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From the Managing Editor
Is it possible that we are already on the cusp of this year’s ASUG/ Sapphire conference? If you are planning to attend, you know it’s countdown time. Have you built your agenda, booked your hotel, and reserved your flight? If you answered yes to those questions, you’re almost ready. Next you’ll want to brush up on your SAP-speak before boarding that flight to Orlando. Whatever you need to know, you’ll find most of it in this issue (and our Document Library).
Cheryl A. Cave, Managing Editor
From the Editor continued on page 2
Unlocking the Value of your SAP
®Investment
Undocumented Features…Timesaving Solutions…Best Practices
Journal | Training | Consulting | Document Library | Tip of the Month | Software Solutions | SAPtips Community
3
u View from the Trenches5
u SAPtips Training and Consulting7
u User News from ASUG76
u Software Solutions77
u SAPtips Associate EditorsDEPARTMENTS
HR
17
u Cool CATS: Simple Configuration of SAP’s Cross Application Time Sheet, by Satish Badgi, SAP HR Consultant.The point of ERP software is to take advantage of shared data across the enterprise. Satish Badgi shows you how to set up and use CATS (Cross Application Time Sheets) to capture and utilize employee time data across the enterprise.
LOGISTICS
24
u MMOverview of the Logistics Infor-mation System, by Jocelyn Hayes, SAPtips Director of Consulting and Training.
Sometimes you need a tool than can not only pull data from the logistics modules, but actually crunch it and report it. Jocelyn Hayes intro-duces you to the little-known
and underutilized Logistics Information System.
30
u PMShould Reliability Engineers Be Active in SAP?, by Warren Bell, Olivet Inc.
Need to get more out of your plant data by involving engi-neers? Warren Bell confesses that he too was once a reluc-tant engineer, and gives you the keys for promoting staff involvement.
FINANCIALS
39
u Parallel Currencies in SAP – Part I: Supporting Local Legal Financial Reporting, by Dimitris Langas, SAP Consultant.You’ve got to read and report on financial data from branches in seven countries in the Corporate Office’s local currency. Problem is, each branch has to report in their local currency to their government. Find out how to support multi-country financial reporting using parallel currencies in SAP.
BI
48
u Backend Performance Improve-ment Measures: Make Your BI Queries Soar, by Anurag Barua, Director, EDC Consulting.As your data grows, it becomes more useful; but not if it slows BI query performance to a crawl. Let Anurag Barua teach you performance improve-ment measures to make your queries soar.
COVER STORY
8
u MMDemand Planning in SAP: Dynamic Safety Stock, by Adam Tysman, SAP Value and Effectiveness Specialist.
You’ve heard it said that too much of a good thing can be bad. In fact, with enterprise material stock levels, you’re walking a fine line between too much and too little. Adam Tysman shows you how to implement and tweak the Dynamic Safety Stock feature in Demand Planning for that “just right” level that even Goldilocks could love.
Journal
Publisher: Andy Klee Director of Publications: Laura Donovan Managing Editor: Cheryl A. Cave
Editors: Emil Marx Colleen Low Larkin Graphic Designer: Mark Hunter
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Need to build your skills in Logis-tics? Adam Tysman leads the issue with his cover story (page 8) on using Dynamic Safety Stock in Demand Planning. Adam says when used correctly, this method is prob-ably the best fit for most companies. Or if you’re having difficulty getting the engineers in your company to take advantage of what SAP offers for Plant Maintenance, have them read Warren Bell’s article on page 30. Want more from your logistics investment? Jocelyn Hayes shows you how to use the Logistics Infor-mation System (page 24) to crunch and report logistics data and create planning data.
SAPtips is all about optimization in this issue. Eric Walter shows you how to configure the Maintenance Optimizer in Solutions Manager (page 54), and Anurag Barua offers tips to optimize BI query perfor-mance (page 48).
Nothing says “rookie” like using the wrong product and version names… always a challenge with SAP. Jon Reed’s humor column “Say What? A Guide to the SAP Terms You Need to Know for ASUG 2008 and Beyond” on page 71 is like CliffsNotes for SAP jargon.
SAPtips’ spring training is almost over. If you missed it, remember we can bring our on-site training to you. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait for our fall classes. We are offering new courses that you’ll want to check out on page 6, or contact Jocelyn Hayes at
[email protected] to deter-mine the best plan for your training and consulting needs.
Look for Jocelyn and me in Orlando in May. We’re hoping to get to meet you, and learn more about your business.
Cheryl A. Cave,
Managing Editor, SAPtips
≈
From the Editor continued from page 1
SAPtips ONLINE
Be sure to visit the SAPtips Document Library to download these new white papers.
OnMM
Materials Management – Master the Best Practices Part III: Purchasing Best Practices
By Jocelyn Hayes, SAPtips Director of Training and Consulting
If you can read only one paper on the MM Procure-to-Pay process, this is the one. A veteran of numerous implementations, Jocelyn Hayes has both the perspective and the solid experience required to be able to drill down to the best practices for each part of the process. In this paper she covers mas-ter data, document types, field selection, release strategies, and condition types. We suspect copies of this will be laminated and posted on office walls. Jocelyn is, after all, among America’s most wanted (in SAP).
OnABAP
SAP Graphics Function Module Primer: A Guide for SAP Developers and Consultants
By Rehan Zaidi, Siemens Pakistan
A picture tells a thousand words, or so the saying goes. And a graph is the perfect visual for expressing key company data. After all, what’s easier to understand when analyzing data: a spreadsheet of numbers and formulas or a colorful pie chart or bar graph that highlights the important facts? The good news: you can insert graphs into SAP programs using ABAP. Rehan Zaidi demonstrates how to employ SAP Graphical Framework.
Journal
BASIS
54
u Configuring SAP’s Maintenance Optimizer in Solution Manager, by Eric Walter, SAP Consultant. The new SAP – mandated method for obtaining your patches is through the use of the Solution Manager Maintenance Optimizer. Eric Walter shows you how to set up the Maintenance Optimiz-er so that you’re ready when the next patch arrives.ABAP/J2EE
60
u A Tour of the New Business Add-Ins (BAdIs): A Guide for SAP Developers and Consultants, by Rehan Zaidi, Siemens Pakistan.Discover BAdI building strategies to put real muscle in your ABAP routines.
