SAP has released the first “Feature Pack Stack” (FPS), SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01 for the 2021 release, on February 23, 2022. This is the first in a sequence of FPS’s that will be delivered twice a year and introduce new optional capabilities. And once again, it comes up with a new set of capabilities bringing simplification, innovation, automation, analytics, and user experience to customers. In total, we delivered more than 75 innovations and enhancements in this FPS01!
In this blog, I will give you an expert view, from product experts to product experts, of some selected highlights of SAP’s first shipment of this year for SAP S/4HANA 2021, and its highlights across near all lines of business and industries. All these innovations will also be available for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition.
The blog is built as a series of 2 parts and present the key highlights for:
The picture below provides an overview of the key innovations that were shipped with SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01.
Picture 1: The highlights at a glance.
There have been many innovations for all the lines of business. In the following, I will go into details for selected Lines of Business.
Integrating General Ledger accounting and group reporting data directly, without first fetching the data from General Ledger accounting, has the following benefits:
With this integration, specific field data is no longer sent from General Ledger accounting to group reporting and back again. Instead, the data from these fields are available in General Ledger accounting for group reporting activities and can be used from there. Therefore, the integration of General Ledger accounting data allows for more efficient and faster use of the data.
The benefit here for the customer is very clear: Improved transparency and compliance, the establishment of a single closing experience for both local and group closing.
For more information concerning the configuration of this integration, see here.
With the SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01, we leverage SAP Intelligent Real Estate, the next generation of the SAP Real Estate Management application by adding new features.
Key highlights here are:
Enable Real Estate Objects for Use and Contract Management
To support lease-in scenarios, location management must be enabled for use before real estate objects can be assigned to a lease-in contract. Real estate objects here, refer to buildings, lands, or groups of spaces created within SAP Cloud for Real Estate.
When a real estate object is enabled for use, it (single or grouped objects) is synchronized with SAP S/4HANA and is simultaneously assigned to a company code, a cost object, and usage type. You can optionally assign other attributes (such as fixed assets assigned to the location) to the enabled group.
Once enabled for use, objects are available for assignment to a lease-in contract.
With the SAP Fiori app "Manage Occupancy of Real Estate Object", you can manage and maintain your occupancy groups.
This app provides the following key features:
Picture 2: With the SAP Fiori app "Manage Occupancy of Real Estate Object", you can manage and maintain your occupancy groups.
With the SAP Fiori app "Group Real Estate Object for Use", you can group your real estate objects (buildings, floors, spaces, land, land areas) for further steps in the enable use process.
This app provides the following key features:
Picture 3: With the SAP Fiori app "Group Real Estate Object for Occupancy", you can group your real estate objects (buildings, floors, spaces, land, land areas) for further steps in the occupancy process.
In central finance, environment documents are getting replicated from source systems to the central finance system. If a document cannot get posted, the pending posting is displayed in the error handling tool.
Sometimes resolving the root cause of the error can take time. With this innovation a temporary posting can be posted, e.g. for minor issues that do not affect external financial reporting.
Picture 3: Reduce the impact of missing documents that could not be posted because of errors, through interim stop-gap postings.
Using the app Manage Pending Journal Entries, you can display journal entries that have not yet been successfully posted to your Central Finance system and see the financial impact of the documents. You can choose to group the documents by company code and see totals in company code currency or by group currency. You can navigate to the journal entry in question and decide how to proceed.
Geographical Enablement Framework works as the foundation to extend business data with geometric attributes for SAP S/4HANA. As a framework leveraging the spatial capabilities inherent in SAP HANA, it enables organizations to develop geospatially enriched business data, and make them accessible from within SAP applications as well as external GIS (geographical information system) systems. The framework is being delivered with a standalone Spatial Explorer, Spatial Editor, and a template for the Business Partner business object as an example for spatially enabling other business objects.
Picture 4: Visualize the scope of the issue and the work of spatial data of the technical object that exists.
Now with this new release, the geographical framework for asset management – inherit spatial data from the following:
For more information about Geographical Enablement Framework, see here.
This feature will allow the user to see post-processing errors that are caused due to actual cost posting in the Find Maintenance Order and Operations application while posting the confirmation data.
Improved handling of mass-maintenance order-operation confirmation:
Picture 5: Increased usability due to better visualization errors related to confirmation data.
