SAP Release Strategy

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implementation. Each step oers tipsto help you tiptoe through the poten-tial mineeld o gotchas.

Step 1: Determine the CorporatePurchasing Approval Matrix

This can actually represent themost dicult step in any organiza-tion.

Tip #1 –

Encourage purchasing poli-cy makers to keep it simple.The reason here is not to make theimplementer’s job easier, but to makeit easier or people responsible orentering purchasing requisitions toknow who must approve the requisi-tion. I cannot tell you how many timesI have agreed to implement a com-plex release strategy, only to go backlater and simpliy. Why? Because theuser community complained that itwas too dicult to gure out whowas responsible or holding up theirrequisition rom becoming a Pur-chase Order.In my experience, most companiesbase purchasing approvals on CostCenters. I have implemented pur-chasing groups to be synonymouswith Cost Centers. This allows you tonot require the Cost Center on pur-chase requisitions.

Tip #2 –

I you require the cost centeron the requisition, you do not haveto require the G/L account number,but you should, because most usersdo not know how to select the correctG/L account. I you do not requirethe G/L Account on the purchaserequisition, it is not required on thePurchase Order (without a customdeveloped user/eld exit). I yourpurchasing agent orgets to add theG/L account, the receiving depart-ment will get an error when theytry to receive, because SAP does notknow how to post the material docu-ment.Figure 1 illustrates the example Iwill ollow or this article. I will usetwo values rom which to determinethe release strategy:1. Purchasing group2. Overall value o purchaserequisition

Editor’s Note:

The words “SAP” and “easy” are rarely used in the samesentence, but SAPtips Practice Direc-tor Jocelyn Hayes is ready to prove it can be done. In her debut article shesets out a our-step strategy that isnot only practical, but achievable. In act, Jocelyn has employed this strat-egy at multiple installations, acrossa variety o purchasing methodologies with great success. Her secret or success? Jocelyn says it’s all about keeping it simple.

Yes, I know, you are skeptical. ButPurchasing Release Strategies canbe made easy i you understand theundamental concepts o how to con-gure them and to ollow the KISSprinciple (keep it simple, stupid). Inthis article, I will point out some tipsand tricks I have learned throughimplementing Purchase RequisitionRelease strategies at seven dierentclient locations with very dierentpurchasing approval methodologies.This article will also explore sometricks to managing the constantlychanging security roles and assign-ments due to company reorganiza-tions or attrition.This article is written using SAPR/3 Enterprise (4.7). It is applicableor all SAP R/3 and mySAP

®

ERP.It does not cover Workfow or Pur-chasing Release Strategies. For moreinormation on workfow scenarios,reerence:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_470/helpdata/en/d/ea9d9c7acad94b70000e82dec0/frameset.htm

The Four-Step Process

I will present a our-step processto lead you through the setup and

Please Release Me:SAP

®

Purchasing Release Strategies Made Easy

By Jocelyn Hayes, SAPtips Director of Consulting and Training

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DepartmentPositionApprovalLimits

101ManagerUpto$10K101DirectorUpto$50K101VPUpto$100K101CFOEverythingover$100K102ManagerUpto$5K102DirectorUpto$50K102VPUpto$200K102CFOEverythingover$200K

Figure 1: Approval Matrix Example

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The Example presented in thisarticle is or an Overall Release pro-cedure. This means that when some-one approves the requisition, theyare approving the entire requisition,and not each line. This simpliesthe action required o the approvers,because they only have to approveonce, but it does restrict you romallowing your users to combine pur-chase requisitions across depart-ments.

Step 2: Confguration

SAP has published a decent notethat includes a pd document (Note207490) with steps on how to com-plete the conguration. Below, we’lldiscuss the three componentso conguration: (A) CreateCharacteristics, (B) CreateClass, and (C) Dene ReleaseStrategy. To start, navigate the IMG(Implementation Guide)using transaction SPRO. Fol-low the menu path:Materials Management >Purchasing > Purchase Req-uisition > Release Procedure> Procedure with Classica-tion, thenA) Create Characteristics:In Step 1, you probablydeveloped an approval matrixin Excel or on a napkin. Nowyou need to translate thatRelease Strategy. What youneed to ask is, “what are theparameters that determinethe approval person?”In the scenario illustratedin Figure 1, the parametersthat determine the approvalperson are:• the department request-ing the purchaseCEBAN. This table stores what eldsare available in the release strategydetermination. Figure 2 shows whereto correlate the characteristic to theeld used or determination romCEBAN.

Tip #3 –

I the eld you want to useor the release strategy does not existin the CEBAN communication struc-ture, (a custom eld, or example)you can use the ollowing user exits:• M06B0003 - For item-wiserelease• M06B0005 – For overall release• the overall amount o the pur-chase.These two parameters equate tocharacteristics. The characteris-tics must be represented by valuesentered in the purchasing document.In this scenario, the characteristicswill be:• Purchasing Group – to representthe department• Overall value o requisitionTo determine what parametersare available as characteristics, runtransaction SE11 and view table

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Figure 2: Create Characteristic Additional Data Screen

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Tip #4 –

Notice in Figure 2 howthe “Not Ready or Input” box ischecked in the Procedure or ValueAssignment area. I cannot tell youhow many times this has stung me!Make sure you deselect it. Otherwise,it will prevent a value rom beingassigned to your characteristic andyour release strategy will not work!It does serve a purpose, in the casewhen the value is inerred by objectdependencies, but that is only appli-cable when Characteristics are usedin Variant Conguration or congu-rable make-to-order materials in theSales and Distribution module.Once you complete the Reerenceto Table/Field, SAP will import thecharacteristic ormats rom the datadictionary (the SAP table/eld de-nition). I you click on the Basic Datatab, you will see the data ormat andvalue assignment pulled in rom thedata dictionary eld denitions.screen, make sure you use the ClassType 032, which is the class type orRelease Strategy. See Figure 4. C) Dene Release StrategyHere we’ll discuss 5 steps or yourRelease Strategy denition: ReleaseGroup, Release Codes, Release Indi-cators, Release Strategies, and nallywe’ll discuss the tie in to Workfow.1. Create Release GroupIn this step, you create releasegroups (Figure 5). A releasegroup will have the same releaselevels and strategy. In the sce-nario illustrated back in Fig-ure 1, there will be two releasegroups needed because theapproval interval values are di-

Tip #5 –

SAP will carry over deaultvalues to the value assignment por-tion (shown in Figure 3). Make sureyou pay close attention to whether itallows intervals (which you will wantin the case o a range o values, likevalue o requisition) and i it allowsmultiple values (which you will wanti you plan to use one release strategyor multiple departments or purchas-ing groups). There are many advan-tages to using one release strategy ormultiple departments, including easeo conguration and ease o securityrole setup.B) Create ClassOnce you have created your char-acteristics, you must assign the char-acteristics to a class. On the rst

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Figure 3: Create Characteristics Basic Data Screen

There are many advantages tousing one release strategy for multipledepartments.