Objective

To enable the use of Transportation Management functionality quite a bit of configuration is required. This effort may seem high, e.g. if you want to have a system to get a first idea of how SAP S/4HANA^® Supply Chain for transportation management works, and it requires a least a certain degree of experience with the solution. This blog post should help to considerably reduce the effort for the setup of a viable transportation management process with SAP S/4HANA 2020 in an on-premise deployment. Some of the information also can be helpful for lower releases, starting from SAP S/4HANA 1809 and is expected to be valid for future releases as well.

The reduction in effort is achieved by providing additional information, hints and screenshots for the activation of SAP Best Practices for S/4HANA Supply Chain for Transportation Management 1909. More precise, for the Outbound Transportation scenario. Additionally, with this post I will demonstrate that SAP Best Practices for TM in SAP S/4HANA 1909 can be activated in a SAP S/4HANA 2020 system without any issue. All information in this blog post was collected during the activation of said SAP Best Practice content in sandbox system used by the SAP S/4HANA Regional Implementation Group (SAP S/4HANA RIG).

SAP Best Practices for S/4HANA Supply Chain for Transportation Management

SAP provides Best Practices for Transportation Management in SAP S/4HANA to facilitate the setup of transportation management capabilities. At the release of this article the most current version of these SAP Best Practices is available with SAP Note 2970208. This SAP Note contains references to four further SAP Notes, each of which contains the content required to set up the system for a particular transportation scenario. These scenarios build upon each other and this blog post will be about the first scenario – outbound transportation – described by SAP Note 2969153. The SAP Note already contains a detailed step-by-step guide and this article aims at providing additional information, hints and screenshots to even further decrease the effort of setting up transportation management capabilities in SAP S/4HANA.

The SAP Best Practices for S/4HANA Supply Chain for Transportation Management 1909 can be activated either manually, by following the steps provided in the configuration guides attached to SAP Note 2969153 or automatically via Business Configuration Sets (BC-Sets). The BC-Sets are also available as attachment to SAP Note 2969153. In this post automatic activation via BC-Sets is described.

Initial situation and prerequisites

The system which is used for this post is on SAP S/4HANA 2020 FPS0. I do not expect any differences for an FPS1 system. Please comment below in case you experience deviating behavior due to 2020 FPS1, so everyone can benefit.

In the test system some SAP Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA (on premise) were activated when the system was on the 1909 release. Also see this blog post on how SAP S/4HANA Supply Chain for extended warehouse management functionality was activated. Then the system was upgraded to the 2020 release before starting the activation of the SAP Best Practices for TM.

The content activated before should not have an impact on the TM setup described here except for scope item BD9_US – Sell from Stock. This scope item must be activate before, as mentioned in the configuration guides attached to SAP Note 2969153. The SAP Note also mentions two prerequisite SAP Notes (2632824, 2789609), but none of them is relevant for SAP S/4HANA 2020. I recommend to carefully read through the whole SAP Note first, e.g. to know in which order to activate the BC sets.

Upload of BC sets

The following hints can help you during the upload of the BC-Sets.

• Before starting the upload of the BC-Sets you should have a package and a workbench request available to take the objects created from the BC-Sets. I added everything to the same package and transport request.
• For the upload it is helpful to store the downloaded files in a folder on the desktop because one must navigate there for each of the BC sets.
• Use transaction SCPR3 for the upload

Transaction SCPR3 – Upload

• After uploading all files use the button “Save list as favorites” to define all BC-Sets in the list as a favorite.

Save list as favorites

• SAP Note 2969153 mentions BC-Set /SCMTMS/UI_POWL which needs to be uploaded, but it is not part of the content provided in the Note. See the screenshots below for how to find it.

Find /SCMTMS/UI_POWL (1)

Find /SCMTMS/UI_POWL (2)

• Do not use the “Save list as favorites” button to mark /SCMTMS/UI_POWL as a favorite. This will overwrite your existing favorites. You can use the “Define Favorites button”. Selection criteria “User BC sets” will give you the objects uploaded by you.
• In case you wonder where BC-Set Y_TMS4HANA_CUSTOMIZING is coming from, this is uploaded as part of Y_TMS4HANA_GENERAL.

Activation of BC-Sets

In the following some screenshots should help you to go through the steps for the activation of the BC-Sets uploaded before and some further information is provided.