CIO Corner
68
u IT Spending in an Uncertain Economy, by CJ Rhoads. This is a tough economy. CJ Rhodes shows you how to weather the budget cuts without losing your techni-cal edge.Humor
71
u Say What?, A Guide to the SAP® Terms You Need to Know for ASUG 2008 and Beyond, by Jon Reed, JonERP.comThere is no faster way to lose your street cred with the SAP crowd than to refer to the wrong version, or worse, use an outdated acronym when schmoozing with colleagues. Jon Reed helps you fine tune your SAP-ese before heading for Sapphire.
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OnABAPUpload Data from a Legacy System Using ABAP: Say No to Java & .NET Connectors
By Usman Malik, Siemens, Pakistan
It’s the age old problem, moving data from the legacy system into SAP. Admittedly, there is no silver bullet…no quick or simple solution for this process. However, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a big project involving Java and .Net techies. It is possible to sort, clean, and arrange the data for transfer with some basic ABAP code.
White Papers continued from previous page
Jocelyn Hayes’ View from the Trenches
Well, spring has sprung and a lot is still happening with SAP and SAPtips.
We are just wrapping our spring classes with one more left to “exe-cute” (love using those SAP-centric terms). Our upcoming NEW ABAP class promises to deliver quality content and learning to its partici-pants with the focus on beginner to intermediate ABAP developers, or even functional folks wanting to learn what their wonderful ABAP developers do day in and day out. As a functional person myself, I have always wanted to learn just enough ABAP to be able to debug and review code and be able to understand the different develop-ment options available to the devel-opers. This class is currently open for registration and will be held in Dallas, May 19-23.
Around the corner, the week of May 3rd is SAP’s Annual SAPPHIRE conference, again being co-hosted with the America’s SAP User Group in sunny Orlando, FL. If you are planning to attend and want to meet me or our SAPtips Managing Editor, Cheryl Cave, drop us a line at [email protected] and we’ll set something up.
SAPtips is planning some more new classes this fall. Keep your eye on our schedule and course descriptions...
SAPtips.com/WorkshopPublic.asp. And remember, you can also have our Mastery Consultants bring our training to you and your team at your site.
I attended a Business Objects over-view seminar in Denver recently where I learned a little more about the BO offerings. It is still not completely clear to me which is the “better” solution – BO or SAP BI for folks running SAP, or the long-term best choice. Will SAP eventually merge these products? To me, it seems strange to continue to develop two products in parallel that essen-tially offer the same functionality. By no means am I a Business Intel-ligence expert, so take my comments with a “grain of salt”. My hope for SAP is that at some point, they figure out a way to easily “merge” the products into one to make the transition as painless as possible, and continue to offer a Best of Breed BI solution that is both simple to support and implement, and comes with rich business content and intui-tive end-user interfaces.
Until the next issue… Have a lovely Spring!
Jocelyn Hayes
SAPtips, Director of Training and Consulting
[email protected] Jocelyn Hayes
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ASUG/SAPPHIRE 2008 is right
around the corner…
Have you brushed up on your
SAP
®
knowledge?
SAPtips Document Library is your one-stop spot for the latest information on the hottest topics sure to be discussed at the conference, including:
• Enterprise SOA • FI/CO
• NetWeaver™ BI
• Human Resource Management • WebDynpro
• CRM
• And much, much, more…
It’s easy to use. Just go to www.SAPtips.com and look for this box in the lower left corner of our home page:
Type in the topic you wish to learn more about and, before you know it, you’ll have a wealth of information at your finger tips, ready to be downloaded.
Want to browse an entire category? That’s a snap! Go to:
www.SAPtips.com/AccessDocumentCategories.asp
.
Over 500 topics, 32 categories…
So, what are you waiting for?
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SAPtips
Training and Consulting
Mastery Level KnowledgeWe’ll be there.
• Onsite Training
www.SAPtips.com/OnsiteTraining.asp
• SAPtips University
www.SAPtips.com/WorkshopSchedule.asp
• Mastery-Level Consulting Services
www.SAPtips.com/Consulting.asp
Contact Jocelyn Hayes Director, SAP
®Consulting and Training,
at [email protected] or 1.877.832.2594 ext 122.
Discover how far you can go with
your SAP system!
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Yes, it’s time to get excited about SAPtips University! Here’s what Spring 2008 attendees had to say: “Instructor was knowledgeable; good presentation.” “Excellent, very in-depth and hands on training.” “Allowed sufficient time on each topic and addressed all questions.”
“Addressed areas that other training classes don’t touch on.” “Will take more SAPtips classes in the future!”
SAPtips
Training and Consulting
≈
Stay tuned for more
information on SAPtips
University’s Fall 2008 session.
On the schedule for October
and November in Dallas, TX:
Ask about our TrainingPak! 15 student/days of training for $7,495. That’s a savings of $1130, or 13% off of our regular prices. That pays for 3 students to attend a 5 day class, or 1 student to attend 3 classes, or
… well, you get the idea!
We offer public classes every six months and Training Paks never expire.
Go to
www.SAPtips.com/WorkshopPublic.asp
to view detailed course descriptions, including objectives, prerequisites,
who should attend, CPE credit, and continuing education credit information. Workshops offered are subject to change.
To register or view our pricing, registration, and cancellation policy, go to
www.SAPtips.com/WorkshopRegistrationPub.asp
Klee Associates, Inc. is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State boards of accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE credit. Complaints regarding registered sponsors may be addressed to the National Registry of CPE Sponsors, 150 Fourth Avenue North, Suite 700, Nashville, TN, 37219-2417. Web site: www.nasba.org.
• ABAP Programming • Basis and Security • Business Warehouse • Materials Management • Sales and Distribution • Pricing
Dates will be announced soon!
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User News from
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Editor’s Note: If you’re involved with material stock, you know how tough it is to keep the right amount on hand. If you order too much, too soon, you end up with a surplus. This ties up the company’s resources both in terms of capital and storage. However, if you don’t order enough, and at the right time, you could come up short, slowing production and distribution. MRP is a great tool, but unless you are feeding it the right data, it could be more of a nightmare than a dream. That’s why Adam Tysman decided to present this guide to configuring Dynamic Safety Stock in SAP’s Demand Planning module. Adam teaches you to understand the early results, and how to tweak the settings to tighten the gaps, for a more reliable safety stock level.Introduction
The purpose of Demand Planning is to ensure an opti-mum supply on hand at all times. Inventory must be high enough to ensure customer service levels are met, yet low enough to avoid excessive storage overheads and capital tie ups. Although inventory excesses can result from many factors, most common is the incor-rect evaluation (and subsequent setting) of parameters governing reordering.
