Configuring Transportation Management

TM in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition offers 17 scope items in the SAP Best Practice Content Library. The core transportation processes are included in the Order-based Transportation Consolidation, Manual Transportation Planning, Manual Transportation Planning for Ocean Freight, and Manual Transportation Planning for Air Freight scope items.

These twelve scope items support your company's transportation planning, execution, and monitoring in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition. The sales-order-based, purchase-order-based or stock-transport-order-based transportation demand (freight unit) is built considering transportation constraints. It is then planned internally in a transportation cockpit or sent to a decentralized TM system for planning. In the latter case, the planning result (freight order) is received in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition from the decentralized TM system. The charges for transporting the cargo are calculated based on rates maintained in a released freight agreement.

Delivery creation is triggered from the freight order, which is based on the consolidation information. Freight costs are broken down in the freight order. The aggregated freight costs of the order are distributed to the delivery item level based on its gross weight. After the picking and posting of the goods issue, the system creates a billing document that contains the transportation costs to be billed to the customer (outbound process) or you can create the supplier invoice (inbound process). Freight orders are checked out to enable the posting of accruals. The freight orders can then be confirmed for accrual posting.

After the confirmation of a freight order for posting, the system automatically posts the freight costs to Financial Accounting for accruals. During the posting process, freight orders can be monitored for any errors during the posting process to resolve them. The invoice received from the carrier is finally verified against the costs calculated in the freight order.

The SAP Best Practice Content Library contains the following best practice processes for Transportation Management in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition:

• Order-based Transportation Consolidation - Outbound (3EP)
• Order-based Transportation Consolidation - Outbound (5VV)
• Stock Transport Order-based Transportation Consolidation (5XC)
• Manual Transportation Planning – Outbound (4MO)
• Manual Transportation Planning – Inbound (5OS)
• Manual Transportation Planning – Stock Transport Order (5XD)
• Manual Transportation Planning for Ocean Freight – Outbound (64A)
• Manual Transportation Planning for Ocean Freight – Inbound (64B)
• Manual Transportation Planning for Ocean Freight – STO (64C)
• Manual Transportation Planning for Air Freight – Outbound (6B2)
• Manual Transportation Planning for Air Freight – Inbound (6B3)
• Manual Transportation Planning for Air Freight – STO (6B4)
• Intercompany Transportation - Outbound (6BG)
• Intercompany Transportation - Stock Transport Order (6BH)
• Intercompany Stock Transfer (1P9)
• Handling Unit Management (4MM)
• Determination of Geocoordinates, Distances and Durations (‏46P‏)

Furthermore, it offers the following master data scripts:

• Create Freight Agreement (3TL)
• Create Carrier Master (4DE)

Process flow diagrams and test scripts for these best practices can be reviewed and downloaded from the SAP Best Practice Explorer.

Handling Unit Management (4MM) is a supporting scope item. This scope item allows you to create handling units in the delivery document. A handling unit is a physical unit consisting of packaging materials (load carriers / packing material) and the goods contained on/in it. A handling unit is always a combination of products and packaging materials. All the information contained in the product items, for example, batch information, is retained in the handling units and is always available. This scope item sets up packaging in the delivery process as it only includes the steps for packaging, it requires a standard process scope item to create deliveries as a prerequisite.

Determination of Geocoordinates, Distances and Durations (46P) is a supporting scope item. This scope item allows you to determine geocoordinates for locations, as well as distances and durations for pairs of locations within Transportation Management. This scope item delivers the necessary settings and information to activate the integration between SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition and SAP HANA spatial services running on the SAP Business Technology Platform. For more information, see SAP note 3058573 - Integration Note: SAP HANA Spatial Services / SAP Transportation Management.

A master data script Create Carrier Master (4DE) supports you in the creation of business partners with role Carrier in order to enable you to subcontract freight orders to carriers.

Furthermore, a master data script Create Freight Agreements (3TL) supports you in the creation of freight agreements in order to automatically calculate transportation charges and support freight settlement with contracted carriers.

Process diagrams and test scripts for the scope items, as well as master data scripts, can be downloaded from the SAP Best Practice Explorer at https://rapid.sap.com/bp/BP_CLD_ENTPR.

To configure the solution, Configuration Activities are offered. They are categorized into the following areas:

• Transportation Master Data
• Transportation Order Management
• Transportation Charge Management
• Transportation Cost Settlement

In the area of transportation master data, there are four configuration steps, which are optional.

Click on the tabs to learn more about the four configuration steps.

In the area of transportation order management, there are eight potential configuration steps:

1. Define Transportation-Relevance of Sales Documents

   This is probably the most important configuration step. In this configuration step, you can specify whether sales documents are relevant for transportation by assigning a control key. Criteria for the assignment of the control key are as follows:

   • Sales organization
   • Distribution channel
   • Division
   • Sales document type
   • Shipping condition

   The control key determines whether freight units are created for sales documents and the corresponding outbound deliveries. When you create a sales document that is transportation-relevant, the system assigns the control key to the sales document and to all relevant documents in the document flow, for example, the outbound delivery. This is a fixed parameter that can not be changed subsequently in the sales document.

