Activating dangerous goods compliance requirements is a prerequisite for any activities in this solution area.
System-embedded regulatory content includes many dangerous goods compliance requirements, which digitally represent dangerous goods regulations.
Decisions on applicable dangerous goods regulations must reflect the supply chain target markets and transportation networks used.
To make dangerous goods compliance requirements available for assessment, you need to:
- Assign compliance requirements to compliance purposes, grouping applicable compliance requirements.
- Assign compliance purposes to a compliance view. Only then are compliance requirements available for assessment.
You need to complete two steps to prepare for dangerous goods management and processing in SAP S/4HANA for product compliance.
First, compliance requirements from the system-embedded regulatory content must be used. With the activation, you make content-based compliance requirements available for assignment to compliance purposes, a prerequisite for having compliance requirements available for assessments on compliance views.
Second, you apply active compliance requirements for countries/regions and modes of transport. This is essential for integrated dangerous goods processing with dangerous goods checks and output of dangerous goods information into supply chain processes.
This step is also applicable in cases where no regulations for dangerous goods are defined for a country/region and mode of transport.
The Activate Compliance Requirements - Dangerous Goods app is essential when a new compliance requirement version, representing a new regulation edition, is published. The new compliance requirement version appears on the tab page New or Updated with the remark New Version in the column What’s Changed.
The dangerous goods specialist must activate the new version to initiate processing of the regulation update.
Note
The worst-case scenario shall be used as an example to illustrate the importance of properly handling compliance requirement version updates and processing related compliance assessments.
For a compliance requirement, the last two versions were not even activated on the system, which means the active version is two update cycles behind, posing a high risk of non-compliance. Compliance requirement versions provide the dangerous goods lists and are used to identify products containing dangerous goods. Another essential part is the provision of description templates along with applicable determination rules. This applies similarly to necessary labelling and marking.
In this example situation, not only is the content outdated, but dangerous goods compliance assessments, which provide data for integrated dangerous goods processing in the value chain, are also outdated.
The following aspects must be regarded for processing the pending updates:
The Manage Regulation Updates Unpackaged Products app automatically processes assessment updates, starting from the oldest active compliance requirement version found on the system and progressing to the newly activated compliance requirement version. This applies similarly to assessments.
For the given example, this means assessments related to version 3 would be processed in the update to the activated version - this could be version 5 or version 6.
This situation needs to be corrected with the following steps:
- Shift compliance assessments to the latest active version. This example is version 4. This must be processed first for all assessments that do not have a successor related to compliance requirement version 4.
- Shift assessments for unpackaged products. Only when assessments for unpackaged products are released will the related assessments for packaged products become available and be shifted to the latest active version 4.
- Shift assessments for packaged products - in the example, this is to shift assessments from version 3 to version 4. Step 1.2 is necessary, since the Manage Regulation Update apps only process updating from the oldest active CRV to the latest, newly activated CRV. If you do not shift assessments on CRV 3, still do not have a successor to CRV 4, and activate CRV 6, the algorithm to prepare the regulation update would only process assessments on CRV 3 and skip all assessments related to CRV 4. You would lose all assessments on CRV 4 and would need to start assessments from scratch.
- Check available assessments for unpackaged and packaged products to ensure no more assessments related to a compliance requirement version other than version 4.
- Deactivate compliance requirement version 3. This step automatically sets all assessments related to version 3 to the status Historical.
- Activate compliance requirement version 6. It is not advisable or necessary to activate version 5, so skip this and the outdated version.
- Shift assessments for unpackaged products. Upon releasing these assessments, the assessments of related packaged products become available and should be shifted to the most current version 6.
- Shift assessments for packaged products – in the example, this is to shift assessments from version 4 to version 6.
- Deactivate compliance requirement version 4 as soon as all assessments related to this version are shifted to the latest version 6.
Compliance requirement version handling aims to have all assessments on only the current version. To achieve this goal, upon receiving a new version, you should start the process of shifting all assessments to this latest version with the following steps:
Ensure all assessments from an earlier version have a successor in the current compliance requirement version. You can use the Manage Regulation Updates for Unpackaged/Packaged Products app.
The Analyze Unpackaged / Packaged Dangerous Goods apps provide an overview of available assessments. The procedure for shifting assessments related to an older compliance requirement version is basically the same as the upcoming task of reviewing and shifting current assessments to the new version.
You start the update process by activating the new compliance requirement version and reviewing assessments for the unpackaged products, including dangerous goods classifications.
The Activate Compliance Requirements Dangerous Goods app enables you to make dangerous goods compliance requirements available. This means you can assign active compliance requirements to compliance purposes, which can be assigned to compliance views. With the assignment of a compliance purpose to a compliance view, the compliance requirements of the compliance purpose become available for assessment on the compliance view.
In the solution area, dangerous goods assessments are processed on two levels:
- First, you process the assessment on the compliance view of the unpackaged product to identify the dangerous good.
- Second, you assess the packaged product. In this step, you provide the packaging details and set transport permissions according to regulations.
The activation of compliance requirements is a prerequisite for processing dangerous goods. As a preparation, you investigate the regulations for the transportation of required dangerous goods.
You consider countries/regions of departure and destination, as well as the locations of your shipping points and customers.
As a second aspect, you evaluate the modes of transport used. Do you transport your products on inland waterways or utilize air transport?
These evaluations should allow you to determine the regulations for dangerous goods you must activate.
The Activate Compliance Requirements - Dangerous Goods app comprises three-tab pages, giving an overview of dangerous goods compliance requirements, which are:
- New or updated - activate new versions or confirm update of an existing version.
