Objectives
Each release of SAP S/4HANA comes with lots of big and long-awaited features which are heavily advertised. And sometimes there are small things which are useful but tend to be a little less in the spotlight. Today I would like to draw your attention to one such feature, the integration of SAP Transportation Management (SAP TM) Freight Units and Freight Orders in the Sales Order document flow, which is available since SAP S/4HANA release 1909.
Document Flow in SAP TM
The document flow has always been an important part of SAP Transportation Management. Each TM document has a dedicated tab to help you understand how documents relate to each other. Examples for information which can be drawn from the document flow include:
- Which Purchase Orders resulted in the Freight Settlement Document you are looking at?
- Which Container Unit contains a certain Package Unit?
- Which Freight Order is my Railcar Unit assigned to?
Document Flow in Order to Cash
The Order to Cash component has known the document flow for even longer. There you can see at one glance if one or more deliveries have been created for a Sales Order or if goods issue has been posted. Of course, it may also be very important for any salesperson to find out very quickly how goods are transported to the customer. In the past this was handled by Shipment documents and these Shipments are visible in the Sales Order document flow as well. For transports planned in SAP TM, unfortunately this was not so smooth. The TM documents were visible on the sales order but in an independent document flow in the TM Status tab. This tab appears when a TM control key is found for a sales order like in the example in the screenshot below.
This TM Status tab does not only contain the document flow but also additional information, like the TM control key which controls the transfer to the TM component or transportation status information. By clicking on the document flow button, you can open the document flow, but admittedly it is a bit cumbersome to navigate and some of the information is redundant.
SAP TM documents in Sales Order document flow
In order to remedy this unsatisfying situation starting with the SAP S/4HANA release 1909 Freight Units and Freight Orders are integrated into the Sales Order document flow. This allows the salesclerk to have more information available on one screen. It is important to be aware the TM documents are part of Sales Order document flow at header level. Therefore, you have two options to access it.
- Via pushbutton from the VA02/03 selection screen. (option 1)
- From within the Sales Order navigate to the Sales Order header and open the document flow there. (option 2)
Option 1
Option 2
The document flow now is enriched with Freight Units and Freight Orders. In the example below you can see, based on the Sales Order three Freight Units were created and all were planned to the same Freight Order. Then one Logistics Execution Delivery was created based on the result of transportation planning and the Freight Units were reassigned from the Sales Order to the Delivery. The pushbutton “Display Document” can be used to open the TM documents in SAP Business Client in case you need to have a more detailed look.
Freight Order in SAP Business Client, opened directly from document flow
Transportation planning scenarios in Sales Order document flow
Now I would like to show some different SAP TM planning scenarios which can be represented in the Sales Order document flow. To that end for each scenario I have created screenshots from the TM component and from the Sales Order document flow so you can compare. The progress of transportation planning can be tracked via the document flow.
- After Freight Unit Building the Freight Unit created from the Sales Order is visible.
App “Edit Freight Unit”
Transaction VA02/03
- After planning the Freight Unit to a Freight Order this immediately becomes visible in the Sales Order document flow.
App “Edit Freight Unit”
Transaction VA02/03
- The same is true for the creation of the Delivery based on the transportation planning result.
App “Edit Freight Unit”
Transaction VA02/03
- The document flow also can display Freight Orders which are created directly during Freight Unit Building…
App “Edit Freight Unit”
Transaction VA02/03
- … and multiple Freight Units created from one Sales Order, planned to different Freight Orders and therefore reassigned to different deliveries. The case of multiple Freight Units planned to one Freight Order and therefore resulting in only one delivery you have already seen above.
App “Transportation Cockpit”
Transaction VA02/03
- Freight Unit stages are not displayed in the document flow. From this perspective a Freight Unit with consecutive stages, all planned to the same Freight Order looks like a Freight Unit with only one stage.
App “Transportation Cockpit”
Transaction VA02/03
- A Freight Unit with consecutive stages, all planned to different Freight Orders can also be displayed, although the order of the stages cannot be deduced.
App “Transportation Cockpit”
Transaction VA02/03
Conclusion
Although in the examples above only Road Freight Orders were used, the system also supports the display of Rail Freight Orders. I hope my blog has shed some light on this cool new feature which may have been a little overshadowed by some other developments from the SAP S/4HANA release 1909.
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