• A customizing transport is required for this step. Again, since I do not plan to transport the customizing objects to a different system, I put everything into the same transport request.
• The order of activation of the BC sets is specified in SAP Note 2969153
  • /SCMTMS/UI_POWL
  • Y_TMS4HANA_SCENARIO_DEL_CUST_1909
  • Y_TMS4HANA_GENERAL_1909
  • Y_TMS4HANA_BASICSHIPPING_OT_1909
  • Y_TMS4HANA_CHARGES_DEL_CUST_1909
  • Y_TMS4HANA_CHARGES_1909
• Use transactions SCPR20 to activate the BC-Sets
  • [Optional] Before activation you can use the consistency check. On tab “General Information” you will find the releases for which a particular BC-Set is valid

Consistency check

• • Use the activate button to start activation of a BC-Set.

Activate BC-Set

• The popup mentioned in SAP Note 2969153 is displayed after the selection of the customizing transport. There you need to choose “Expert Mode” and how to handle existing data. I selected “Overwrite All Data” for all BC-Sets.

Activation options

• During the activation of BC-Sets Y_TMS4HANA_BASICSHIPPING_OT_1909 and Y_TMS4HANA_CHARGES_1909, you must define some constants. I recommend selecting the values predefined from the BC set. This helps when you want to compare the system setup to the configuration guide and during executing the test script

Constants (1)

Constants (2)

• Activation of the BC sets in my test system led to the results below. Although there were some warnings and errors the activation was successful as my tests showed.
  • /SCMTMS/UI_POWL à               Successfully completed
  • Y_TMS4HANA_SCENARIO_DEL_CUST_1909 à           Finished with warnings
  • Y_TMS4HANA_GENERAL_1909 à              Finished with warnings
  • Y_TMS4HANA_BASICSHIPPING_OT_1909 à          Successfully completed
  • Y_TMS4HANA_CHARGES_DEL_CUST à Finished with warnings
  • Y_TMS4HANA_CHARGES_1909 à Activation ended with errors
    • Object OMWW could not be activated

Manual configuration steps

According to SAP Note 2969153 after BC-Set activation you should check the configuration guides for required manual configuration. Below I list the manual steps which I had to do to complete the test script. Maybe this can help you to save some time, but it’s possible in your case some different steps will be required. And of course, going through the configuration guide will help you to gain insights into the required configuration.

• Run Report /SCMTMS/TRIGGER_SETUP_BGRFC to create the RFC destination and inbound destination TM_BGRFC_INBOUND.
  • Check SAP Note 2641251 – bgRFC concept in TM 9.5 and S/4HANA for details
  • This is required to allow settlement posting
  • Selection field Logon/server group can be left empty
  • If executed in a system where these destinations already exist, the report will issue an information which says so. Therefore, the report can be used to check if the destinations do exist.
• Check the following steps from the configuration guide for Charge Management. These settings are not included in the BC sets.
  • 30 – Define number ranges for service master record
    • Starting from step 4 – Assign Element to Group
  • 33 – Defining Activity types
• In addition, I had to manually define the number ranges for settlement documents. This is step 3.49 in the configuration guide for charge management. The number ranges are part of the BC set but in my case an overlap with an existing number range prevented the automatic creation. Without these number ranges the creation of Cost Distribution Documents after posting the TM Freight Settlement Document will fail.
  • In my case I had to change the “To Number” of the number range from 9999999999 to 99999999 to avoid the overlap.

Define number range for settlement documents

Master data creation

For the creation of business partners and transportation network data (i.e. carriers, customers, locations, transportation zones and transportation lanes) I used the scenario builder tool. Please be aware the scenario builder can only be used if you have licensed Advanced Transportation Management. If not, you have to create the master data manually. Using the scenario builder helped me to reduce the effort for master data creation. For each of the aforementioned objects create one entity according to the master data guides attached to SAP Note 2969153. Then download it to Excel via Scenario Builder. In the Excel file complete the data for the other entities and then upload again via Scenario Builder. For more information on the scenario builder itself please check SAP Help and SAP Note 2791970. I am currently evaluating if and how the scenario builder content I have created can be made available. This would help to decrease the effort even further and I will keep you up to date regarding progress in that area.

