SAP Release Strategy

SAPtips

S

AP

tip

s

Journal

February / March 2007 V

olume V Issue 1

to help you tiptoe through the poten-tial minefield of gotchas.

Step 1: Determine the Corporate Purchasing Approval Matrix

This can actually represent the most difficult step in any organiza-tion.

Tip #1 – Encourage purchasing

poli-cy makers to keep it simple.

The reason here is not to make the implementer’s job easier, but to make it easier for people responsible for entering purchasing requisitions to know who must approve the requisi-tion. I cannot tell you how many times I have agreed to implement a com-plex release strategy, only to go back later and simplify. Why? Because the user community complained that it was too difficult to figure out who was responsible for holding up their requisition from becoming a Pur-chase Order.

In my experience, most companies base purchasing approvals on Cost Centers. I have implemented

pur-chasing groups to be synonymous with Cost Centers. This allows you to not require the Cost Center on pur-chase requisitions.

Tip #2 – If you require the cost center

on the requisition, you do not have to require the G/L account number, but you should, because most users do not know how to select the correct G/L account. If you do not require the G/L Account on the purchase requisition, it is not required on the Purchase Order (without a custom developed user/field exit). If your purchasing agent forgets to add the G/L account, the receiving depart-ment will get an error when they try to receive, because SAP does not know how to post the material docu-ment.

Figure 1 illustrates the example I will follow for this article. I will use two values from which to determine the release strategy:

1. Purchasing group

2. Overall value of purchase requisition

Editor’s Note: The words “SAP” and “easy” are rarely used in the same sentence, but SAPtips Practice Direc-tor Jocelyn Hayes is ready to prove it can be done. In her debut article she sets out a four-step strategy that is not only practical, but achievable. In fact, Jocelyn has employed this strat-egy at multiple installations, across a variety of purchasing methodolo-gies with great success. Her secret for success? Jocelyn says it’s all about keeping it simple.

Yes, I know, you are skeptical. But Purchasing Release Strategies can be made easy if you understand the fundamental concepts of how to con-figure them and to follow the KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid). In this article, I will point out some tips and tricks I have learned through implementing Purchase Requisition Release strategies at seven different client locations with very different purchasing approval methodologies. This article will also explore some tricks to managing the constantly changing security roles and assign-ments due to company reorganiza-tions or attrition.

This article is written using SAP R/3 Enterprise (4.7). It is applicable

for all SAP R/3 and mySAP® _ERP.

It does not cover Workflow for Pur-chasing Release Strategies. For more information on workflow scenarios, reference:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_470/helpdata/ en/d/ea9d9c7acad94b70000e82dec0/ frameset.htm

The Four-Step Process

I will present a four-step process to lead you through the setup and

Please Release Me:

SAP

Purchasing Release Strategies Made Easy

By Jocelyn Hayes, SAPtips Director of Consulting and Training

4On Logistics

Department Position Approval Limits

101 Manager Up to $10K 101 Director Up to $50K 101 VP Up to $100K 101 CFO Everything over $100K 102 Manager Up to $5K 102 Director Up to $50K 102 VP Up to $200K 102 CFO Everything over $200K

SAPtips

S

AP

tip

s

Journal

February / March 2007 V

olume V Issue 1

The Example presented in this article is for an Overall Release pro-cedure. This means that when some-one approves the requisition, they are approving the entire requisition, and not each line. This simplifies the action required of the approvers, because they only have to approve once, but it does restrict you from allowing your users to combine pur-chase requisitions across depart-ments.

Step 2: Configuration

SAP has published a decent note that includes a pdf document (Note 207490) with steps on how to com-plete the configuration. Below, we’ll discuss the three components of configuration: (A) Create Characteristics, (B) Create Class, and (C) Define Release Strategy.

To start, navigate the IMG

(Implementation Guide)

using transaction SPRO. Fol-low the menu path:

Materials Management > Purchasing > Purchase Req-uisition > Release Procedure > Procedure with Classifica-tion, then

A) Create Characteristics: In Step 1, you probably developed an approval matrix in Excel or on a napkin. Now you need to translate that Release Strategy. What you need to ask is, “what are the parameters that determine the approval person?”

In the scenario illustrated in Figure 1, the parameters that determine the approval person are:

• the department request-ing the purchase

CEBAN. This table stores what fields are available in the release strategy determination. Figure 2 shows where to correlate the characteristic to the field used for determination from CEBAN.

Tip #3 – If the field you want to use

for the release strategy does not exist in the CEBAN communication struc-ture, (a custom field, for example) you can use the following user exits:

• M06B0003 - For item-wise release

• M06B0005 – For overall release • the overall amount of the

pur-chase.