This app enables you to open project versions or simulation versions to visually analyze the project hierarchy and timelines. You can configure the chart to display the set of dates of your choice, set the level of expansion of the project tree, and add and remove attributes of the project objects to be displayed. You can also access detailed information about project objects by opening the side panels.
Picture 6: Improved user experience for project versions and simulation versions.
Key Features
You can use this app to do the following:
For more information about working with Project Schedule for Versions: Overview, see here.
To improve the process support for maintenance projects, this new release offers the option to include plant maintenance order-related information into the graphical visualization, and you find also additional information to the table and the side panel (for example, status, additional dates).
Below, you find the new enhancement related to the maintenance process:
Plant Maintenance Orders and Operations in Project Schedule
With this feature, you can now display plant maintenance orders assigned to activities as well as plant maintenance order operations in the Project Schedule app for Project System. You can view dates and other attributes of plant maintenance orders and operations, open side panels, and navigate to object pages or relevant applications.
Picture 7: Improved user experience for the Project Schedule App.
This SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01 enables you to run PEO side by side with an ERP system without having to upgrade the ERP system to a full SAP S/4HANA solution. In this integration scenario, you use the edition of SAP Digital Supply Chain Management for SAP S/4HANA to perform production engineering and operations, while performing all other processes in a separate system (either SAP ECC or a second SAP S/4HANA system). This allows you to innovate your manufacturing processes faster than the ERP business processes using a version of PEO that is more recent than your ERP system.
Picture 8: Innovate faster by using the latest release of SAP S/4HANA Manufacturing for production engineering and operations in combination with an existing ERP system.
Additional Details: For a detailed guide on how to run PEO side by side with your ERP system, see PEO Implementation Guide for SAP Digital Supply Chain Management, Edition for SAP S/4HANA.
In complex assembly, project management is used to manage the assembly of a complex product, the composition of which is specified by a multi-level BOM hierarchy. The BOM hierarchy and the project are independent of each other but are related business objects. The app Check Major Assembly Projects helps production engineers to align multi-level BOM structures and projects.
Key features coming with the new release:
For more information about complex assembly, see here.
With this feature, in the inbound process, you can set the warehouse processing status of the bill of lading or consignment order at the selected unloading point to Ready for Warehouse Processing using a radio frequency (RF) device. In the outbound process, you can set the loading status to “loading completed” at the current loading point using an RF device when you choose loading by delivery, bill of lading, or consignment orders.
Picture 9: Improve usability when using RF transactions.
For more information, see Loading and Unloading Using Radio Frequency.
In Advanced Shipping and Receiving, the system can perform a delivery split for an outbound delivery order after warehouse processing (picking, packing, staging) is completed. Now with this release, outbound delivery orders can be split automatically in the Advanced Shipping and Receiving process, either during load planning or after loading is completed. In addition, the Shipping Readiness status can be set automatically to 9 - Ready via report once warehouse execution is completed for outbound delivery orders.
Additional Details
You can schedule the report Automatically Set Status of Deliveries to Ready for Shipping (/SCWM/R_SET_DSH_STAT_AUTOMATIC) to run in the background, using criteria from the delivery documents or for a specific time frame. For more information, see Delivery Split for Outbound Delivery Orders in Advanced Shipping and Receiving.
With this feature, you can use Advanced Shipping and Receiving to manage communication between SAP S/4HANA components and SAP Global Trade Services (GTS). For SAP S/4HANA, this involves the TM and EWM components connecting with an external GTS system. This includes compliance-relevant checks for, for example, embargos or sanction party lists, and obtaining clearances such as unloading permits and customs clearance after approval of the export declaration.
Additional Details
The integration with SAP GTS in Advanced Shipping and Receiving is managed by Transportation Management. For more information, see Integration with SAP Global Trade Services in Transportation Management.
See also the post blog from florian.kuchta2 about SAP Extended Warehouse Management in SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01 – What’s New here
With the integration of Transportation Management into MRP Live, it is possible to benefit from improved performance and to execute the planning run in much shorter cycles. Thereby, it is a more up-to-date supply and demand information that is transformed into freight units, which can then be used for transportation planning in a faster way than was previously possible. With that, a faster reaction to demand changes reduces the risk of stockouts and leads to a reduction of safety stocks.