The SAPtips article “Forecast Accuracy vs. Safety Stock Levels: What You Need to Know” (February/March 2008 Volume VI Issue 1) examined and explained the relationships between forecast accuracy and systemati-cally proposed safety stock levels.
This article explores a different philosophy of safety stock level determination – that of Dynamic Safety Stock (DSS). This exigency planning method is named for the fact that the average consumption on which it is based changes constantly and is consequently recalcu-lated every time MRP is run. This article also explores the means by which the results of these settings can be monitored and evaluated.
This main difference between Dynamic Safety Stock and other strategies that you might consider to achieve the same purpose (for example, replenish to a maxi-mum stock level, forecast, or manually determined safety stock levels or re-order points, etc.) is that DSS is not static.
Every other strategy depends on manual, periodic re-evaluation of the efficacy of said strategy. This can be a very time consuming and ultimately inaccurate exercise involving manually trawling through and collating all the various sources of consumption data, performing stock analytics on historical inventory levels/values, and reaching informed but, realistically, somewhat arbitrary new re-order level values. If not performed however, restocking levels will remain unchanged, regardless of the usage and demand for the material over long periods of ever-changing demand. Even if this ardu-ous process is carried out, can you be sure that you are performing it at a frequency that really reflects fluctua-tions in demand?
Dynamic Safety Stock takes demand fluctuations into account as often as you run MRP. This allows you to move away from a rigid, sporadic, manual assessment of your requirements and move to an adaptive, flexible strategy based on actual consumption/requirements (incorporating values from your material forecast, where this is available).
This article is based on a material example from R/3, 4.6C screen; the information applies to any R/3 or ECC system. The material is set with an MRP type configured to consider forecast values but NOT to automatically calculate Safety Stock. The Settings on the MRP1 sub-screen for this material are shown in Figure 1. Here, the Range of Coverage profile, the key element in Dynamic Safety Stock calculations, is specified.
Demand Planning in SAP
®: Dynamic Safety Stock
By Adam Tysman, SAP Value and Effectiveness Specialist
Dynamic Safety Stock takes
demand fluctuations into
account as often as you run MRP.
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You will notice that the Service level (%) and the Safety stock fields in the Net requirements calculation sub-screen do not have values. Service level percentage is used in the forecast-based systematic determination of safety stock levels, and plays no part in the dynamic Safety Stock calculations.
The Safety Stock value is blank on purpose. A poten-tial usage in conjunction with Dynamic Safety Stock is dealt with at the very end of this article. Suffice it to say for now that when using Dynamic Safety Stock, this field should NOT contain any value. Please note that the Rounding value is set to 1 (no rounding of order quantities will take place), and the lot size is “Lot-for-lot”, again ensuring that any quantities deemed required by MRP are the exact quantities procured.
In Figure 2, we see the forecast values for this material. Forecast demand is constant at 10 units every period. Nothing changes, and the forecast is 100% accurate. This is a truly optimal and indeed most unlikely situa-tion to find in reality. However, this simplified forecast
Figure 1: MRP Settings Including Range of Coverage Profile (usually on MRP2 view)
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will facilitate explaining thecalculations and resultant stock levels we will discuss later in the article.
In Figure 3 we see the consumption values for this material. Demand is constant at 10 units every period. No corrected consumption values have been entered. Again, this straightforward consumption history will facilitate explaining the cal-culations and resultant stock levels we will explain later in the article.
Range of Coverage Profile
The Range of Coverage Profile is a configured value assigned in the material master (reference MARC_ RWPRO).
Each of these three character/digit codes specify, for each plant (they are plant specific), criteria by which you wish to determine what constitutes average con-sumption, and what number of periods (multiple) at that systematically determined
value you wish to always have in inventory. This ensures a constant minimum stock level, dynamically adjusted when MRP is run, relative to your actual and forecast demand. The IMG path concerned is SPRO‡Materials
Management‡Consumption- Based Planning‡Planning‡ MRP Calculation‡Define Range of Coverage Profiles (Dynamic Safety Stock). Notice that this configuration is classified by SAP as part of the MRP calculation itself.
Each and every time MRP runs, the system calculates whether the current on-hand
quantities are within the set range, and if not, will generate an order to make or purchase the requisite amount.
Figure 4 shows the initial Range of Coverage creation screen.
Figure 3: Consumption Values
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Once the profile is named, the actual methodology to be employed by the profile must be detailed. The screen-print in Figure 5 details an example of the settings that might be made in creating a Range of Coverage Profile. To successfully create a Range of Coverage Profile, the following process must be completed:
STEP 1: Determine range of coverage:
Period Ind = The period of time on which you want the average consumption calculation to be based. This value indicates the type of period that will form the basis for calculating the average daily requirements. Months, Weeks, and Production planning calendar peri-ods are available for consideration. The number of days in this length of time will form the basis of the average requirement calculation.
STEP 2: Determine average requirements:
Number of periods = How many of the periods speci-fied in Step 1 do you want to consider in the average requirements calculation? If we were to put 1 here, we are saying;
“How many days are there in 1 of the periods (week or month, etc.) specified in Step 1?” If we were to put a 2 here, we are saying “How many days are there in 2 of the periods (week or month, etc.) specified in Step 1?”, and so on.
EXAMPLE: So, if we had selected “Weeks” in Step 1, and “1” in Step 2, we are telling the system that we wish to have our average daily requirements
calcu-lated by dividing the exist-ing requirements (includexist-ing forecast demand, if available) by the number of days in 1 week.
To reiterate, we are speci-fying how many of those periods specified in Period Ind, (months, weeks, etc.) you want to use in the cal-culations to determine the requirements. In my experi-ence, this has generally been set to 1, although it is pos-sible to specify any integer below 100.
Say we had selected 1 week. How many days are there in 1 week? Seem obvious? Perhaps not so much so when we consider whether we mean “how many calendar days?” or “how many workdays?” This ques-tion brings us to Step 3, where we specify what type (and therefore what number of days) we wish the total number of days in the number of periods specified to be divided by, to gain an average value.
STEP 3: Type of per length:
Average per what divisor of the periods specified in the Period Ind field. Here you specify whether you want the average to be determined in Workdays (1) or Calendar Days (2) or Standard Days (3).
