Sales Order Enhancement Series: Overview

Dear community members,

In the SAP ERP Enhancement Packages SAP provides lots of enhancements to simplify and speed up order entry using ERP based SD Sales Order.

This blog provides an overview about Sales Order Enhancements I was involved with, with useful links to further information.

All enhancements presented in this blog are generic and can be used by anyone who runs SAP ERP 6.0 with the corresponding Enhancement Package.

Enhanced Material Search with Creation (EhP2 and 5)

Altervative material search implemented in Sales Order that comprises a full-text index based search for materials.
Search results are shown with plenty of fields including vendor information.
Search results are further enriched with list price, customer price and purchasing price, as well as stock availability for own and selected plants.
In addition, a catalog search is integrated to search for supplier products (without material master).
New materials can be easily created out of the catalog search results, based on existing materials (as copy template, or from scratch.

From EhP5 the Enhanced Material Search also supports MM transactions. Usability improvements, generic features and a personalization option have been done as well. SAP Enterprise Search Framework is now supported as an alternative to the Search Engine Service. As a goodie customer specific funtions keys can be created to include further functions, actions, jumps to transactions, display images etc.
Customers using SAP for Retail as of EhP5 can use the Enhanced Material Search now in Seasonal Procurement transactions, have Generic article support, and can use PRICAT as a catalog management tool to create the catalog index out of PRICAT data. Several material creation and change options are offered for Retail customers: Simplified Material Creation (EhP2), but now also MM41/42, PRICAT, and Core Master Data Maintenance for Articles.

Implementation time = 1-2 days (without the supplier products catalog search though).

Find more information here:
– INFO KIT – Enhanced Material Search with Creation (link doesn’t work > send me an email)
– Blogs
– Enhanced Material Search with Creation – Part 1: Overview, Enrichment of Search Results with Prices and Stock Availability
– Enhanced Material Search with Creation – Part 2: Catalog Search for Supplier Products
– Handling Long Tail / Supplier Products in an SAP Order environment – Realization Concepts

– Enhanced Material Search with Creation – Part 3: How to further enhance the new search capabilities to my business?
– Enhanced Material Search with Creation – Part 4: How to create new Search Criteria w/o modification
– Enhanced Material Search with Creation – Part 5: Major improvements in Enhancement Package 5

– Developer’s Guide: Enabling Business Objects for Embedded Search (in case SAP Embedded Search is used)

– SAP Online Dokumentation for EhP2 to 4 and for EhP5

– Activated via Business Functions
– EhP2 to 4: SD_01
– EhP5+:
– LOG_MM_CI_3: for MM implementation
– LOG_SD_CI_02: for SD implementation
– ISR_RETAIL_ENH_MAT_SEARCH (for SAP Retail; activates MM and SD)

– ERP_ENTERPRISESEARCH (for optional use of SAP Embedded Search as Search Engine)

– OSS Components

– LO-GEN-EMF for Enhanced Material Search with Creation
– BC-TRX-SES for issues with Search Engine Service (from EhP2)
– BC-EIM-ESH for issues with SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Search (from EhP5)

Material View (EhP2)

The Material View provides a wealth of material and item information all consolidated on a single screen, thus allowing sales reps to answer customer questions faster than ever before.

The following information is shown:

– Basic Data, EAN, dimensions, basic data text, sales text
– Cross/Up-Downselling and alternative materials
– Regular vendor information with vendor contact, vendor material number and purchase price
– ATP stock information for selected plants
– List Price, customer price, discount, scale prices, price overview with history and future prices,
– Former sales orders of the customer ordering the very same material, showing order date, sales document number, order/delivery quantity, prices, discounts, margins

Implementation time = 30 min.

Find more information here:
– BlogSales Order Enhancement Series: The Material View
– Complete info kit
– SAP Online Documentation

– Activated via business functions
– EhP2 to 4: SD_01
– EhP5+: LOG_SD_CI_02

– OSS Component is LO-GEN-EMF

Full-text Customer Search (EhP4)

In sales order a new field for a full text customer search is provided. An unambiguous search result is taken directly to sold-to party field. For multiple results a popup is shown.

Implementation time = 5 min (yes, 5 min!).

Find more information here:
– Blog Full Text Search for Customers
– 1-Pager
– SAP Online Documentation
see “Full text search for customers in document header”
– Activated via business function LOG_SD_SIMP_02

Simplified Pricing Maintenance in Sales Order (EhP4)

This feature brings up to six selected conditions/subtotals to the sales tab or item overview tab of the sales order, eliminating the need to further navigate to the complex item conditions screen.

Implementation time = 30 min.

Find more information here:
– Blog Sales Order Enhancement Series: Simplified Price Maintenance using Predefined Price Elements
– Complete info kit (including SAP Tutor offline demo)
– SAP Online Documentation
see “Processing of predefined price elements in the item overview”
– Activated via business function LOG_SD_SIMP_02

Material Information (EhP5)

This feature provides a start screen to call either the Enhanced Material Search or the Material View without having the need to start a sales order. It is ideal for users who want to get consolidated information about a material/article for pure information purposes. Just call the transaction MATERIAL_INFO. Prerequisites are of course the proper implementation of the Enhanced Material Search and the Material View (see above).

Requires ERP 6.0 Enhancement Package 5 with implemented Material View and Enhanced Material Search.

Find more information here:
– BlogSales Order Enhancement Series: Material Info
– transaction code MATERIAL_INFO
– Activated via business functions
– EhP5:
– LOG_MM_CI_3: for MM implementation
– LOG_SD_CI_02: for SD implementaton
– ISR_RETAIL_ENH_MAT_SEARCH (for SAP Retail;
activates the MM and SD business functions above)
– OSS Component: LO-GEN-EMF

Advanced Returns Management (EhP4+6)

Learn how the high-performance features of the Advanced Returns Management solution of the SAP ERP application help businesses accommodate demanding customer expectations for straightforward returns policies. With greater efficiency in the returns process, companies save costs while providing transparency for their customers.

Implementation about 2-3 weeks due to complexity.

Find more information here:
– Customer Returns in English and German
– Supplier Returns in English and German
– SAP Online Documentation
– OSS Component LO-ARM
– Activated via business function OPS_ADVRETURNS_1

Additional ERP SD Enhancements

are found in the ERP-EHP section of the SAP Service Marketplace.

Best regards,

Dr. Ingo Woesner
Product Management – Multi Channel
SAP AG