Business Details
This feature adds blocking of line items and improves closing of line items in purchase orders in SAP Business Network for Supply Chain. For both blocked and closed line items, suppliers are prevented from creating any subsequent documents (order confirmation and ship notice). This feature adds the following to the ItemOut element in an OrderRequest document:
- operation="block" attribute – When this attribute is included in an ItemOut element, the line item is blocked in the purchase order.
- Indicator element – This element is used to define indicators. It has the following two attributes:
- Type – The indicator name.
- Level – The indicator level. Can be set to warning or error.
For example, buyers configure hard (error) or soft (warning) validation in their ERP using the isDeliveryCompleted indicator. In the following code sample, the isDeliveryCompleted indicator is set to hard validation:
12345678910111213<ItemOut>
<ItemID>
<SupplierPartID/>
<BuyerPartID>HWWB348A40</BuyerPartID>
</ItemID>
<ItemDetail></ItemDetail>
<Tax></Tax>
<Contact role="BuyerPlannerCode"></Contact>
<TermsOfDelivery></TermsOfDelivery>
<Comments type="Material Purchase Order text" xml:lang="EN">O-RING 348 AS 568 FEPM-90</Comments>
<Indicator type="isDeliveryCompleted" level="error"></Indicator>
</ItemOut>
Note
Changes to the User Interface
This feature adds functionality for blocked line items and improves functionality for closed line items in purchase orders in SAP Business Network.
Blocked Line Items
For blocked line items, this feature improves visibility for hosted and integrated suppliers to which line items are blocked. Prior to this feature, blocked lines items were treated as deleted line items, and they were not included in the purchase order cXML file sent to suppliers. This confused suppliers because they did not know what happened to the missing line items. They only knew that they could not create any subsequent documents against those line items.
With this feature, blocked line items display on the Purchase Order→Order Details page with Blocked in the Change column. Prior to this feature, the line item was treated as cancelled, a new line item was created, and the Change column displayed Edited.
When buyers configure the Send notification to suppliers when purchase orders are changed rule in the Electronic Order Routing section, SAP Business Network sends email notifications to the configured suppliers when line items are blocked. When all line items in a purchase order are blocked, SAP Business Network receives a change order and sends an email notification to the supplier.
When the buyer unblocks a line item, the previous document history is retained. Prior to this feature, when the line item was unblocked, the history of the line item was lost.
When the buyer unblocks a line item, the line item will not have the operation="block" attribute in the next change order.
Order Confirmations behavior for Blocked Line Items
- For Order Confirmations created directly from the Purchase Order (PO) page, blocked Purchase Order lines are not flipped into the Order Confirmation.
- For Items to Confirm workbench tile, blocked Purchase Order lines are not available for confirmation.
- For Order Confirmation created through CSV/Excel upload, blocked Purchase Order lines do not appear in the template.
- For integrated Order Confirmations, if B2B suppliers include blocked items in the Order Confirmation document then SAP Business Network rejects the transaction.
Ship Notices behavior for Blocked Line Items
- For Ship Notices created directly from the Purchase Order (PO) page, blocked Purchase Order lines are not flipped into the Ship Notice.
- For Items to Ship workbench tile, blocked Purchase Order lines are not available for shipment.
- For Ship Notices created through CSV/Excel upload, blocked Purchase Order lines do not appear in the template.
- For integrated Ship Notices, if B2B suppliers include blocked items in the Ship Notice document then SAP Business Network rejects the transaction.
Closed Line Items
In order to close line items, a purchase order must be at least partially received.
Some reasons buyers may want to close line items are:
- It is the end of the month or quarter, and there is an accounts payable freeze.
- They want to close all line items that have not been invoiced.
- They want to close line items for services after the services are delivered.
Buyers configure hard (error) or soft (warning) validation in their ERP using the isDeliveryCompleted indicator. See the Business Details section above for sample code. When the buyer configures hard validation, the supplier cannot continue creating documents against the closed line item. When the buyer configures soft validation, the supplier can continue creating documents against the closed line item.
When the buyer sends a change order to close a line item, and the isDeliveryCompleted indicator is set to error (hard validation in the ERP), the open purchase order quantity becomes zero, even if the full quantity has not been delivered. SAP Business Network will fail any documents against line items that are already closed. Prior to this feature, SAP Business Network did not prevent suppliers from submitting documents against closed line items.
Order Confirmations behavior for Closed Line Items
- Purchase Order lines closed with hard validation are not flipped into the Order Confirmation.
- If only few line items are marked in this way in the Purchase Order, the remaining lines can be flipped and be part of the OC creation.
- For Items to Confirm workbench tile, the closed Purchase Order lines are not available for confirmation.
- For Order Confirmation created through CSV/Excel Upload, Purchase Order lines closed with hard validation do not appear in the template after executing the corresPurchase Ordernding job.
- For integrated Order Confirmations, suppliers include items closed with hard validation in the Order Confirmation document, then SAP Business Network rejects the transaction including the proper reason.
Ship Notices behavior for Closed Line Items
- Purchase Order lines closed with hard validation are not flipped into the Ship Notice.
- If only few line items are marked in this way in the Purchase Order, the remaining lines can be flipped and be part of the ASN creation.
- For Items to Ship workbench tile, the closed Purchase Order lines are not available for shipment.
- For Ship Notices created through CSV/Excel Upload, Purchase Order lines closed with hard validation do not appear in the template after executing the corresPurchase Ordernding job.
- For integrated Ship Notices, suppliers include items closed with hard validation in the Ship Notice document, then SAP Business Network rejects the transaction including the proper reason.
Technical Details
| Product | SAP Business Network for Supply Chain |
| Enablement | Automatically On |
| Reference Number | CSC-41391 |
| User Type | Buyer Supplier |
Related feature: CSC-45783