Selecting Standard Days requires that the number of these days is to be used as the basis for the average consumption calculation specified in the field “Days per Period”, adjacent to the “Type of per length” field. Workdays are delineated in the planning calendar for the plant for which the profile is being created. In Figure 5, average daily requirements are calculated by dividing the requirements for the material by the number of days in 1 month. By choosing workdays, we are saying divide this by 6 (the number of workdays specified per week in our planning calendar for this plant).
EXAMPLE: If Period indicator = W; Number of periods = 2; and Type = 1; when MRP runs, it would look ahead 2 weeks and divide 2 weeks of requirements by work-days.
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Once completed, you have specified what the system needs to know; that is, the type of period you want to consider when the average is calculated (weeks, months), how many of them, and then what type of day (calendar days, work days, etc.) is to be the divisor.
Once these values are defined, you have the opportu-nity to define up to three periods of Minimum, Target, and Maximum Range of Coverage that the system will ensure is always available to you.
Once you have established your daily average, you can instruct the system to keep a multiple of that daily aver-age, always in stock. These settings are made in Step 4. STEP 4: Target, Minimum and Maximum Ranges of Coverage:
These represent respectively, the Minimum, Target, and Maximum number of days’
worth of inventory, at the determined average rate of consumption, that the system will ensure is available. The underlying calculations are carried out each and every time MRP is run.
STEP 5: Range of Coverage in the first, second (etc.) Periods: (Optional) Identifies the Minimum, Maximum, and Target num-ber of days (work or calen-dar) worth of inventory, at the average daily rate of fore-cast consumption determined by the settings in the previ-ous steps, is to be kept, as well as the number of periods you want to be considered. For example, for the next 10 periods you want to keep
a Target of 10 days of product, but you never want to keep less than 8 days on hand. Then for the next “X” number of periods, you could set a different number of Target days of safety stock. This functionality is usually used during ramp up/down situations, where the rate of consumption change is predictable. Typically, setting a Target will suffice for ramp up/down scenarios. STEP 6: Periods in profile with different ranges of coverage: (Optional)
By double-clicking the “Periods in profile with differ-ent ranges of coverage” menu option on the left of the Range of Coverage Profile Creation screen, the entry options displayed in Figure 6 become visible.
Here you are able to enter a specific date range during which a higher number Dynamic Safety Stock require-ment is to apply.
Multiple date ranges or the same date ranges in mul-tiple years can be applied. This is an especially useful element of functionality where a forecast is not tained, or a forecast without a seasonal model is main-tained, and there is a requirement to make sure that excess inventory is purchased during a specified period. This can be used, for example, to ramp up stock levels in advance of predicted price increases, or to ramp up inventory levels in anticipation of expected demand at a particular time of year.
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Figure 6: Setting Periods in Profile with Different Ranges of Coverage
Once you have established your
daily average, you can
instruct the system to keep a
multiple of that daily average,
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Minimum, Target, and Maximum Days of Coverage at Average Consumption can be specified for any period. Appropriate Range of Coverage Profile?
Once established and assigned to materials, these Range of Coverage profiles will ensure the resultant Dynamic Safety Stock values are always held in inventory. Since these are dynamic, it is important to ensure that the profiles assigned to a material are correct. This refers to the fact that it is, of course, possible to assign a material to a profile that is inappropriate for its demand fluctua-tions or planning cycle.
EXAMPLES of Inappropriate Range of Coverage Pro-files:
1. A Range of Coverage profile assuring a Dynamic Safety Stock of 1 calendar day’s worth of stock (at the average rate of consumption by month) is assigned to a material for which MRP is run only once a month. RESULT – Once the 1 day of safety stock is exhausted there is a long duration until a replenishment order can be created. SOLUTION – this material must be assigned a Range of Coverage profile requiring a higher number of days of stock, at the average rate of consumption.
2. A material for which demand is known to drastically fluctuate by week, and is included in a daily MRP run, is assigned a Range of Coverage Profile consid-ering consumption over a 2 month period. RESULT – the determined average rate of consumption will ensure an inadequate safety stock level to accom-modate the demand peaks. SOLUTION – Since the safety stock calculation is performed when MRP is run, the material should have an average rate of con-sumption based on the requirement for a week. 3. A material for which MRP is run weekly has an
external or total replenishment lead time of 20 days, and is assigned a Range of Coverage Profile assuring a Dynamic Safety Stock of 1 calendar day’s worth of stock (at the average rate of consumption by month). RESULT – Once the 1 day of safety stock is exhausted, there is a long duration until a replenish-ment order can be received into stock. SOLUTION – this material must be assigned a Range of Coverage Profile requiring a higher number of days of stock at the average rate of consumption.
The standard SAP systematic tools, which are available to confirm that the profile you have assigned to any given material is, in fact, appropriate, and will ensure
optimum inventory levels, are discussed in the Monitor-ing and Evaluation section of this article.
Before we turn to those tools, let us examine exactly how MRP performs the calculations we have been refer-ring to.
MRP Calculations:
The formula used by MRP in determining Dynamic Safety Stock levels are:
Demand for the current whole month is calculated as: Existing Reservations/Sales Orders (including unful-filled Reservations/Sales Orders created in the past) + Forecast for month.
Where there is not a full month remaining at the time MRP is run, demand for the remaining part of the month is calculated as:
Existing Reservations/Sales Orders + ((Forecast for month / number of working days in the month) * work-days remaining in month excluding today)
Where Range of Coverage profile is set to calculate based on 1 month’s demand divided by workdays, the daily average demand is:
Demand for month / number of workdays remaining in the month including today.
Dynamic Safety Stock then is:
Average daily demand* Range of Coverage specified number of days of Average Daily Demand to be kept in stock.
Monitoring and Evaluation:
The Range of Coverage values used by the system in determining whether or not the number of days of coverage is adequate to meet the settings made in this configuration, and assigned to a particular material, are visible via the Period Totals display in the Stock Requirements List (transaction MD04).
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Range of Coverage profiles will
ensure the resultant Dynamic
Safety Stock values are always
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If we were to run MRP for our example material, and the settings Forecast, Con-sumption, Range of Coverage Profile, and other Material Master settings mentioned at the beginning of this article, the stock requirements list in Figure 7 would be shown. (Note – there are 5 each of this material in Stock). In Figure 7 we see the initial 5 units of stock being deplet-ed by the forecast demand. However, a purchase requisi-tion is created on 4/20/2008. To understand the logic behind why the system created this requisition, we will need to view the Period Totals display screen of this transaction.