This feature enables you for shipper scenarios to plan multiple warehouses on one road freight order, it is also known as a multi-pickup and multi-drop scenario. The feature is part of the inbound and outbound processes in the integration of Transportation Management (TM) with Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) based on EWM transportation units (TUs). With multiple warehouses for picking up or dropping handling units, you can improve your planning.
In EWM, you have defined a warehouse with a shipping point to enable the multi-pickup and multi-drop scenario for the integration based on EWM TUs. In TM, the warehouse is represented as the main stop and can be used as the start or endpoint of a stage in the freight order.
For more information, see Multi-Pickup, Multi-Drop.
This feature enables you in external planning scenarios to find freight units that are assigned to a freight order by using the outbound delivery reference. In external planning scenarios, freight units are created in SAP S/4HANA Cloud and are sent for the planning of the freight orders to the external transportation management system of a carrier.
Sometimes a carrier does not have the freight unit ID. However, the carrier might have information about the predecessor documents, which include the outbound delivery. In such cases, the freight units can be searched by using the outbound delivery reference.
If the freight unit ID is known from the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI data), the generic inbound service for the freight order will also find the freight unit with the given freight unit ID, with priority.
With this release, we made several enhancements:
This feature enables you to plan the sourcing of items from an early stage to ensure timely procurement before the manufacturing process starts, to optimize the project planning, and reduce costs. You can seamlessly process the procurement of items/direct materials by integrating with SAP S/4HANA for procurement planning.
Picture 10: Enable sourcing of all direct materials according to the overall procurement project plan.
Additional Details
Sourcing managers can now receive data, such as planning-related information and item bundles, from SAP S/4HANA for procurement planning. They can maintain the automatically created sourcing projects. If item data is changed in SAP S/4HANA for procurement planning, the information is updated in the sourcing projects accordingly. As soon as a sourcing project is finalized and published, a notification about the relevant deadlines and timelines is automatically sent to SAP S/4HANA for procurement planning. After suppliers have submitted their quotations, the sourcing managers can award them and create the respective follow-on documents, and SAP S/4HANA for procurement planning is notified about the awarding.
For more information, see Integration with SAP S/4HANA for Procurement Planning
Start a new sourcing process with items from one or multiple central purchase contracts:)
This feature enables you as a sourcing manager to start a new sourcing process based on items that are included in one or multiple central purchase contracts.
Start a renegotiation with items from one or multiple central purchase contracts
This feature enables you as a sourcing manager to renegotiate items from one or multiple central purchase contracts.
For more information, see Manage Renegotiations (Central Purchase Contracts).
With SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01 release, we provide new analytic capabilities for:
Service orders: the Service Orders - Flexible Analysis app provided for customer service managers:
Service contracts: the Service Contracts - Flexible Analysis app available for customer service managers:
https://sapvideoa35699dc5.hana.ondemand.com/?entry_id=1_h2iz048z
Demo 1: Click here to watch the video and see how the service manager uses a flexible combination of dimensions to analyze service orders in SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01.
https://sapvideoa35699dc5.hana.ondemand.com/?entry_id=1_sfl44gul
Click here to watch the video and see how the service manager uses a flexible combination of dimensions to analyze service contracts in SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01.
For more information about the installation concerning SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01, see the blog series from Mahesh Sardesai here.
Thanks for reading this blog post. Stay tuned!
If you are also interested in the innovations delivered with SAP S/4HANA 2021, I would like to draw your attention to my link collection blog – The Link Collection
If you want to learn more and actively engage with SAP subject matter experts on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, join our SAP S/4HANA Cloud Customer Community. This platform which is available to SAP S/4HANA Cloud customers and partners has a clear mission: deliver an interactive community to engage with one another about best practices and product solutions.
For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA 2021, check out the following links:
Follow us via @Sap and #S4HANA, or myself via @VoglerChrist and LinkedIn
In this blog, I will give you an expert view, from product experts to product experts, of some selected highlights of SAP’s first shipment of this year for SAP S/4HANA 2021, and its highlights across near all lines of business and industries. All these innovations will also be available for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition.
The blog is built as a series of 2 parts and present the key highlights for:
- Part 1: Lines of business
- Part 2: Industries (coming soon)
The picture below provides an overview of the key innovations that were shipped with SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01.
Picture 1: The highlights at a glance.
