Skip to Content
Product Information
Author's profile photo Michael Haase

Using standardized codes to find locations in SAP TM

Dear friends of SAP TM,

A user of a TM system, say a transportation manager or a dispatcher, regularly deals with locations. They’re a central part of transportation planning and are used in various TM documents like freight units, freight orders, freight bookings.

Sometimes, finding the right location can be a challenge when the user doesn’t know the technical name of a location. The identifier of a location has only 20 digits, leaving not too much room for meaningful names. And the location might have been generated or even a prefix or suffix has been used (as described in this blog post).

In all of that cases it’s of great help to assign standardized codes to a location. And this blog post now tells about the different codes that can be used in SAP S/4HANA.

Basically, the location master offers the possibility to assign the following four standardized codes to a location:

Those codes are in detail:

  • Global Location Number (GLN): This is a standardized 13 digit location code which consists of a company specific base number, a freely chosen location identifier and a check digit.
  • Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS): Numeric identifier assigned to a business entity.
  • UN/LOCODE: Five digit code administrated by the United Nations. The first two digits are the country whereas the remaining three digits identify a particular location.
  • IATA Code: The IATA airline code is administrated by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to identify airports with a three digit code.

Thereby, the UN/LOCODE and the IATA code can be maintained in customizing:

For using those codes to find locations, those are included in the search helps for the location.

As an example, see here the search help for the source location in a freight order:

I hope this helps you a bit in using the locations efficiently in SAP TM.

Any question or feedback is appreciated!

Best regards,

Michael

Assigned Tags

      2 Comments
      You must be Logged on to comment or reply to a post.
      Author's profile photo Razvan-Daniel Popa
      Razvan-Daniel Popa

      Hello Michael,

      Nice article although i have a question:

      Is there any way to upload the UN/LOCODE and IATA codes into the locations rather than manually adding them to each location?

      Thank you,

      Razvan

      Author's profile photo Michael Haase
      Michael Haase
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Razvan,

      Thanks for your feedback!

      The only possibility is to use a BAPI for a mass update of locations. But that of course also requires some logic around which itself requires a manual assignment of the codes to the locations.

      Best regards,

      Michael