- Active - get an overview of active dangerous goods compliance requirement versions. Deactivate obsolete compliance requirement versions.
- Inactive - get an overview of inactive dangerous goods compliance requirement versions.
You can click on the compliance requirement version on these three-tab pages to access the regulatory details.
If you want to see dangerous goods data for a specific UN number, use the View Regulatory Data Dangerous Goods app. This app is only available for active dangerous goods compliance requirements.
New or Updated Compliance Requirements: Dangerous Goods
On the tab-page New or Updated, you get the overview of:
- Compliance requirement versions are being newly delivered and awaiting activation using the action Activate.
- Compliance requirement versions, for which an update was provided, are awaiting confirmation using the action Confirm to make the update available.
All compliance requirement versions available on this tab page are in the 'Released' status. Compliance requirement versions provided with the system-embedded regulatory content are shipped in the 'Released' status.
In the column What’s Changed, you get an indication of why the compliance requirement version appears on this list. It can be:
- New Compliance Requirement - in terms of dangerous goods, this appears in case a new regulation is added to the portfolio of dangerous goods regulations provided with the system-embedded regulatory content.
- New Version - A new version of an existing regulation is provided. Numerous regulations undergo periodic updates; for example, IATA-DGR is updated annually, and IMDG every other year. You can activate this new version if it is required for your business.
- Update of Existing Version - this can occur for two reasons: corrections were applied to a regulation, officially provided as a corrigendum, or the content of a compliance requirement was extended. You can confirm the update to make the updated content available for processing.
- Expired Version - This means the compliance requirement version is set to maintenance status, Historical; no updates are provided anymore. The status Historical implies that the compliance requirement version cannot be activated if it was never activated or has already been deactivated, according to the recommendations on handling content versions.
Activating new compliance requirement versions or confirming updates to already activated compliance requirement versions is only possible on the tab page 'New' or 'Updated'. Only compliance requirement versions in the released status can be activated.
There is an option to edit the configuration of a compliance requirement version. This option allows you to edit additional Exemptions or Special Provisions. This means you can add specific exemptions or special provisions not available from the system-embedded regulatory content, but that you must apply to your company's products. Since this impacts the processing of dangerous goods, you should handle this option with care. For this reason, this course will not delve further into the configuration options for compliance requirement versions.
Active Compliance Requirements: Dangerous Goods
On the Active tab page, you see all compliance requirement versions activated in your system.
Using the "Deactivate" action, you can deactivate an outdated version of a compliance requirement. A deactivated compliance requirement version is no longer available for assessments.
Be aware that if an activated successor version exists, you cannot reactivate a deactivated predecessor version.
You can edit the configuration of activated compliance requirement versions for additional exemptions or special provisions. This functionality is identical to that on the previous New or Updated tab page. Since editing the configuration of a compliance requirement version impacts the processing of dangerous goods products, you should handle this option carefully. For this reason, this course will not delve further into the configuration options for compliance requirement versions.
On the Inactive tab page, you will see all versions of the compliance requirement that have ever been available in your system.
Compliance requirement versions on this tab are inactive and either have a released status or a historical status. Compliance requirement versions in status 'Released' can be activated, while those in status 'Historical' can no longer be activated but can only be viewed. In general, upon the provision of a new, subsequent version, the previous version remains in the released status, but the version preceding this previous version is set to historical status.
Also, from this tab page, you can navigate to the details of a compliance requirement version by simply clicking on it. Regarding the configuration of compliance requirement versions, you can only view additional exemptions or special provisions you had added to the version using the configuration option.
Dangerous goods regulations are frequently updated. These updates are provided as new versions of the related compliance requirements in the system-embedded regulatory content.
Sometimes, corrections to a valid regulation are published. Such corrections are provided as updates to the existing version.
You can identify the change in the overview on the New or Updated tab page, whether it is a new version or an update of an existing version. In both cases, your action is required.
To make new content available in the system, you must activate the new compliance requirement version or confirm the update.
A confirmation message ensures you want to proceed when you activate the new version.
Activating a new version has some consequences:
- For all existing dangerous goods assessments related to a predecessor version, the system automatically creates a new version with status 'In Process'.
- If the previous version has not been activated or has been deactivated, you can no longer activate this version since a newer version is active.
When correcting an existing compliance requirement version, you must confirm this update. There is no dialogue here; use the Confirm action to make the updated content available.
On the Active tab page, you can view a list of your system's active dangerous goods compliance requirement versions.
From here, you can navigate to the details of a compliance requirement version. You should utilize the View Regulatory Data Dangerous Goods app to view the detailed data for a specific UN number.
On this tab page, you have the action Deactivate. With this action, you can deactivate an obsolete compliance requirement version since a newer version is in place, and you have reviewed and processed all dangerous goods assessments for the newer version.
On this tab page, you have the action Activate. With this action, you can reactivate a previously deactivated compliance requirement version. You must be aware that reactivation is only possible if no newer version exists. You cannot activate a processor version if a newer version is already active.
Additionally, it is not possible to activate a compliance requirement version in the 'Historical' status.
Let's Summarize What You've Learned
Activate compliance requirements to ensure dangerous goods regulations are available for assessments in SAP S/4HANA.
Keep compliance requirement versions current by shifting all assessments to the latest activated version to maintain regulatory compliance.
Use the Activate Compliance Requirements - Dangerous Goods app to manage new, updated, active, and inactive compliance requirement versions.