There have been many innovations for all the lines of business. In the following, I will go into details for selected Lines of Business.
Finance
Corporate close: Tighter accounting integration with group reporting preparation ledgers
Integrating General Ledger accounting and group reporting data directly, without first fetching the data from General Ledger accounting, has the following benefits:
- You have early access to financial data with a high level of detail.
- You have access to the most recent data at any time, including the latest predictions based on logistics documents.
- You have the option to release only modified data (delta release) and thus, avoid full mode data releases, which slow performance.
- You can release data to special periods, which prevents data from special periods from being added to the last period.
With this integration, specific field data is no longer sent from General Ledger accounting to group reporting and back again. Instead, the data from these fields are available in General Ledger accounting for group reporting activities and can be used from there. Therefore, the integration of General Ledger accounting data allows for more efficient and faster use of the data.
The benefit here for the customer is very clear: Improved transparency and compliance, the establishment of a single closing experience for both local and group closing.
For more information concerning the configuration of this integration, see here.
Contract and Lease Management: SAP Intelligent Real Estate: centralized, simplified real-estate master-data management
With the SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01, we leverage SAP Intelligent Real Estate, the next generation of the SAP Real Estate Management application by adding new features.
Key highlights here are:
Enable Real Estate Objects for Use and Contract Management
To support lease-in scenarios, location management must be enabled for use before real estate objects can be assigned to a lease-in contract. Real estate objects here, refer to buildings, lands, or groups of spaces created within SAP Cloud for Real Estate.
When a real estate object is enabled for use, it (single or grouped objects) is synchronized with SAP S/4HANA and is simultaneously assigned to a company code, a cost object, and usage type. You can optionally assign other attributes (such as fixed assets assigned to the location) to the enabled group.
Once enabled for use, objects are available for assignment to a lease-in contract.
With the SAP Fiori app "Manage Occupancy of Real Estate Object", you can manage and maintain your occupancy groups.
This app provides the following key features:
- A new approach to display time-dependent data. The individual sections now feature an identifier to highlight whether or not the selected entry has been active in the past, is currently active or will become relevant in the future.
- Intent-based navigation to quickly access other apps with direct navigation to the relevant entry build-in.
- Adapt the user interface to customize fields, field labeling, and layout.
- Create your own app variants and make them accessible for end-users.
- Enabled variant management to define your own variants for tables.
- Embedded charts and graphs for data visualization.
- Enabled draft feature.
Picture 2: With the SAP Fiori app "Manage Occupancy of Real Estate Object", you can manage and maintain your occupancy groups.
With the SAP Fiori app "Group Real Estate Object for Use", you can group your real estate objects (buildings, floors, spaces, land, land areas) for further steps in the enable use process.
This app provides the following key features:
- Table to filter for real estate objects synchronized from SAP Cloud for Real Estate by key date, company code, type, and building/land in order to get an overview of the available objects dependent on the key date.
- Functionalities to either create a new group or assign the selected objects to an existing group directly from the list.
- The embedded chart to visualize the measurements.
- Intent-based navigation to quickly access other apps with direct navigation to the relevant entry build-in.
- Enabled variant management to define their own variants for tables.
Picture 3: With the SAP Fiori app "Group Real Estate Object for Occupancy", you can group your real estate objects (buildings, floors, spaces, land, land areas) for further steps in the occupancy process.
Financial Accounting: Posting of temporary documents for documents stuck in error handling
In central finance, environment documents are getting replicated from source systems to the central finance system. If a document cannot get posted, the pending posting is displayed in the error handling tool.
Sometimes resolving the root cause of the error can take time. With this innovation a temporary posting can be posted, e.g. for minor issues that do not affect external financial reporting.
Picture 3: Reduce the impact of missing documents that could not be posted because of errors, through interim stop-gap postings.
Using the app Manage Pending Journal Entries, you can display journal entries that have not yet been successfully posted to your Central Finance system and see the financial impact of the documents. You can choose to group the documents by company code and see totals in company code currency or by group currency. You can navigate to the journal entry in question and decide how to proceed.
Asset Management
Asset Spatial Enablement: Geographical enablement framework
Geographical Enablement Framework works as the foundation to extend business data with geometric attributes for SAP S/4HANA. As a framework leveraging the spatial capabilities inherent in SAP HANA, it enables organizations to develop geospatially enriched business data, and make them accessible from within SAP applications as well as external GIS (geographical information system) systems. The framework is being delivered with a standalone Spatial Explorer, Spatial Editor, and a template for the Business Partner business object as an example for spatially enabling other business objects.
