Sales processes which involve third parties are crucial to businesses throughout a great variety of industries, and often hold the key to driving increased revenues and profits through greater efficiencies and cost reductions. Managing these processes can be a challenge, particularly in the context of selling solutions instead of stand-alone products. With the 2111 release of SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Solution Order Management is updated with enhancements to the sales order, facilitating the sale of goods via third parties in solution orders. Below, we’ll look at this in more detail and check out a few further innovations from this release.
The highlights of the release are also explained in the video below, in case you’re short on time.
In the 2111 release, we’ve focused on enhancing the capabilities around the sales order item in solution orders. Until now, sales order items in solution orders supported only sell from stock scenarios – that is, the sale of an in-stock item from the solution order vendor directly to the end customer. We have identified a need for greater flexibility in solution orders, particularly in accommodating sales processes with third-party suppliers.
Third-party process support brings significant benefits to solution orders. Including these processes gives specialists greater flexibility and enables more efficiency when creating solution orders, through reducing stock and cost, and transferring customer requirements directly to external suppliers. With this release, we integrate three scope items into solution orders, each of which supports a different third-party sales process and is assigned a new item type category in solution order management.
Solution Order Orchestration has been enhanced to transfer the new item types from the solution order to the follow-up sales order. Furthermore, Solution Order Progress has also been updated to reflect these new additions and give a visualization of the process for each item type. View the below video to see how this looks in detail.
The next enhancement I want to highlight with the 2111 release is the new “Plant” field in sales items. With this feature, you can select a plant for individual sales items which is subsequently carried over to the sales orders that are created from the solution order. In solution order management, the plant can be specified via a field in the sales item view table, or in the shipping assignment block of the sales item details view. The simulation of sales order creation has been enhanced to validate the specified plant and apply a default plant if no plant is assigned.
With 2111 we have also added extensibility functionality for subscription items in solution orders by introducing a new Business Add-In (BAdI): CRMS4_SOLO_ORC_SB_SUBSC_MODIFY. You can use this BAdI to change the customer reference and the bill split element fields at the subscription header level.
Introduced with the 2108 release, the solution order profitability dashboard gives a visualization of the performance of solution orders. It provides comprehensive filtering and drill-down functionality for in-depth analysis and ensures rich insights into solution order performance can be obtained. With 2111, the solution order profitability dashboard has been enhanced with some more great features.
Firstly, on the Overview page, you can view and filter solution orders over various criteria to monitor their performance. In 2111, we have added a chart that displays the profitability of solution order item types over time. You can adapt the time period displayed as required for a more specific analysis. This can help you identify phases of peak demand for particular Solution Order Items, for example.
The second addition in 2111 is the Solution Order List page. Here, at a glance, the number of released solution orders is displayed alongside the number still in execution, that is – those which are open, released, or in process. All solution orders are displayed in a list format, enabling you to filter and sort solution orders based on criteria such as net value, recognized revenue, or profit margin, for example.
The profitability page was also introduced in 2108 and gives an in-depth insight into individual solution orders and their constituent items. With 2111, we expand this page to include the solution order items details list, which enables sales managers to sort and filter on the items of the solution order based on KPIs such as recognized revenue, net value or recognized cost.
Within this brochure, you will find a 45-minute replay as well as presentation and demos for Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management as part of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2111 Release. This online session was held with 16 other sessions on diverse topics like Manufacturing, Finance, Solution Order Management, Sales, Sourcing and Procurement, and much more. For more information on the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Early Release Series, please check out this link.
The highlights of the release are also explained in the video below, in case you’re short on time.
Third-Party Sales Process Support
In the 2111 release, we’ve focused on enhancing the capabilities around the sales order item in solution orders. Until now, sales order items in solution orders supported only sell from stock scenarios – that is, the sale of an in-stock item from the solution order vendor directly to the end customer. We have identified a need for greater flexibility in solution orders, particularly in accommodating sales processes with third-party suppliers.
Third-party process support brings significant benefits to solution orders. Including these processes gives specialists greater flexibility and enables more efficiency when creating solution orders, through reducing stock and cost, and transferring customer requirements directly to external suppliers. With this release, we integrate three scope items into solution orders, each of which supports a different third-party sales process and is assigned a new item type category in solution order management.
- New item type SOS1 represents third-party sales processes enabled by scope item BD3. This supports the forwarding of customer orders to third-party vendors who ship the goods directly to the end customers and then bill them directly. The standard sales order automatically creates a purchase requisition for the materials to be delivered by third-party vendors.
- Item type SOS2 supports scope item BDK, which enables the automatic creation of a purchase requisition for the materials to be delivered by a third-party supplier, but in this process, no shipping notification is received and the incoming invoice from the supplier updates the billing amount.
- Item type SOS3 supports order-specific procurement via scope item BDN. This enables the selling of non-stock items which must be procured from an external supplier. During sales order creation, a purchase requisition is generated and converted into a purchase order for the supplier.
Solution Order Orchestration has been enhanced to transfer the new item types from the solution order to the follow-up sales order. Furthermore, Solution Order Progress has also been updated to reflect these new additions and give a visualization of the process for each item type. View the below video to see how this looks in detail.
Selection of Plants in Sales Items
The next enhancement I want to highlight with the 2111 release is the new “Plant” field in sales items. With this feature, you can select a plant for individual sales items which is subsequently carried over to the sales orders that are created from the solution order. In solution order management, the plant can be specified via a field in the sales item view table, or in the shipping assignment block of the sales item details view. The simulation of sales order creation has been enhanced to validate the specified plant and apply a default plant if no plant is assigned.
Field Extensibility for Subscriptions in Solution Orders
With 2111 we have also added extensibility functionality for subscription items in solution orders by introducing a new Business Add-In (BAdI): CRMS4_SOLO_ORC_SB_SUBSC_MODIFY. You can use this BAdI to change the customer reference and the bill split element fields at the subscription header level.
Solution Order Profitability Dashboard Updates
Introduced with the 2108 release, the solution order profitability dashboard gives a visualization of the performance of solution orders. It provides comprehensive filtering and drill-down functionality for in-depth analysis and ensures rich insights into solution order performance can be obtained. With 2111, the solution order profitability dashboard has been enhanced with some more great features.
Firstly, on the Overview page, you can view and filter solution orders over various criteria to monitor their performance. In 2111, we have added a chart that displays the profitability of solution order item types over time. You can adapt the time period displayed as required for a more specific analysis. This can help you identify phases of peak demand for particular Solution Order Items, for example.
The second addition in 2111 is the Solution Order List page. Here, at a glance, the number of released solution orders is displayed alongside the number still in execution, that is – those which are open, released, or in process. All solution orders are displayed in a list format, enabling you to filter and sort solution orders based on criteria such as net value, recognized revenue, or profit margin, for example.
The profitability page was also introduced in 2108 and gives an in-depth insight into individual solution orders and their constituent items. With 2111, we expand this page to include the solution order items details list, which enables sales managers to sort and filter on the items of the solution order based on KPIs such as recognized revenue, net value or recognized cost.
Are you interested in more details as part of our latest innovations? Check out our brand-new Early Release Series Brochure!
Within this brochure, you will find a 45-minute replay as well as presentation and demos for Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management as part of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2111 Release. This online session was held with 16 other sessions on diverse topics like Manufacturing, Finance, Solution Order Management, Sales, Sourcing and Procurement, and much more. For more information on the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Early Release Series, please check out this link.
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 2111 Release Blog
- 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
- SAP Managed Tags:
