Trigger, Create, and Manage Deliveries

The decision about whether to start the process in TM with either the order or the delivery depends on the customer requirements and guidelines concerning transportation planning and execution. If shipping activities other than transportation planning are involved before the transportation process, the process based on the delivery is more likely to be used. If the goods are sold with all shipping activities considered, the order is the basis for transportation planning.

There is no difference in the continuation of the process between transportation requirements based on an order and those based on deliveries. As shown in the figure, both documents are capable of triggering the entire process.

The following integration scenarios can be set up:

• Order Integration with delivery proposals
• Delivery Integration without delivery proposals

If the TM component is leading the transportation process, you set up the integration scenario Order Integration with Delivery Proposal. The order is created in SD/MM and then integrated into the TM component. Freight units are created in TM automatically. After freight units on freight orders, the delivery date can be known. This information is relayed back to SD/MM, where delivery documents are created.

Delivery proposals are used to propagate planning information from TM to SD/MM. Deliveries are created in SD/MM. This process is called Delivery Proposal because TM is proposing the creation of deliveries. SD/MM decides how the delivery is created.

SAP TM considers data for delivery creation from the order and from the assigned freight units, freight orders, and freight bookings. Based on the chosen input, SAP TM creates delivery proposals. A proposal consists of groups of freight units that can be delivered together.

• Dates: TM uses dates from the freight order or freight booking. If the freight unit is not planned, that is, no freight order or freight booking exists, then SAP TM uses the dates from the freight units.
• Quantities: TM uses quantities from freight units.
• SD/MM Document References: TM retrieves document references (such as order document number) from the order/order-based transportation requirement.

Delivery profiles define how delivery proposals are created. Although the delivery profile is optional, it makes sense to create a profile to reuse the same settings every time you want to create delivery proposals. The settings, you can define here, concern how and if freight units can be consolidated into one delivery proposal and which freight units cannot be consolidated.

To see information related to delivery profiles, log into SAP Fiori, then choose Profiles and Settings→Create delivery profile.

You can define how the delivery proposals are to be created (for example, one proposal per item, one proposal per freight unit, and so on). One option of the delivery profile is to "fix" the planning result for freight units and freight orders. Fixing the planning means that after the planning results are transferred via the delivery proposals, they can no longer be changed in SAP TM. Incompatibilities in delivery profiles can be used to prevent certain freight units or items from being consolidated into one delivery proposal.

After the delivery proposals have been sent, deliveries are created. SAP TM receives information about the status of the delivery creation.

If the SD/MM component is the leading system for delivery creation and item order consolidation, you set up the integration scenario Delivery Integration without Delivery Proposal. In this case, the order does not trigger the transportation management process and thus the freight unit creation. Only after the delivery is created for the order are the freight units created. These freight units now better represent the splits and consolidations that have been done previously in SD or MM. Planning can now start, although the planning results do not affect the date of the delivery anymore. Dates in the freight unit are considered as hard constraints during planning.