Picture 4: Visualize the scope of the issue and the work of spatial data of the technical object that exists.
Now with this new release, the geographical framework for asset management – inherit spatial data from the following:
- Technical object to the maintenance notification and order
- Maintenance notification to the order
- Technical object to the maintenance notification and order for maintenance item calls
For more information about Geographical Enablement Framework, see here.
Maintenance Execution: Mass maintenance order confirmation – post-processing and data correction
This feature will allow the user to see post-processing errors that are caused due to actual cost posting in the Find Maintenance Order and Operations application while posting the confirmation data.
Improved handling of mass-maintenance order-operation confirmation:
- The ability for post-processing in case of confirmation errors based on termination conditions from confirmation configuration
- Support for data correction by providing download of erroneous confirmations only
- Improved visualization of confirmation data-related errors.
Picture 5: Increased usability due to better visualization errors related to confirmation data.
R&D/ Engineering / EPPM
Project Financials Control: New SAP Fiori app: Project Schedule for Versions
This app enables you to open project versions or simulation versions to visually analyze the project hierarchy and timelines. You can configure the chart to display the set of dates of your choice, set the level of expansion of the project tree, and add and remove attributes of the project objects to be displayed. You can also access detailed information about project objects by opening the side panels.
Picture 6: Improved user experience for project versions and simulation versions.
Key Features
You can use this app to do the following:
- Select and display a project version or a simulation version
- View the project tree in the configurable table view
- Specify the hierarchy level to be exploded on opening a version
- Choose and display dates information in the chart area, such as basic, actual, or forecast dates
- Open the side panel containing detailed information about the selected object
- Apply custom coloring for shapes in the Gantt chart are using the UI Theme Designer
- Save the preferred configuration and use it for future runs
For more information about working with Project Schedule for Versions: Overview, see here.
Project Financials Control: Enhanced SAP Fiori app for a project Gantt chart
To improve the process support for maintenance projects, this new release offers the option to include plant maintenance order-related information into the graphical visualization, and you find also additional information to the table and the side panel (for example, status, additional dates).
Below, you find the new enhancement related to the maintenance process:
Plant Maintenance Orders and Operations in Project Schedule
With this feature, you can now display plant maintenance orders assigned to activities as well as plant maintenance order operations in the Project Schedule app for Project System. You can view dates and other attributes of plant maintenance orders and operations, open side panels, and navigate to object pages or relevant applications.
Picture 7: Improved user experience for the Project Schedule App.
Manufacturing
Extended Production Operations: Side-by-side deployment of production engineering and operations with an ERP system
This SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01 enables you to run PEO side by side with an ERP system without having to upgrade the ERP system to a full SAP S/4HANA solution. In this integration scenario, you use the edition of SAP Digital Supply Chain Management for SAP S/4HANA to perform production engineering and operations, while performing all other processes in a separate system (either SAP ECC or a second SAP S/4HANA system). This allows you to innovate your manufacturing processes faster than the ERP business processes using a version of PEO that is more recent than your ERP system.
Picture 8: Innovate faster by using the latest release of SAP S/4HANA Manufacturing for production engineering and operations in combination with an existing ERP system.
Additional Details: For a detailed guide on how to run PEO side by side with your ERP system, see PEO Implementation Guide for SAP Digital Supply Chain Management, Edition for SAP S/4HANA.
Extended Production Operations: Flexible MBOM modeling for complex assembly with nested organizational major assemblies
In complex assembly, project management is used to manage the assembly of a complex product, the composition of which is specified by a multi-level BOM hierarchy. The BOM hierarchy and the project are independent of each other but are related business objects. The app Check Major Assembly Projects helps production engineers to align multi-level BOM structures and projects.
Key features coming with the new release:
- Support for complex assembly processes through project-driven manufacturing of major assemblies and installation kits:
- Management of major assemblies through a network in the project system
- Integration of a set of components to create an installation kit; integration of the installation kit into the major assembly through a production order; and representation of such through network activity in the project system
- Support for nested major assemblies in manufacturing BOMs in the 2021 on-premise release of SAP S/4HANA Manufacturing for production engineering and operations
- Collection or grouping of installation kits or other organizational major assemblies as children to create organizational major assemblies
- The ability for installation kits to be components of a major assembly on any level
For more information about complex assembly, see here.