These two parameters equate to characteristics. The characteris-tics must be represented by values entered in the purchasing document. In this scenario, the characteristics will be:

• Purchasing Group – to represent the department

• Overall value of requisition To determine what parameters are available as characteristics, run transaction SE11 and view table

4On Logistics

SAPtips

S

AP

tip

s

Journal

February / March 2007 V

olume V Issue 1

Tip #4 – Notice in Figure 2 how

the “Not Ready for Input” box is checked in the Procedure for Value Assignment area. I cannot tell you how many times this has stung me! Make sure you deselect it. Otherwise, it will prevent a value from being assigned to your characteristic and your release strategy will not work! It does serve a purpose, in the case when the value is inferred by object dependencies, but that is only appli-cable when Characteristics are used in Variant Configuration for configu-rable make-to-order materials in the Sales and Distribution module.

Once you complete the Reference to Table/Field, SAP will import the characteristic formats from the data dictionary (the SAP table/field defi-nition). If you click on the Basic Data tab, you will see the data format and value assignment pulled in from the data dictionary field definitions.

screen, make sure you use the Class Type 032, which is the class type for Release Strategy. See Figure 4. C) Define Release Strategy

Here we’ll discuss 5 steps for your Release Strategy definition: Release Group, Release Codes, Release Indi-cators, Release Strategies, and finally we’ll discuss the tie in to Workflow.

1. Create Release Group

In this step, you create release groups (Figure 5). A release group will have the same release levels and strategy. In the sce-nario illustrated back in Fig-ure 1, there will be two release groups needed because the approval interval values are

dif-Tip #5 – SAP will carry over default

values to the value assignment por-tion (shown in Figure 3). Make sure you pay close attention to whether it allows intervals (which you will want in the case of a range of values, like value of requisition) and if it allows multiple values (which you will want if you plan to use one release strategy for multiple departments or purchas-ing groups). There are many advan-tages to using one release strategy for multiple departments, including ease of configuration and ease of security role setup.

B) Create Class

Once you have created your acteristics, you must assign the char-acteristics to a class. On the first

4On Logistics

Figure 3: Create Characteristics Basic Data Screen

There are many

advantages to

using one release

strategy for multiple

SAPtips

S

AP

tip

s

Journal

February / March 2007 V

olume V Issue 1

ferent between the two depart-ments. If there were a third department that had the same approval interval values, it could share a release group and the release strategy would be for more than one department (or in this example, purchasing group).

Tip #6 – You can only have ONE

CLASS per release “type”. Release type is defined as “overall release” or “item-wise release”. This can be quite a limitation if you have a com-plex approval structure. You can have characteristics that are assigned to the class, but not utilized in the release strategy.

2. Create Release Codes

A release code is an identifier that is associated with the per-son responsible for approving

4On Logistics

Figure 4: Create Class – Assign Characteristics

SAPtips

S

AP

tip

s

Journal

February / March 2007 V

olume V Issue 1

the purchase requisition (Figure 6).

Tip #7 – You can utilize a customer

user exit for purchase requisitions, M06B0001, to define the workflow and generate notification and work list objects for the person responsible for the approval.

3. Create Release Indicators A release indicator shows the

release status of a purchase req-uisition. In the standard system, a purchase requisition release status is either “Blocked” or “RFQ/Purchase Order”. The “RFQ/Purchase Order” status indicates that the Purchase Req-uisition has been fully released and can now be converted into an RFQ or Purchase Order. In the standard system, SAP will not allow changes to the quantity, unit of measure, or price when an approver is executing the release transaction. If you require that other fields, such as delivery date, plant, etc., not be modified via the release transaction, follow TIP #8.

Tip #8 – If you want to allow certain

fields to be changed during or after a release, you can modify the Field Selection Key. To modify the Field Selection Key, follow the menu path in the IMG: Materials Management > Purchasing > Purchase Requisition > Define Screen Layout at Document level. Once you have created a cus-tom field selection key, you should create a custom release indicator by maintaining a new entry in the “Cre-ate Release Indicators” screen.

It is also possible to configure the release to not be restarted if the amounts have only changed a speci-fied percentage. To do this, enter “4 - Changeable, new release in case of new strategy or value” and a per-centage in the “Value chgs” field, as shown in Figure 7.

4On Logistics

4. Create Release Strategies A Release Strategy is a

com-bination of the Release Group and Release Code. The Release Group combines the release codes (think of them as release levels) and each combination gets assigned a release strategy.

For each release level (or code) you will define the prerequisites required to get to that release level, release status, and the characteristic values that place the release into that release level.