The Period Totals display is accessed by pressing the icon, on the Stock Require-ments List (detail) Standard Display screen. The stan-dard (detail) screen can be returned to by pressing the icon. This will be located in exactly the same position on the screen as the Period Totals display was found, acting, in effect, as a toggle switch between the two views of the stock requirements. The Period Totals display is an essential tool in the con-firmation that appropriate profiles have been assigned to the material.
The columns in the Period Totals display (as seen in Figure 8) are now explained relative to Dynamic Safety Stock.
• Planned Independent Requirements –
Forecast Demand (in this case, a forecast demand for 10 ea for the whole month)
• Period –
The period during which the various receipts and requirements have been aggregated
• Requirements –
Aggregated sales order and reservation quantities • Receipts –
Aggregated expected Goods receipt quantities
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Figure 7: Stock Requirements
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• Available Quantity – Aggregate amount of stock • ATP quantity –Stock not already committed to any other form of demand – available stock
• Actual Coverage –
The number of days the available quantity of a mate-rial in the periods displayed can cover the require-ments in the periods that follow
• Statistical Coverage –
Available quantity at present moment/average daily requirements. As DSS is also based on the average daily value, this column is very important in assessing the efficacy of the Range of Coverage profile you have assigned to the material. The value in this column should never go below the number of days you have specified in your Range of Coverage Profile
• Target Coverage (in number of days at average con-sumption)
• Daily Average Requirements –
Calculated using the settings made in the Range of Coverage Profile. Note how this changes when the month changes. This is because May has a different number of workdays than April.
• Maximum Coverage (in number of days at average consumption)
• Minimum Coverage (in number of days at average consumption)
• Target Coverage – specified multiple of displayed aver-age
• Maximum Coverage – specified multiple of dis-played average
• Minimum Coverage – specified multiple of
dis-played average
In this example, we see that on 4/17 the statistical cover-age was 2.9 days. Had the system done nothing, the next
decrement (due on 4/20) would have caused us to go below our mandated 2 days of coverage.
Please note how the system maintains 2 days’ supply throughout the time series displayed.
If you recall, the demand for the current whole month is calculated as:
Existing Reservations/Sales Orders (including unful-filled Reservations/Sales Orders created in the past) + Forecast for month
Adding a reservation and running MRP for this material changes the Stock Requirements list, as per Figure 9.
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Figure 9: Stock/Requirements List After a Reservation Has Been Created
Adding a reservation and
running MRP for this material
changes the Stock
Requirements list.
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The effects of this on the Periodic Total display can be seen in Figure 10.
The reservation was taken into account, as well as the forecast demand. This meant that the system (MRP) predicted that the statistical number of days of cover-age on 4/13 was 2.4. Thus, any further decrement will cause the 2-day limit to be breached. Accordingly, it created a requisition for 4/15, to ensure that this will not occur.
Safety Stock
At the beginning of this article, I mentioned briefly that it is possible to use Dynamic Safety Stock as well as safety stock set in the Material Master MRP view. If this is done, the safety stock acts as a minimum stock level that cannot be breached, regardless of daily aver-age requirements. It is only advisable to use the two in tandem where you wish to generally maintain a safety stock based on average consumption, but are aware that there can be occasional spikes in demand that may exceed the DSS determined, required minimum stock levels.
Conclusion
By constantly calculating and re-calculating the rela-tionship between your consumption and your safety stock levels as described in the article, you have ensured that your customer service level specifications are met, while holding on hand only the minimum amount of inventory required to meet those commitments. This
process of specifying a number of days in which a material must still be avail-able to cover requirements is not foolproof, nor guaranteed to always prevent a stock-out situation from ever occur-ring. It is, however, the way to increase stock turns and reduce dead stock – all the while actively considering replenishment lead time and consumption in the period since you last ran MRP. In my opinion, if there is any degree of constancy in your usage of any material, this is the replenishment/safety stocking strategy most likely to ensure inventory cost reduction goals are met, with the lowest potential rate of occurrence for customer service issues. Because it is so flexible, and re-calculated so often, it is common to test and confirm the optimal Range of Coverage to be assigned to any material. MRP can be run and re-run until you are sure you have selected the best number of days of coverage your sup-ply chain allows. Once tried, the available alternatives seem unwieldy and cumbersome by comparison. Adam Tysman is a former long-term SAP America
Senior MM Consultant. He has many years of experi-ence improving, implementing, and supporting SAP sys-tems across multiple countries in a variety of industries.
This has included working for SAP in Germany and in the UK. Adam and his colleagues specialize in helping clients reap the benefits of untapped functionality lying latent within their existing SAP investments. You may contact the author at [email protected]. Be sure to mention the author’s name and/or the article title.
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Editor’s Note: What’s thedifference between house cats and SAP CATS? Well, one is user friendly. All kidding aside, CATS, Cross Application Time Sheet, is a nifty tool for tracking employee time across differ-ent application modules in SAP. Satish Badgi walks us through the steps to con-figure and adjust the front end of this tool, in order to maximize usability.
Introduction The Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS) tool in SAP is popular and widely used due to its user-friendly functionality. CATS’
func-tionality and ease of use have remained constant from version 4.7 through to ECC 6 versions. CATS is a data entry tool to enter time data for employees. As the term “cross application” suggests, the data entered
through CATS reaches different application modules in the SAP environment.
This data is used and evaluated in different SAP modules. SAP has provided a simple and straightforward, configurable data entry pro-file for adjusting the CATS front end to sup-port your organization’s requirements. CATS is also used in the Employee Self Service (ESS) tool, and the data entry profile can be rolled out as a Web-based tool to employees. The purpose of this article is to understand the ease of configuring/adjusting the front end.
Types of User Interfaces
Before, we get to the details of the CATS tool, let’s list the available SAP interfaces for CATS. The table in Figure 1 offers a brief description of each of these interfaces.
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Figure 2 shows the different CATS transactions avail-able from the SAP Application menu. These CATS transactions are as listed in Figure 1 earlier.
