Executing Services for Externally Processed Activities

You use activities in the network to plan the resources required for a project.

The Project System distinguishes the following resources:

• An internally processed activity defines the output to be provided by machines and/or personnel of the actual company to complete the activity. You can evaluate the capacity load utilization of the work centers involved, schedule these capacities as necessary, and distribute work among employees.

• You use an externally processed activity to specify the services that need to be provided by other companies to complete the activity. The Purchasing Department is responsible for the purchasing of external work.

• Service activities are also used to procure services externally. In contrast to externally processed activities, service activities allow you to draw up service specifications and enter value limits for any unplanned services. The purchase of the required services along with the entry and acceptance of the services performed is also carried out by the Purchasing Department.

External Activity Detail Screen

In the preceding figure, the data for the external activity was read from a purchasing info-record. The fields read, for example the price per unit, are referenced, which means that changes are no longer allowed in the activity.

Externally processed activities, service activities, and a material that is to be procured externally, trigger purchase requisitions. Depending on the configuration of the SAP project system, one purchase requisition may be generated for each object or for each network.

However, within a project, project-specific purchase requisition collective indicators can be introduced. These indicators are not pre-configured in Customizing for SAP PS; instead, they are user-defined character strings. They are then assigned to the relevant external activities, or service activities, or to the relevant material components.

Due to the purchase requisition grouping indicator, you have the option to group several external processing activities, service activities, or material components in a purchase requisition within a network. In addition, you also have the option to use several networks to group services and a material into one purchase requisition.

You can create external activities and activity elements for the procurement of external services (for example, if you commission a design office to design a machine). When you create an activity of this type, a purchase requisition is also created and processed further in purchasing. When creating an external activity you can access data from Purchasing by using, for example, a purchasing info-record, which contains data on prices and delivery times.

You can generate a purchase requisition for externally processed activities from the Project System. This purchase requisition is converted to a purchase order in Purchasing. A goods receipt and invoice receipt can then be posted for the purchase order. Depending on whether the goods or invoice receipt is valuated, you post the costs to the externally processed activity using one of the two business transactions.

Externally-processed service activities are determined using the control key.

You can also assign a work center and planned work to an externally processed activity. This allows you to carry out capacity planning for your vendors.