The scenario builder does not allow to maintain all the fields which are mentioned in the master data guides, but in my tests, I found all the relevant data was there, except for tax classification. Tax classification “1” had to be maintained manually for all customers (role FLCU01 à Sales & Distribution à Billing à Output Tax).

Currently it is not possible to use the scenario builder for all master data. The mapping of locations to incoterm location (MD guide Transportation Network – Outbound), the organizational structure and charges master data must be created manually using the corresponding master data guide. Below you can find some hints and tricks which, based on my experience, could help you to reduce the effort for master data setup with and without scenario builder.

• The master data guides build upon each other. Use them in the order in which they are listed in the text of SAP Note 2969153, not the in the order in the attachment section.
• Field Payment Methods was mandatory for me for carriers, but not mentioned in the master data guide. I suggest you use payment method T – Bank Transfer.
• When mapping locations to incoterm locations the latter are free text. Keep in mind they must exactly match the incoterm locations maintained in the Business Partner. This match is case sensitive!
• Filling the Excel files for master data creation via scenario builder in some cases can be done efficiently be copying from the master data guide PDF into a TXT file – I can recommend Notepad – and then import into Excel from there. This is especially helpful for transportation zones.
• It is not possible to maintain geocoordinates for locations via scenario builder based on the data in the master data guide, since the upload via Excel requires a different format. Therefore, I maintained the coordinates manually in the system. The table below was created by downloading the locations via scenario builder and extracting the coordinates. You can use the coordinates in this format for upload via scenario builder.

• The master data guide for the organizational structure is currently missing in SAP Note 2969153. You can find it in SAP Note 2970146 The assignment of users to organizational units, which is described in that guide, is relevant for organizational unit determination.
• In my test system the Business System Group had been maintained before the activation of TM. Check the name of the business system group which is maintained and assigned to the relevant client in your system. In the master data guide for organizational structure it is assumed the name is “BSG”. If this is different in your system you need to replace the name when setting up the organizational units. Otherwise Freight Settlement will fail

Business system group customizing

• The master data guide for charge management is a bit inconsistent regarding which carrier calculates rates based on which scale base. Just go with what is described in the procedures instead of what is described in the purpose section before. I.e. create zip zone à zip zone rates for carriers 1 -3. This worked fine for me.
• You can speed up creation of charge management master data by copying calculation sheets and freight agreements after creating the first entity according to the master data guide. Only a few fields need to be adapted after copying.
  • Calculation Sheet
    • Description
    • Rate Tables
  • Freight Agreement
    • Freight Agreement ID
    • Description
    • Carrier
    • Calculation Sheet
  • Do not forget to set the status for rate tables and freight agreements to “Released” and then save the document.
  • The master data guide for charge management also contains data on objects which are only relevant for later scenarios, e.g. shipping point SP_1720 for the stock transfer scenario. This shipping point will only be created when activating the BC set for that scenario, therefore no charges master data with reference to this shipping point can be created before that. You can skip the corresponding steps for charge management master data and revisit them later.

Test script execution

For testing the configuration follow the steps described in the test script attached to SAP Note 2969153. The information below may help to avoid confusion during test script execution.

• Several steps of the test script are about checking the document preview in the output management tab. This is only possible if your system is connected to an Adobe Documents Service Server. If this is not the case, just skip these steps.
• Some steps refer to SAP Best Practice scope item BD9 – Sell from stock for detailed information. With this link you can access the scope item.
• In step 15 Invoice Verification the “TM Ref.” tab is required. To display this tab you must set user parameter TM_INVOICE_CLERK for your user (System à User Profile à User Data à Tab Parameters). The parameter value can remain blank.

Conclusion

Please find below my most important findings after activating and testing the SAP Best Practices for S/4HANA Supply Chain for Transportation Management – Outbound Transportation Scenario 1909.

• The activation of the 1909 SAP Best Practice for outbound transportation with Transportation Management is possible in a SAP S/4HANA 2020 system.
• Master data creation is the most time-consuming step during the activation. If the scenario builder tool can be used (license for Advanced Transportation Management, see above) this effort can be reduced significantly.
• The steps required for the activation are described well in SAP Note 2969153. With the additional information from this blog post the activation can be done without too much effort.

I hope this article will help you with the activation of transportation management capability in your SAP S/4HANA system. Good luck with your efforts and enjoy testing the functionality!

Thanks to author Philipp Bergthaler 

@philippbergthaler