Supply Chain: Extended Warehouse Management
RF Enhancements to Inbound Process and Outbound Process for Advanced Shipping and Receiving
With this feature, in the inbound process, you can set the warehouse processing status of the bill of lading or consignment order at the selected unloading point to Ready for Warehouse Processing using a radio frequency (RF) device. In the outbound process, you can set the loading status to “loading completed” at the current loading point using an RF device when you choose loading by delivery, bill of lading, or consignment orders.
Picture 9: Improve usability when using RF transactions.
For more information, see Loading and Unloading Using Radio Frequency.
Enhancements to the Outbound Process for Advanced Shipping and Receiving
In Advanced Shipping and Receiving, the system can perform a delivery split for an outbound delivery order after warehouse processing (picking, packing, staging) is completed. Now with this release, outbound delivery orders can be split automatically in the Advanced Shipping and Receiving process, either during load planning or after loading is completed. In addition, the Shipping Readiness status can be set automatically to 9 - Ready via report once warehouse execution is completed for outbound delivery orders.
Additional Details
You can schedule the report Automatically Set Status of Deliveries to Ready for Shipping (/SCWM/R_SET_DSH_STAT_AUTOMATIC) to run in the background, using criteria from the delivery documents or for a specific time frame. For more information, see Delivery Split for Outbound Delivery Orders in Advanced Shipping and Receiving.
Integration with SAP Global Trade Services
With this feature, you can use Advanced Shipping and Receiving to manage communication between SAP S/4HANA components and SAP Global Trade Services (GTS). For SAP S/4HANA, this involves the TM and EWM components connecting with an external GTS system. This includes compliance-relevant checks for, for example, embargos or sanction party lists, and obtaining clearances such as unloading permits and customs clearance after approval of the export declaration.
Additional Details
The integration with SAP GTS in Advanced Shipping and Receiving is managed by Transportation Management. For more information, see Integration with SAP Global Trade Services in Transportation Management.
See also the post blog from florian.kuchta2 about SAP Extended Warehouse Management in SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01 – What’s New here
Supply Chain: advanced Transportation Management
Ability to integrate SAP S/4HANA Supply Chain for Transportation Management with Material Requirements Planning Live
With the integration of Transportation Management into MRP Live, it is possible to benefit from improved performance and to execute the planning run in much shorter cycles. Thereby, it is a more up-to-date supply and demand information that is transformed into freight units, which can then be used for transportation planning in a faster way than was previously possible. With that, a faster reaction to demand changes reduces the risk of stockouts and leads to a reduction of safety stocks.
Multi-pick and multi-drop scenarios on a single transport freight order
This feature enables you for shipper scenarios to plan multiple warehouses on one road freight order, it is also known as a multi-pickup and multi-drop scenario. The feature is part of the inbound and outbound processes in the integration of Transportation Management (TM) with Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) based on EWM transportation units (TUs). With multiple warehouses for picking up or dropping handling units, you can improve your planning.
In EWM, you have defined a warehouse with a shipping point to enable the multi-pickup and multi-drop scenario for the integration based on EWM TUs. In TM, the warehouse is represented as the main stop and can be used as the start or endpoint of a stage in the freight order.
For more information, see Multi-Pickup, Multi-Drop.
Enablement of freight unit assigned to the freight order based on outbound deliveries
This feature enables you in external planning scenarios to find freight units that are assigned to a freight order by using the outbound delivery reference. In external planning scenarios, freight units are created in SAP S/4HANA Cloud and are sent for the planning of the freight orders to the external transportation management system of a carrier.
Sometimes a carrier does not have the freight unit ID. However, the carrier might have information about the predecessor documents, which include the outbound delivery. In such cases, the freight units can be searched by using the outbound delivery reference.
If the freight unit ID is known from the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI data), the generic inbound service for the freight order will also find the freight unit with the given freight unit ID, with priority.
With this release, we made several enhancements:
- Carrier sends Inbound Carrier Confirmation Message with LE delivery number and external Freight Order (FO) information (e.g. External FO identification, Truck license plate, Picking Date and Time, Truck Code, etc.).