Cool CATS:
Simple Configuration of SAP
®’s Cross Application Time Sheet
By Satish Badgi, SAP HR Consultant
Figure 1: Types of CATS Interfaces
Type of CATS interface SAP Transaction Description
CATS Classic CAT2 This user interface is meant for users who require
a simple interface to enter time data for multiple employees.
CATS Regular CAT3 It is very similar to CATS classic and can also
be used through Employee Self Service (ESS) application using a Web browser.
CATS – Web CAT3 It is a version of CATS classic rolled out through
Web.
CATS for Service Providers CATSXT This interface provides an alternative to CATS
Classic and CATS Regular, especially for service-based industries and is integrated with the MM-Ext-Serv module in SAP.
CATS - Mobile Off-line using This is suitable for employees who want to use it
mobile computing as an offline data entry tool from laptops that
are not always connected to the system.
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Before we get to the discus-sion of configuring the user interface, let’s run the CAT2 or CAT3 transaction, to look at the interface. Figures 3 and 4 demonstrate the use of these transactions. Using a data entry profile that is available from the drop-down list (Figure 3, Data Entry Profile field), users can select an available profile. Later in this article, we will learn to configure this profile. When you use a particular profile, you may want to expand the columns dis-played, as shown in Figure 4. This screen, and the associat-ed columns, can be configurassociat-ed for the data entry profile. The columns in Figure 4 refer to each day of the week for the month of February. The users will be able to enter hours, by the day, in this profile. We will now discuss customizing settings for the data entry profile.
Customizing Settings for Data Entry Profiles SAP has a couple of sample data entry profiles out of the box. When you use the drop-down list (Figure 3) for the first time (before configura-tion), you may see one or two sample profiles. When we use the term “profile” – we are referring to the various fields, columns, and structures of the CATS data entry screen. Fig-ure 5 shows the IMG path for CATS configuration. These settings are for a specific type of CATS transactions. Earlier,
in Figure 1, we discussed the different types of CATS as well as the specific configuration, which is accessed from the menu path (as shown in Figure 5).
Figure 3: CAT2 Data Entry
Figure 4: CAT2 Data Entry Columns
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Similar to Figure 6, Figure 7 shows the configu-ration option for all different types of CATS. You will notice that, you can set up data entry profiles for any of the CATS user interfaces. Creating a CATS Profile
Following are simple steps for creating a CATS data entry profile in SAP.
Step 1 – Creating and maintaining data entry profiles: Figure 6 shows the IMG path for main-taining data entry profiles.
Step 2 – As shown in Figure 8, use the “New Entries” button to create a new data entry pro-file. Some of the delivered (or pre-configured) data entry profiles are seen in Figure 7. You can also use the standard SAP “Copy” functional-ity to copy from the existing profile, and then modify it. The profile has an alphanumeric name followed by text as shown in Figure 8.
Figure 6: IMG Path for Creating Data Entry Profiles
Figure 7: Configuration for Different Types of CATS
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Step 3 – Use the “Maintain general set-tings” option for the new profile. In Figure 9, “Ztest” is the name of the new profile. General settings allow you to maintain: • Clock time settings (Example: capture
hours directly, or start/end times) • Totals
• Release controls – after the user saves the time data entry
• Display of workdays only
Step 4 – The “Time settings” option as shown in Figure 9 allows you to maintain: • Decisions about the first day of the week.
Example- Sunday being the first day or Monday being the first day
• Period – Weekly time entry or bi-weekly time entry
Step 5 – The “Person selection” as shown in Figure 9 allows you to control:
• One person at a time or
• Multiple persons/organization units. Example: Situ-ations where one department’s assistant enters time data for all people in that department.
Step 6 – The “Approval” controls in CATS as shown in Figure 9 dictates whether the time sheets need manage-rial approval before posting to different SAP application components.
The Profile Maintenance screen continues with more details as you scroll down. I have divided the figures in multiples: Figures 9, 10, and 11 demonstrate all the functionality. However, all three figures are part of the same SAP screen in Profile Maintenance.
Step 7 – Workflow control (Figure 10) helps you to trigger notifications between employee and manager. Step 8 – Cost Accounting Variant (Figure 10) decides the receiving and sending cost center posting controls. Step 9 – Default values (Figure 10) for fields help you to pre-populate the fields in the data entry screen. The
absence and attendance type field is always the most useful in these settings.
Step 10 – Worklist settings (Figure 11) can help improve the data entry productivity and helps you to “customize” the worklists. We will discuss worklist setup later.
Step 11 – Data entry checks, shown in Figure 11, allow you to:
• Display Warning/Error for absence and attendance collisions (Example – trying to enter absence and attendance for same period)
• Tolerance and warning or error reaction to tolerance Step 12 – Quota control (Figure 11) allows controlling warning/error messages in case you choose to use atten-dance/absence quotas.
The CATS profile screen is pretty long, and you need to continue to scroll down to get the fill view. For the
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pose of this article, I have broken the screens in multiple screen shots to make sure that we cover all the fields. Figure 10 continues from Figure 9 with more fields.
Similar to Figure 10, Figure 11 continues with the profile.
We will now move to the screen controls and learn about adjusting the columns. Earlier in Figure 4, we saw the columns for the CATS sheet. We can configure those columns very easily. Let’s review the configuration. Configuring CATS Profile/Creation of Personal Template
Figure 7 shows the menu path CATS Regular‡Set Up Data Entry Profile and Field Selection. Using this menu path, you can get to the screen shown in Figure 12. If you follow the three options – Settings, Worklist, and Data Entry respectively, you will get to the screens shown in Figures 13, 14, and 15, respectively. Figure 13 has a list of the modifiable fields on the left-hand side and choice of Input/Required/Display/Hide options on right. The fields’ behavior can be configured based on the button on/off.
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Figure 10: Maintaining Settings for New Profile- 2
Figure 11: Maintaining Settings for New Profile- 3
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Figure 14 refers to the worklist and since all the fields in worklist are “Input” enabled due to the button settings, the worklist will be able to capture the fields in input mode. Figure 15 follows a similar concept as Figure 13 and 14; however, it is related to data entry control and you can make some fields mandatory for users to fill in, while some others can be hidden.
We mentioned “worklists” earlier in this article. A Worklist is a screen area of the Data Entry screen, and can be configured using the field selections. By using the “hide”
Figure 13: Settings
Figure 14: Worklist Management
Figure 15: Data Entry Section Control
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column from the fields, many unwanted fields can be hidden. This helps users to create a simplified time sheet entry format. The columns for the time data entry in the Time Sheet screen (Figure 4) can be configured very easily, using these settings.
