OCI -E Procurement – A Beginners Document

              OCI -E Procurement – A Beginners Document

Introduction :

More Often Buyers do buy the Products of the Catalogues Offered by the Vendors through the Portals of Vendors . The Idea of Procurement through the Web is made possible through SRM Prior ECC Release . Later On As a Central Component SAP has given the procurement Provision through ECC for the Web Buying .

This Feature Offers Buyers to create Purchase Requisition /POs through Catalogue selection for the Products and gives facility to select products through Quotes .

Buyers can see the Product Ranges of Different vendors and their prices in the Web and have choice to select and  Purchase .

This document will provide brief Idea over the Same .

The Process :

A Third Party based middle ware Web Portals Host the E catalogues of the Vendors and Facilitates for selection and Purchasing Document Creation and in turn to reach the Purchasing Document to the Vendors for supply .

SAPs Open Catalogues Interface (OCI ) is a B to B Mechanism through which Buyers Punch Out from SAP to enter into the Third Party Tool on Web for Vendors Product Selection .

E procurement can be done through various SAP applications modules like the Purchasing , and  Projects and  Maintenance and Repair .

OCI E- Procurement in SAP can be Explained broadly by the following subsections .

1. Configurational Settings needed for the Process
2. Application Usage
3. Third Party Tools Usage .

This document explains the needful steps for the E procurement through the Purchasing Modules .

1. Configurational Settings needed for the Process

Step 1 : SPRO–>Materials Management –>Purchasing ->Environment Data–>Web Services ID and Description

Here it has to be defined with a Technical Name and Description for the Web Service and then we have to define the  Parameters for Call structure .

The Web Service parameters include the Web URL and the Log In name and the password and the Other details .

Initially Create a Web Services Id with a Description

The Screen will be as Like this .

In the Next Step Enter the Call Structure Parameters .

Normally when there is Web there will be HTML Fields . They need to be mapped with SAP Fields

This can be done at the Path

SPRO–>Plant Maintenance and Customer Service –>Maintenance and Service Orders–>Interface Procurement Using Catalogues (OCI) –>Convert HTML Fields  to SAP Fields .

The field Conversion will be as follows .

Here we will provide the Equivalent field for the Catalogue Id You created .

If there is a Value for the HTML Field , Map the HTML Value and SAP Value

SPRO–>Plant Maintenance and Customer Service –>Maintenance and Service Orders–>Interface Procurement Using Catalogues (OCI) –>Convert HTML Fields  Values .

As a Next Step  OCI -Interface Conversion Modules be specified .

SPRO–>Plant Maintenance and Customer Service àMaintenance and Service Orders–>Interface Procurement Using Catalogues (OCI) –>Define Conversion Modules  .

These Conversion Modules Convert the data from the Catalogues into valid SAP Values

The below are the various standard Conversion modules available in the system .

IOCI_CONVERT_INFO_REC_W : Conversion of the catalog material number to an SAP material number in accordance with the purchasing info record.

IOCI_CONVERT_MPM_W : Conversion of the catalog material number into an SAP material number in accordance with the manufacturer number.

IOCI_CONVERT_OLD_MAT_NO_W: Convert to existing material number using the “old material number” field.

IOCI_DESCRIPTION_W: Transfer of the catalog material number and the description to the SAP field of the short text.

IOCI_LONGTEXT_W : Copying of the catalog long text to the material long text or the service long text

IOCI_EXAMPLE_W : Template for the customer-specific conversion module.

For Example purpose the above Function Module will convert Vendor , Material Group , Unit of Measure Etc .

Once the settings are Completed the application is ready for the OCI Usage .

    2.  Application

Creating a PR Using the OCI Catalogue

Transaction Code : ME51N

As soon as the settings are Completed , you can observe an Icon Ready for Usage After the Tab Default Values .

Upon Press system will lead to the Web Punching Out from SAP to the Catalogue site .

However through a User Exit and a Z Table we can limit the Usage of the sites with Plants to the Buyers when there exists number of Sites .

Below is the Screen shot when Punch Out from SAP and reaching the Catalogue site for selection

as the settings are Completed , you can observe an Icon Ready for Usage After the Tab Default Values.

Upon Press system will lead to the Web Punching Out from SAP to the Catalogue site .

However through a User Exit and a Z Table we can limit the Usage of the sites with Plants to the Buyers when there exists number of Sites .

Below is the Screen shot when Punch Out from SAP and reaching the Catalogue site for selection .

Here we can search the Suppliers and their Products and select the suppliers and Products and add to the Cart and Checking Out will lead to adding the Line Items into the PR .

Checking Out Will lead back to the Purchase Requisition screen with the added Items leaving behind to save the PR screen  to SAVE the PR .

Upon SAVE system will create a PR

Since the Source is already Mapped , we can convert the PR into a PO and can Transmit the PO to the Vendor .

The Rest of the Cycle of the MM will be as is like the Goods Receipt at MIGO and the Invoice at MIRO .

The Parts can be Procured through the Maintenance and Projects module too and the Interface works as said .

The Screens are reduced due to Third Party Limitation .

 3. Third Party Tool

Here the Third Party sites plays a major role in Gathering various Vendors Product Information and Converting them into an actual buying by the SAP Company and sending the Purchasing documents to the Vendors .

Conclusion :

Using the ECC environment , it has explained how the OCI environment can be used for web based procurement in a brief manner .

However whenever there is a change in the external sites in their content , it is recommended to Empty the Cache of the browsers else there is an every chance that the Brousing may get failed .