transactions is; because in IS-AFS we have AFS specific data in sales documents, such as sizes, AFS customer groups, etc. Therefore some time it is required to change certain size level data as a mass change. This is not supported in "MASS" transaction.

Let's see how we can use mass document change transaction to change AFS sales documents.

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   Mass Document Change in SAP (is-AFS)

Size conversion in SAP (IS-AFS)

In a typical apparel and footwear industry, it is very common to have same physical size called by different scales in different countries. This is the reason we have US size, UK size, etc printed in Shoes. For example in Men's footwear UK size 9 is called as US size 10. Therefore both sizes are stated in the footwear.
In order to cater this business requirement; SAP AFS has come up with grid value conversion solution, where you can convert one grid value to a different scale based on different parameters. It is possible to define size conversion based on below criteria;

• Customer / Vendor ID (From customer master)
• Material conversion ID (From material master)
• User Parameter - J31 (From SAP user Profile)

Size conversion is mainly depending on the grid characteristics of the master grid which is attached to the article master. Let's see how this can be configured in SAP AFS.

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   Size conversion in SAP (IS-AFS) by Anupa Wijesinghe

Manual Schedule Line Category is not supported in IS-AFS

In SAP, we have an option to change the item category or schedule line category manually in the sales order line item. Prior to do that in the sales order, you have to customize the item category / schedule line category assignment.

You can assign “Manual Item category” in the IMG path, Sales and Distribution / Sales / Sales Documents / Sales Document Item / Assign Item Categories

Same manner you can assign “Manual Schedule Line category” in the IMG path, Sales and Distribution / Sales / Sales Documents / Schedule Lines / Assign Schedule Line Categories

If you have above settings in place, you can manually override the default item category / Schedule line category in the sales order item.
But this feature is not supported in IS-AFS.

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Manual Schedule Line Category is Not Supported in AFS