Whenever there are changes to transportation requirements, for which follow-up documents already exist, SAP TM provides support to react to these changes. For example, if the quantity of a sales order changes, and that sales order is already planned in SAP TM, you might have to adjust your transportation plan. SAP TM provides a configurable, flexible framework to support change processes. In the example of a quantity change, the system can check the resource capacity and remove freight units from planning if the resource is overloaded. In addition, a user could be informed of changes via an alert.
The change controller checks whether one of the following business documents/objects has changed and how the system is to process these changes:
Freight unit
Transportation unit
Freight order
Freight booking
Service order
Schedule type
The change controller can react to the following planning-relevant changes:
Changes to quantity
Changes to dates/times
Changes to source locations, intermediate stops, and destination locations
Reported execution information
Additional or deleted freight units or locations
The change controller checks whether one of the following business documents/objects has changed and how the system is to process these changes:
Freight unit
Transportation unit
Freight order
Freight booking
Service order
Schedule type
The change controller can react to the following planning-relevant changes:
Changes to quantity
Changes to dates/times
Changes to source locations, intermediate stops, and destination locations
Reported execution information
Additional or deleted freight units or locations
Note that this is not an exhaustive list.
The following is an example of change controller actions in response to changes:
Remove corresponding freight units from the transportation plan
Invalidate successor business documents such as freight orders
Stop the current associated tendering processes
Stop and restart the current associated tendering processes
Issue alerts
You can also define your own actions. You can also react to other changes, and even to custom fields. If you want to enhance the standard logic of the change controller for determining changes to business documents, you must make the necessary settings for the following BAdI:
Determination of Changes for Change Controller
SAP TM provides a set of predefined change strategies. You use strategies to define complete processes. Methods define the individual process steps of a strategy. You can also define your own strategies and methods, and in doing so, the way in which your process is executed.
If the system is unable to process a change controller strategy due to a locking issue, you can use the background program /SCMTMS/PROCESS_TRIGGER_BGD to reprocess the strategy.
The configuration settings relating to how changes should be processed on a freight unit, freight order, or freight bookings are located in the type customizing of these documents. You can specify the change controller settings for the business document types in SAP TM Customizing:
Default Change Strategy: You can assign a default change controller strategy (default strategy) to each business document type. If you have defined several change controller strategies, you can use a condition for determining the adequate change controller strategy.
Strategy Determination Condition: If you indicate a strategy determination condition, the system uses the change strategy found via the condition. The system determines the change controller strategy at runtime based on the strategy determination condition. If you do not indicate a condition or if the condition does not return a strategy, the system automatically uses the default change strategy.
Quantity Tolerance Determination Condition: You can use a tolerance determination condition to determine tolerances that are to be taken into account in the case of a quantity change in a business document (freight unit, freight booking, or freight order). This means that if a quantity is changed, the change controller evaluates this condition to dynamically check if a quantity change can be tolerated. If no condition of this type is assigned to a business document, only the standard logic to classify quantity changes is processed. The standard logic classifies all quantity changes as relevant quantity changes. This means that in case of a quantity change, the change controller evaluates this condition to dynamically determine if this quantity change can be classified as relevant or if it can be ignored. You assign this quantity tolerance determination condition to your business document type (for example, freight unit type). The result of a tolerance determination condition has an impact on the evaluation of the change controller condition that is assigned to the same business document type. The indicator for a quantity change that is provided as a data access definition to the change controller condition can change from "Relevant Quantity Change Determined" to "No Relevant Quantity Change Determined" if the quantity change is within the tolerances found.
Date tolerance determination condition: You can use a date tolerance determination condition to determine the tolerances for a date change in a business document. This means that in case of a date change, the change controller evaluates this condition to dynamically determine if this date change can be classified as critical or uncritical or if it can be ignored. If you want to classify date changes according to your own logic, you can use this condition to enhance the standard logic. If no condition of this type is assigned to a business document (freight unit, freight booking, or freight order), only the standard logic to classify date changes is processed. The standard logic classifies all date changes as critical changes. You assign this date tolerance determination condition to your business document type (for example, freight unit type). The result of a date tolerance determination condition has an impact on the evaluation of the change controller condition that is assigned to the same business document type. The indicator for a date change that is provided as a data access definition to the change controller condition can change from "Critical Change" to "Non-Critical Change" or "No Change" if the date change is within the tolerances found.