Figure 6: Create Release Codes

SAPtips

S

AP

tip

s

Journal

February / March 2007 V

olume V Issue 1

I have never experienced a busi-ness rule that allowed a higher-level approver to approve a purchase req-uisition prior to or simultaneously with a lower level approver. In other words, I have not had a client that wanted the purchase requisition release to go to the approval queue of a director at the same time as the same approval request went to the manager. Directors usually wants their manager to approve the expense before they approve it. So, it makes completing the Release Prerequisites screen easy to complete (even though, when you view the screen, it is very confusing). I just check the boxes in the lower left corner, as in Figure 8.

In the classification screen shown in Figure 9, you assign the values or ranges of values to the Release Strat-egy.

Tip #9 – Be sure you have entered

the characteristics value assignments correctly. If you have not selected to allow an “interval value” for the “total value of requisition” amount, you will not be able to enter a range in the characteristic value assign-ment.

5. Workflow: Assign Release Codes to Release Point

Note: You only have to perform

this step if you wish to link this release procedure to Workflow, and are not using customer exit M06B0001.

Here’s a brief description of how Purchase Requisition Release Strate-gies work in SAP.

1. When the purchase requisition is saved, SAP determines which type of release is required for the document type. In this case, the document type is NB and is flagged in configuration for Overall release.

class are associated to the values in the purchase requisition. 4. With the data up to this point,

SAP determines which release

4On Logistics

2. Then, SAP determines what class to use for this type of release. 3. Once the class is determined, the

characteristics assigned to the

Figure 8: Release Prerequisites

SAPtips

S

AP

tip

s

Journal

February / March 2007 V

olume V Issue 1

strategy to invoke and then fol-low through with any workffol-low activities.

Step 3: Security

Security can be the most time consuming activity in developing release strategies – particularly if you have used multiple characteris-tics to define your release strategies and you have multiple release levels. Again lies that recurring theme of “Keep It Simple”. Also, not that you don’t want the job security for your Basis Security Administrators, but you want the change process to not be overly complex, so you can react quickly when there is a major com-pany reorganization.

Tip # 10 – For SOx compliance, do

not use the * function when defining the roles in security. This will allow some folks to have approval author-ity when they should not.

You should set up a role for each Release Group / Release Strategy combination. For further security, include either in this role or another role, the restriction for other values that you have assigned as character-istics, such as Purchasing Group.

Step 4: Transport Classes and Characteristics

This is the most overlooked step in the process. The transport you cre-ated in Step 3 in your “Gold” SAP Configuration client, does not include the values you associated to the acteristics. They are stored in char-acteristic value tables that must be moved through your SAP environ-ments via the ALE (Application Link Enabling) function.

Tip #11 – Don’t forget to request

your ALE with your transport. Figure 10 is a sample spreadsheet of transaction codes, which you can provide to your Basis team.

4On Logistics

Conclusion

In this article I attempted to lay the groundwork and provide some good tips to help beginner SAP Con-figurators journey down the path to developing a Purchasing Approv-al solution. Purchase Requisition release strategies have always ranked high on my list of the “tricky” con-figuration challenges (others include Condition Techniques and Account Assignments for Inventory Manage-ment). But, with a little time and commitment, you too can master this skill!

Jocelyn Hayes, Director of Consult-ing and TrainConsult-ing for SAPtips, has

over ten years of SAP experience. She has enjoyed a successful consulting career for a Big 4 firm as well as inde-pendently. Jocelyn’s focus primarily has involved the Logistics modules of SAP, and has she also developed ESA Roadmaps using NetWeaver™ tools, including Visual Composer, XI, Enterprise Portal, and BI. She also led a CRM Business Process Reengi-neering project. Contact Jocelyn at

[email protected].

≈

Object Transaction Check Message Type Notes

(Target) (BD64)

Characteristics: BD91 CT04 CHRMAS Don’t worry

PURCHASING_GROUP about IDOC PR_VALUE error message “Object S2L3 (T16FS) not found” Class: BD92 CL03 CLSMAS PR_RELEASE Class Type: 032 Class: BD93 CL03 CLFMAS PR_RELEASE Class Type: 032

SAPtips

S

AP

tip

s

Journal

February / March 2007 V

olume V Issue 1

SAPtips

The information in our publications and on our Website is the copyrighted work of Klee Associates, Inc. and is owned by Klee Associates, Inc. NO WARRANTY: This documentation is delivered as is, and Klee Associates, Inc. makes no warranty as to its accuracy or use. Any use of this documentation is at the risk of the user. Although we make every good faith effort to ensure accuracy, this document may include technical or other inaccuracies or typographical errors. Klee Associates, Inc. reserves the right to make changes without prior notice. NO AFFILIATION: Klee Associates, Inc. and this publication are not affiliated with or endorsed by SAP AG, SAP AG software referenced on this site is furnished under license agreements between SAP AG and its customers and can be used only within the terms of such agreements. SAP AG and mySAP are registered trademarks of SAP AG. All other product names used herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their

respective owners.

_≈