A Few Words on Mobile CATS
CATS Notebook, or as some users refer to it, “CATS Mobile”, is a version of CATS that can be used off-line, away from SAP, using laptop computers. Subsequently, the data is uploaded to SAP. The upload is handled by Mobile Time Sheet when the notebook is connected with the SAP system. The configuration of the CATS Notebook data entry profile is slightly different from the regular CATS configuration (used in back-end SAP).
Follow the configuration menu path shown in Figure 7, “Set up Field Selections”, and you will get to the screen as shown in Figure 16. In this figure, you can see that I created a new Field Selection attribute and named it “Test”.
I also set up the “Field Customizing” option (from the left-hand area of the menu in Figure 16) to do the fields selection. Refer to Figure 17 for this step.
Using the “Select Fields” button, you can select the fields and populate the Field Customizing list in the screen. The concept is very similar to regular CATS, but the configuration “look and feel” is slightly different. SAP’s standard help (http://help.sap.com) will assist you in further exploring the topic on the actual use of CATS, as well as overall application functionality. Conclusion
CATS is a very simple tool to capture the time data entry by employees or by HR department users. Due to many available user interfaces, SAP has ensured that you can use CATS either through back-end SAP, using SAPGui, the Web, or an off-line entry tool for laptops.
The classic industry issues around labor cost-tracking can be easily addressed using CATS implementation. In addition, I am sure you have noticed that the con-figuration of the Data Entry Profile and Fields Selection screen is very straightforward. This configuration allows us to roll out simple formats to the users, resulting in faster data entry and improved productivity.
Satish Badgi, SAP HR Expert. Satish is a senior consul-tant with specialization in SAP HR and Payroll. He has over ten years of experience implementing and support-ing SAP systems across multiple countries in a variety of industries. In his recent engagements, Satish has been involved with implementing SAP HR, Payroll, and Benefits systems in complex environments and
integrating them with Finance, Costing, and Funds Management. You may contact the author at
[email protected]. Be sure to mention the author’s name and/or the article title.
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Figure 16: CATS Notebook Fields Selection
Figure 17: Field Selection for CATS Notebook
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• Creating or Changing a Purchasing Document • Performing a Goods Movement or Invoice Receipt This article will show the configuration necessary to activate the structures, run a standard analysis, create an exception analysis, create and run a flexible analysis, and set up “early watch”.
The main structures you will use for Purchasing and Inventory Management are:
S011 – Purchasing Group S012 – Purchasing S031 – Movements S032 – Stocks
The main structures used for Sales and Distribution are: S001 – Customer
S003 – Sales Organization
Configuration
To verify LIS is activated for the module for which you plan to use it, go to the IMG and navigate to:
Logistics – General‡Logistics Information System‡Logistics Data Warehouse‡Updating‡ Updating Control‡Settings:(Module) ‡Update Group‡Assign Update Group at ** where ** is the area to be activated, like the item category, order type, purchasing group, etc.
Editor’s Note: Who doesn’t love a heads up? If you’re
not familiar with SAP’s Logistic Information System, it’s time to get on board. In addition to an oft-overlooked, yet useful analysis tool, it also provides an Early Warn-ing System to let you know when your parameters are outside of the acceptable limits you set. Jocelyn Hayes takes you through the configuration steps.
Overview
The Logistics Information System (LIS) can be used for Materials Management (Purchasing and Inventory Man-agement), Sales and Distribution, Production Planning (Shop Floor), Plant Maintenance, and Quality Manage-ment reporting and analysis. The tool, once learned, is relatively easy to use and can be quite useful for analy-sis and reporting. You can use the tool to evaluate actual data and create planning data.
It also provides an Early Warning System where you can set up parameters to “watch”, and send alerts if a parameter is outside the acceptable limits.
All versions of SAP R/3 and ECC have the LIS tool. However, SAP is not updating or enhancing this tool because they are driving their customers to using BI solutions like Business Explorer (BEx). But there are still many companies that can benefit from using LIS. LIS must be activated in your system to be used, and this is done through configuration. Some modules come pre-configured as activated, and some you must acti-vate. For example, the Sales Information System is not activated, while the Purchasing Information System is activated. Once activated, data will be passed to the structures (like tables) that hold the data until you run an analysis on it.
Note: If LIS is not activated, the structures do not get populated, and there is no way to go back to retroac-tively populate the tables (to get historical information). Therefore, if you plan to use LIS, and you are getting ready to go live, it is suggested you validate that the LIS components you wish to use are activated.
Some of the events that cause the update to occur, include:
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Overview of the Logistics Information System
By Jocelyn Hayes, SAPtips Director of Consulting and Training
There are
still many companies that can
benefit from using LIS.
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The example shown in Fig-ure 1 is for Sales, at Header Level. You will notice that in this system, the first two entries have blank entries for Sales Org, Distribution Channel, and Division. This sets up the defaults for Cus-tomer Statistics Group and the Statistics Group for the sales document type. The Customer Statistics Group is used to control the update of information relevant to the customer. Other statistics groups can be based on Item Category, Sales Document Type, and Material.
You also assign the Cus-tomer Statistics Group in the customer master, as shown in Figure 2. It is done simi-larly in the Material Master record.
To define updating for the Item Cateogry and Order Type, you go to the IMG path:
Logistics – General‡Logistics Information
System‡Logistics Data Warehouse‡Updating‡Updat ing Control‡Settings: Sales‡Statistics Groups‡Assign Statistics Groups for Each Sales Document Type (or Item Category)
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Figure 1: Configuration of Updating Sales Document Header
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Configuration for the Purchasing Infor-mation System is different than that for the Sales Information System. It does not require you to configure the Statistics Groups and assign them to document or item types. You simply either turn it on or off by assigning Update Group “SAP” to turn it on, or leave it blank to turn it off in the Item Categories and PO Types, as shown in Figures 3 and 4. If the field shows “SAP”, it is turned on. If the field is left blank, it is turned off.
To check your configuration, run the Check Assignments transactions that are available for each module in the IMG. They can be found in the same location where you configure the Update Group. Standard Analysis
Standard Analysis allows you to use the standard info structures for reporting and analysis. The data can be formatted and drilled into many different ways. It is also possible to save an analysis, and review it in the future for historical comparison purposes.
