Trigger creation of delivery documents in SAP TM

Dear friends of SAP TM,

In this blog post we will talk about the creation of delivery documents out of SAP TM, based on freight units. Especially when it comes to the creation of multiple delivery documents, it’s important to know how the freight units are grouped into respective deliveries. So, this blog post will give some insights on this topic, based on SAP TM embedded in SAP S/4HANA 2021.

Example scenario

Assume, you have an outbound scenario and you have created various sales orders. Those sales orders have been integrated with SAP TM, so respective freight units have been created and assigned to the sales orders. In SAP TM you will then do the transportation planning of the freight units. When this is done, you now want to create outbound delivery documents for your follow-on processing where the freight units are reassigned from the sales order to the outbound delivery document. The same holds also true for inbound scenarios where the freight units should be reassigned from a purchase order to an inbound delivery document.

Trigger delivery creation in TM by creating delivery proposals

Basically, delivery creation can be triggered in SAP TM in several ways:

• In the UI of TM documents like freight unit, freight order, freight booking, consignment order
• In the transportation cockpit
• With report /SCMTMS/DLV_BATCH

In any way, this will end up in the creation of a so-called delivery proposal. Roughly explained, the delivery proposal is a transient intermediate entity which captures a bunch of freight units of the same kind and is then send to LE for the creation of an actual delivery document.

And here, the most important part is how the freight units are grouped together in the delivery proposals.

Creation of delivery proposals

The following paradigms are followed when grouping the freight units into delivery proposals:

a) Delivery creation always happens based on freight units

Means…even if delivery creation is triggered from freight orders, freight bookings or consignment orders, the delivery proposals are built based on the assigned freight units.

b) Freight units will be grouped in the same delivery proposal, if at least first or last stop is planned and the transportation planning on first and last stop is the same, in case there is some.

c) If freight units are not planned yet on first and last stop, the delivery profile is considered.

Let’s get into detail, to make it more clear.

Consider transportation planning when grouping freight units

Regarding b), you could also say that freight units will always be transported together, if their source and destination is the same, no matter which intermediate stops are planned. And this holds also true in case either first or last stop is not planned yet.

See here some examples with several freight units planned differently:

As freight units 1 and 2 are on the same freight order for the first and last stage, they both end up in delivery 1. The planning of freight unit 2 on freight order 3 is not relevant as it’s for an intermediate stage.

Freight unit 3 has no planning yet for the last stage so it’s assigned to another delivery.

And as freight unit 4 is not planned at all, it’s assigned to another delivery.

Consider also delivery profile

Regarding c) we need to talk about the delivery profile. This profile can be maintained in Fiori Launchpad under ‘Profiles and Settings’ and looks like this:

In this context, the setting ‘Delivery Creation’ is important. It refers to the underlying order and it’s assigned freight units and it can have the following values:

• Per freight unit: Each freight unit will end up in a separate delivery proposal.
• Per order item: Freight units assigned to the same order item will end up in the same delivery proposal
• Per order: Freight units assigned to the same order will end up in the same delivery proposal

See here how the delivery profile is used for the creation of deliveries where unplanned freight units are still assigned to an exemplary sales order:

You can see delivery creation using the delivery profile and how the result would look like depending on the value for ‘Delivery Creation’.

So, those are the most important aspects when creating delivery proposals. Of course, there are some more things to be considered. But in case you wonder about how your delivery documents are built, this should capture quite a few of the common cases where doubts arise.

I’m happy to receive your feedback and comments!

Best regards,

Michael