In the 2008 release, SAP S/4HANA Cloud introduced Solution Order Management in response to market demand for a hybrid solution in which sales and service functions merge seamlessly. Solution Order Management helps customers grow their margins by transitioning away from selling individual products and services to providing bundled business solutions consisting of products, one-time services, and recurring service subscriptions. With the 2105 SAP S/4HANA Cloud release, we have broadened the scope of Solution Order Management, and in this blog, I’ll take you through a few of the key updates.
With each quarterly release, the business scope of Solution Order Management has been expanded to include new item categories. Supported item categories currently cover time, materials, procurement, and expenses items, but with 2105, we’ve expanded upon these with the addition of five new categories to support fix price service processes. This supports billing of service products which consist of several items without requiring sales confirmation for each individual item. These items will generate the corresponding service order’s fix price items after the solution order items are released. The following item categories are available in Solution Order from 2105:
With 2105, service contract items can be configured in Solution Order, enabling the creation of service contracts with the support of variant conditions based on variable attributes to determine the recurring price. The introduction of advanced variant configuration makes it possible to define characteristics and values of individually configurable service products directly from the Manage Solution Orders application UI. When adding service contract items to a solution order, you simply navigate to the configuration screen by clicking the tool icon. Then, select attributes of the service contract product to determine the value before releasing the configuration by clicking done. Releasing the configured item and saving the solution order triggers the creation of a follow-up service contract that contains the price and configuration information from the solution order.
With 2105, we have enabled credit memo requests for solution orders. It is now possible to make invoices with sales orders items, service orders items, service contracts items, and subscription items and use them to create credit memo requests. Once created, these will also be visible on solution order progress, giving a full overview of the solution order process.
The Solution Order Progress feature provides a visual representation of an entire solution order, with key data displayed on separate nodes. Of course, what counts as key data varies between customers, so with 2105, customers can now extend the nodes at both the header and the item level to display the data they need most. Customers can now choose to add fields that aren’t shown by default, but which exist in the underlying application using data sources extensions. Further to this, it is now possible to define and add custom fields using the Custom Fields & Logic app.
In the previous 2102 release, we expanded the scope of Solution Order Management to include subscription services via integration with SAP Subscription Billing. For the 2105 release, working with subscription billing items in Solution Order Management has been enhanced with several new features. The latest release brings greater flexibility, and it is now possible to make manual adjustments to subscription billing items directly within the solution order management application. Changes made to the terms of a subscription can overwrite the default terms from Subscription Billing if required, and similarly, subscriptions can be allowed to expire in the middle of a billing cycle. Under subscription item details, it was possible to view the default values of an item based on subscription billing. With 2105, under Pricing Parameters, it is now possible to enter a new value and apply it to the item.
Solution Order Management was previously aligned with Service in S/4HANA Cloud. To stay up to date with the latest Service updates, check out this Blog.
Fixed-price items for services enabled
With each quarterly release, the business scope of Solution Order Management has been expanded to include new item categories. Supported item categories currently cover time, materials, procurement, and expenses items, but with 2105, we’ve expanded upon these with the addition of five new categories to support fix price service processes. This supports billing of service products which consist of several items without requiring sales confirmation for each individual item. These items will generate the corresponding service order’s fix price items after the solution order items are released. The following item categories are available in Solution Order from 2105:
Configurable Products for Service Contract Items
With 2105, service contract items can be configured in Solution Order, enabling the creation of service contracts with the support of variant conditions based on variable attributes to determine the recurring price. The introduction of advanced variant configuration makes it possible to define characteristics and values of individually configurable service products directly from the Manage Solution Orders application UI. When adding service contract items to a solution order, you simply navigate to the configuration screen by clicking the tool icon. Then, select attributes of the service contract product to determine the value before releasing the configuration by clicking done. Releasing the configured item and saving the solution order triggers the creation of a follow-up service contract that contains the price and configuration information from the solution order.
Credit Memo Requests for Solution Orders
With 2105, we have enabled credit memo requests for solution orders. It is now possible to make invoices with sales orders items, service orders items, service contracts items, and subscription items and use them to create credit memo requests. Once created, these will also be visible on solution order progress, giving a full overview of the solution order process.
Extensibility of nodes in Solution Order Progress
The Solution Order Progress feature provides a visual representation of an entire solution order, with key data displayed on separate nodes. Of course, what counts as key data varies between customers, so with 2105, customers can now extend the nodes at both the header and the item level to display the data they need most. Customers can now choose to add fields that aren’t shown by default, but which exist in the underlying application using data sources extensions. Further to this, it is now possible to define and add custom fields using the Custom Fields & Logic app.
Integration to Subscription Billing
In the previous 2102 release, we expanded the scope of Solution Order Management to include subscription services via integration with SAP Subscription Billing. For the 2105 release, working with subscription billing items in Solution Order Management has been enhanced with several new features. The latest release brings greater flexibility, and it is now possible to make manual adjustments to subscription billing items directly within the solution order management application. Changes made to the terms of a subscription can overwrite the default terms from Subscription Billing if required, and similarly, subscriptions can be allowed to expire in the middle of a billing cycle. Under subscription item details, it was possible to view the default values of an item based on subscription billing. With 2105, under Pricing Parameters, it is now possible to enter a new value and apply it to the item.
Solution Order Management was previously aligned with Service in S/4HANA Cloud. To stay up to date with the latest Service updates, check out this Blog.
For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, check out the following links:
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud release info here
- Sven Denecken’s SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2105 Release Blog
- The Link Collection for Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management here
- Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management Community
- Latest SAP S/4HANA Cloud Release Blogs here
- Product videos on our SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA YouTube playlist
- Inside SAP S/4HANA Podcast here
- Best practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud here
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud Community: here
- Feature Scope Description here
- What’s New here
- Help Portal Product Page here
- Implementation Portal here
- SAP Managed Tags:
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