- It shall be possible that based on this information all Freight Units (FU) of the returned LE deliveries are automatically assigned to a new automatically created FO (based on external FO information).
Sourcing and Procurement
Product Sourcing: Forward sourcing of direct materials
This feature enables you to plan the sourcing of items from an early stage to ensure timely procurement before the manufacturing process starts, to optimize the project planning, and reduce costs. You can seamlessly process the procurement of items/direct materials by integrating with SAP S/4HANA for procurement planning.
Picture 10: Enable sourcing of all direct materials according to the overall procurement project plan.
Additional Details
Sourcing managers can now receive data, such as planning-related information and item bundles, from SAP S/4HANA for procurement planning. They can maintain the automatically created sourcing projects. If item data is changed in SAP S/4HANA for procurement planning, the information is updated in the sourcing projects accordingly. As soon as a sourcing project is finalized and published, a notification about the relevant deadlines and timelines is automatically sent to SAP S/4HANA for procurement planning. After suppliers have submitted their quotations, the sourcing managers can award them and create the respective follow-on documents, and SAP S/4HANA for procurement planning is notified about the awarding.
For more information, see Integration with SAP S/4HANA for Procurement Planning
Product Sourcing: Sourcing or Renegotiation of items in one or multiple released central purchase contracts
Start a new sourcing process with items from one or multiple central purchase contracts:)
This feature enables you as a sourcing manager to start a new sourcing process based on items that are included in one or multiple central purchase contracts.
- Negotiate better conditions for the items by inviting not only existing but also new suppliers to participate in the sourcing process
- Award the most suitable supplier quotations and create a new central purchase contract for every awarded supplier quotation
Start a renegotiation with items from one or multiple central purchase contracts
This feature enables you as a sourcing manager to renegotiate items from one or multiple central purchase contracts.
- Negotiate better conditions for the items by inviting not only existing but also new suppliers to participate in the sourcing process, and award the most suitable supplier quotations
- If the items were selected from multiple central purchase contracts, you can create a new central purchase contract for every awarded supplier quotation
- If the items were selected from a single central purchase contract, you can either create a new central contract as a follow-on document or update the central contract from which the negotiation process was started
For more information, see Manage Renegotiations (Central Purchase Contracts).
Service Order Management
Augment analytic capability for service contract management
With SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01 release, we provide new analytic capabilities for:
Service orders: the Service Orders - Flexible Analysis app provided for customer service managers:
- Use a flexible combination of dimensions to analyze service orders
- Analyze service order items with respect to their reference to service contract items to gain more information on contract-based and non-contract service execution
Service contracts: the Service Contracts - Flexible Analysis app available for customer service managers:
- Use a flexible combination of dimensions to analyze service contracts
- Analyze billing plan details up to invoice for service contracts
https://sapvideoa35699dc5.hana.ondemand.com/?entry_id=1_h2iz048z
Demo 1: Click here to watch the video and see how the service manager uses a flexible combination of dimensions to analyze service orders in SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01.
https://sapvideoa35699dc5.hana.ondemand.com/?entry_id=1_sfl44gul
Click here to watch the video and see how the service manager uses a flexible combination of dimensions to analyze service contracts in SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01.
New Installation of SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01
For more information about the installation concerning SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01, see the blog series from Mahesh Sardesai here.
Thanks for reading this blog post. Stay tuned!
If you are also interested in the innovations delivered with SAP S/4HANA 2021, I would like to draw your attention to my link collection blog – The Link Collection
If you want to learn more and actively engage with SAP subject matter experts on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, join our SAP S/4HANA Cloud Customer Community. This platform which is available to SAP S/4HANA Cloud customers and partners has a clear mission: deliver an interactive community to engage with one another about best practices and product solutions.
For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA 2021, check out the following links:
- SAP S/4HANA release info: sap.com/s4hana
- SAP S/4HANA Community here
- The Link Collection for Product Compliance here
- SAP S/4HANA PSCC Digital Enablement Wheel here
- Inside SAP S/4HANA Podcast here
- Join the SAP S/4HANA Movement
- Best practices for SAP S/4HANA here
- Help Portal Product Page here
- Feature Scope Description here
- What’s New here
Follow us via @Sap and #S4HANA, or myself via @VoglerChrist and LinkedIn
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