The common Info Structures used in Purchasing and Sales were provided in the overview of this article.
To see the “data basis” or data included in the structure, navigate to the IMG, and follow the menu path:
Logistics – General‡Logistics Infor-mation System (LIS) ‡Logistics Data Warehouse‡Data Basis‡
Information Structures‡Maintain Self-Defined Information
Structures or Transaction MC23. In this example, we will look at Info Structure S012 – Purchasing. Figure 5 shows the Info Structure. On this screen shot, you can see the application to which the Info Structure belongs (02), the Characteristics, and the Key Figures. When you run an analysis against this Info Structure, the Characteristics will represent the reporting areas that you can drill down into. The Key Figures are
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Figure 3: Configuration for Purchasing Item Categories
Figure 4: Configuration for Purchasing Document Types
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the values calculated for the Characteristics.
Note: It is also possible to create your own Info Structures. It is easiest to copy from an existing Info Structure. All Info Structures between S500 and S999 are custom info structures. To run a Standard Analysis, follow the path:
Logistics‡Logistics Controlling‡Purchasing Information System‡ Material or Transaction Code MCE7
Note: You can do this for the Sales Information System as well, but this is for illustra-tion purposes.
Enter your selection criteria and execute the transac-tion. Figure 6 shows the analysis screen.
If you click on “Switch drilldown”, and select Material Group, you can see that the Characteristic has changed to Material Group (Figure 7), but you have not drilled into the Vendor, in addition to the Material Group. Try switching the drill-down back to Vendor, then double-click on Vendor. It takes you to the data for that Vendor only, and into the Period (month).
Each Standard Analysis is set up with a specific drill-down path (when you double-click on the characteris-tic), but you can use the “Switch drilldown” function to avoid limiting your characteristic selection.
Other options on this screen are shown in Figure 8:
Using Settings from the menu path, you can change the currency, the value display (percent or absolute), whether the analysis shows the characteristic descrip-tion and/or number assignment, and the column width. You can also save some of these settings.
Note: When you exit the analysis, you will be asked if you would like to save your analysis. You can save your analysis as a “‘Selection Version” and view it later. Think of it as a “snapshot” at the time of the analysis you have just run. You can also schedule your analysis to run and save the results as a selection version to be viewed later, or sent to a distribution list. This is very helpful if you have a large analysis, with a long runtime, that has multiple viewers. You can schedule it during night hours and have it sent to a distribution list. Creating an Exception
The Early Warning System provided with LIS allows you to define an exception that will generate a warning. The exception can be run on an “as needed basis”, or scheduled with a background job, and sent to a desig-nated recipient or distribution list.
When you define the exception, you select an info structure for the exception to be run against. Then, you select characteristics for the exception. You assign requirements (to the characteristics) that represent the level at which the exception is flagged. You can also set up follow-up processing, such as sending an email or transferring a task to Workflow.
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Figure 6: Standard Analysis for Material – MCE7
Figure 7: MCE7 Switching Drilldown to Material Group
Figure 8: Additional MCE7 Screen Options
Icon To Do This
To change the analysis currency
To send the analysis via SAP Mail
To save to a PC file, like to Excel
To switch to another Info Structure
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You can run either a Standard Analysis with an exception, or an Exception Analysis. When you run the Exception Analysis, you will only see the data for which the exception requirement situation applies.
To create an exception, follow the menu path:
Logistics‡Logistics
Controlling‡Purchasing Infor-mation System‡Early Warning
System‡Exception‡Create or use Transaction MC/E. You will provide the following information when creat-ing the exception:
1. Name and description for your exception
2. Characteristics which are the “levels” at which the key figures are calculated
Note: When selecting the characteristics, take note that they define the aggregation level where the aggregation occurs. The key figure check is at the lowest character-istic level. The sequence of the charactercharacter-istics selected determines the drill-down sequence when the analysis is executed.
3. Requirements that represent the threshold value that causes the exception (for example, a PO value over $1000)
Note: The Threshold value is calculated for the period for which the analysis is to run. So, if you are running the analysis for one month or three months, the excep-tion will be triggered if the TOTAL PO Value for the period is exceeded. If you select the “Separate Periods” checkbox, it will be carried out for each period.
4. Color coding for the exceptions in the analysis (high-lighting the exception lines in red, green, or yellow)
5. Follow-up processing, like sending the analysis to a user, distribution list, or workflow
Figure 9 displays a Standard Analysis with an exception to show all Vendors that have a PO Value over $1000 in the last period (in red).
Setting Up Early Warning
If you want to set up the Early Warning System excep-tion to run automatically, you have to create a Variant, and then schedule the Variant. Unlike other modules of SAP, the Variant is set up using a transaction called “Area to Analyze”. Follow these steps to create the vari-ant and schedule the analysis:
1. To create the variant, follow the menu path: Logistics‡Logistics Controlling‡Purchasing Infor-mation System‡Early Warning System‡Area to Analyze‡Create or Transaction Code MC/K
2. Enter the exception name, and select either System or Event driven as the type of analysis.
3. Enter the selection criteria if you wish to restrict the analysis.
4. Click on Variant Attributes, and save the variant. 5. Schedule the Variant, or Area to Analyze, by
fol-lowing the menu path: Logistics‡Logistics
Controlling‡Purchasing Information System‡Early Warning System‡Exception‡Create or Transaction Code MC/N
6. Enter the exception name and click Schedule.
7. Here, you can select to have it scheduled one time, or as a recurring batch job.
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Figure 9: Example Standard Analysis with Exception
The Threshold Value is calculated
for the period for
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ConclusionIn this article, we have presented a brief introduction of how to use Logistics Information System. Next time your business group requests a report, instead of turn-ing to your report writers or ABAP staff, take a stab at using LIS to meet the needs. You may need their assistance to add some fields into the info structures, but once you have your info structures built with the commonly used fields for your company, you have a very powerful tool that can be quite easy to use. Jocelyn Hayes, Director of Consulting and Training
for SAPtips, has over 11 years of SAP experience. She
has enjoyed a successful consulting career for a Big 4 firm as well as independently. Jocelyn’s focus primarily has involved the Logistics modules of SAP, and has also developed ESA Roadmaps using NetWeaver™ tools, including Visual Composer, XI, Enterprise Portal, and BI. She also led a CRM Business Process Reengineering project. You may contact the author at [email protected]. Be sure to mention the author’s name and/or the article title.
