Product Information
Backorder Processing in advanced ATP
What’s backorder processing?
Backorder Processing (BOP) is the mass processing of orders in batch mode, where order confirmations are changed to accommodate business priorities and changes in the demand/supply situation of your order fulfillment process.
Solution highlights
- Requirement segmentation, classification and prioritization by choosing from different confirmation strategies
- Sophisticated yet easy-to-use tool for requirement filtering
- Wide range of extensible, pre-delivered characteristics for filter definition
- Fallback variants for automated exception handling
- Monitor for checking processing status and final results
How to set up backorder processing
Each of the following apps allows you to configure a specific step prior to running backorder processing or to monitor the results of a completed backorder processing run:
Segments in backorder processing are used to define the filter criteria for selecting requirements and sorting them accordingly. A filter can consist of inclusion as well as exclusion conditions and can be configured to use relative date operators to specify timeframes or dates relative to the filter execution timepoint. Furthermore, the app comes with a simulation capability to identify, prior to execution, exactly those requirements which would be filtered according to the segment’s definition.
If a sorting sequence that does not follow simple alphanumeric sorting is required, you can use the Custom BOP Sorting app to define it. The defined custom sort sequence can be used seamlessly within a segment.
Multiple segments can be defined and used within one or several variants, according to your business needs.The variant defines how the requirements selected by the segments are combined and checked in the run.
It is possible to assign a segment to one of six confirmation strategies – Win, Gain, Redistribute, Improve, Fill, Lose – each serving a specific purpose. Confirmation strategy Redistribute, for example, allows the redistribution of confirmations according to the requirements sorting within that strategy. An optional global segment can be defined to restrict the selection of the entire variant.
Assigning multiple segments to a single confirmation strategy can help you achieve a segmentation of requirements including their own sorting.
The confirmation strategies Win and Gain can be used for the most important requirements which must be confirmed fully (Win) or whose previous confirmation (Gain) may, at the very least, not be worsened. If the availability situation prevents this, the run ends with an exception. Exceptions can be handled automatically by assigning a fallback variant to ensure that customer promises can be fulfilled: the fallback variant may, for example, include further requirements which may grab confirmations from similar stock transport orders or other customer orders which are of lower priority.
For more details on confirmation strategies and how they can help you to prioritize requirements further, see https://help.sap.com/viewer/32da8359c8ee4e8b8e8c5e15cacba5aa/latest/en-US/1ba3a457ef816b10e10000000a441470.html
After the variant is configure and saved, it can be run directly in simulative or non-simulative mode.If the variant is to be scheduled on a regular basis (for example, once a day), the Schedule BOP Run app can be used.
How to find the results of backorder processing runs
Once a backorder processing run has started, it can be monitored in the Monitor BOP Run app. The app displays the processing status (for example, Completed, Processing Issues, No Processing Issues, Confirmation Re-calculation) as well as general information such as the number of processed requirements and the overall confirmation rate. In addition, you can drill down into the requirements and see how confirmations have changed within the run.
Additional Information
For more information about Backorder Processing (BOP), including examples, see https://help.sap.com/viewer/32da8359c8ee4e8b8e8c5e15cacba5aa/latest/en-US/2a7db74efff042beae7185a6ddf8f9d7.html.
Micro learnings for Backorder Processing (BOP) are also available at https://microlearning.opensap.com/.
Hi Andreas,
Nice document,
I have these questions about some GATP functions that I don't see in aATP and I would like to know if they are part of the roadmap.
Hope you can help with those queries,
Best,
--
Angel
Hi Angel,
thanks for your questions. Let me answre two out of 3 questions.
Regards,
Andreas
Hi Andreas,
First of all, thanks for the wonderful document.
We have implemented Backorder processing in aATP . The BOP sorting was done on Sold to Party which means we want to prioritize specific customer orders. The scenario worked fine until we activated PAL functionality.
Now, the Sales order confirmation is not happening based on customer base. We have the below mentioned scenario:
Sales Order 1 is created for Customer A which has no. 2 priority in BOP sorting and the confirmation is done at the time of SO creation only.
Sales Order 2 is created for customer 2 which has no.1 priority in BOP sorting and the partial confirmation is done for the remaining stock material.
When we run the BOP, system should be able to confirm SO2 for the whole quantity and SO1 should be partially confirmed.
But this is not happening. Please guide if we are missing something.
BR,
Biswaranjan
I think there is a kind of duplicate -> https://answers.sap.com/questions/13587177/configure-bop-sorting-issue.html
Hello,
Is it possible, when using redistribute strategy, to split quantity equally for all PO's falling into given segment ? E.g. I have 210 PC on stock and 3 PO's for 300 quantity in total (3x100 PC). With redistribute strategy today, it gives 100 to the first PO, 100 to another, and 3rd one gets 0. For me more intuitive would be to serve 70 to every PO. Would that be in general possible ?
Hi Aleksander,
If I understand it correct, you would like to share the available stock/supply over the STOs (with PO I think you refer to STOs, correct?). This functionality is on the roadmap as so called Fair Share (LINK). As of today it is not possible.
Regards,
Andreas
Hi Andreas,
Yes, exactly. This is STO scenario. Fair Share sounds like the solution that I'm searching for. Nothing but waiting now for it.
Hi Andreas,
First of all, thanks for the wonderful document.
is it possible to link with app " Release delivery" to assign automatically the values to be delivered?
Hi Hamza,
a linkage between Backorder Processing and Release for Delivery is not possible.
Let me try to understand your requirement: Do you want to automatically create deliveries after the BOP run?
Regards,
Andreas