   In addition to the control key, a logistics integration profile is determined for the sales document.

   Follow the demonstration on how to access this configuration step and define transportation relevance for sales documents. Note, that the shipping conditions are used to differentiate, whether a sales order will be relevant for external transportation planning (shipping condition 05) or internal transportation planning (shipping condition 07).

   Note

   Shipping condition 05 is the shipping condition that is delivered as standard best practice customizing for use of transportation management. It is used for internal transportation planning as well as external transportation planning depending on which scope items you have activated in your tenant. In your project you have to define how you want to use a specific shipping condition as part of this configuration to define transportation relevance of sales documents.

   ExerciseStart Exercise

   
2. Define Transportation-Relevance of Purchasing Documents

   Similar to the previous configuration step, you can specify here whether purchasing documents are relevant for transportation by assigning a control key. Criteria for the assignment of the control key are as follows:

   • Purchasing organization
   • Purchasing group
   • Purchasing order type

   The control key determines whether freight units are created for purchasing documents and the corresponding inbound deliveries. When you create a purchasing document that is transportation-relevant, the system assigns the control key to the purchasing document and to all relevant documents in the document flow, for example, the inbound delivery. This is a fixed parameter that can not be changed subsequently in the purchasing document.

   In addition to the control key, a logistics integration profile is determined for the purchasing document.

3. Define Logistics Integration Profile

   For each logistics integration profile, you can define whether you want to plan based on requested or confirmed quantities, and how freight unit building should be done. How freight units are created is controlled by freight unit building rules, which you define in the Manage Freight Unit Building Rules app. The relevant freight unit building rule to be used is either defined here in the logistics integration profile directly, or retrieved via a condition that is assigned to the logistics integration profile.

   In the Manage Freight Unit Building Rules app, you can define the critical quantity and split quantity for splitting freight units.

   Splitting is activated and the system considers gross weight as a critical quantity for splitting freight units. Splitting is used if you have received an order for a large quantity, for example, 50 tons, which can not be transported in one go. The split quantity defines the size of the individual chunks that are being transported to fulfill the order.

4. Maintain Text Schema

   In this configuration step, you define text types and text schemas, and assign text types to text schemas.

5. Assign SD/MM Text Types to TM Text Types for SO/PO

   In this configuration step, you define which types of text entered in a Sales and Distribution (SD) or Materials Management (MM) document are displayed on the Notes tab page of the corresponding order in Transportation Management (TM). You do this by mapping text types in SD/MM to the relevant text types in TM.

6. Define Number Range Intervals for Freight Order Management

   In this configuration step, you can check the number range intervals for freight units and freight orders that have been delivered by SAP (FU and S1). The number range intervals should not overlap with those that are defined and used in the de-central TM system, which TM in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition is integrated with. To avoid problems in the integration process, the number range intervals must not overlap. If they do, you can adjust them in this configuration step.

7. Define Business Transaction Document Type Codes

   The settings that you configure here determine how the system handles references between business transaction documents and other documents, for example, when processing B2B messages (both inbound and outbound).

8. Define Business Transaction Document Item Type Codes

   This configuration activity allows you to define business transaction document item type codes.

In the area of transportation charge management, there are five configuration activities:

1. Define Charge Profiles

   The charges profile allows you to define the general settings for charge calculation. Here you can assign a calculation profile.

2. Define Calculation Profiles

   You can assign a calculation profile to an organizational unit via the charges profile. You can define the following settings when you create or edit a calculation profile:

   • The calculation date type that the system uses as the basis for the rate and agreement validity determination during charge calculation
   • The exchange rate date type that the system uses as the basis for the exchange rate determination during charge calculation
   • The currency exchange rate type that the system uses as the basis of the currency exchange rate conversion
   • The calculation level that the system uses to determine at which level to calculate the charges, for example, at header level
3. Define Charge Types

   You can create or edit charge types that are used to calculate transportation charges. Assigning a charge type to a calculation sheet line item or a rate table plays an important role in how the system calculates the transportation charges for that line. When you define charge types, you can make the following settings:

   • Specify whether a charge type can result in a positive or negative value.
   • Specify whether a charge type can be an absolute value or a percentage value.
   • Maintain its description (in different languages) in the Maintain Charge Type Descriptions section of the configuration activity.
4. Define Dimensional Weight Profiles

   The system uses dimensional weight profiles to determine transportation charges. You calculate the dimensional weight by converting the volume to the appropriate unit of measure and then dividing it by the dimensional weight factor. The result is the weight in the target unit of measure. The dimensional weight is then used in the charge calculation using the corresponding calculation base.

5. Define Location Calendar

   This configuration step allows you to define a location calendar for a specific country or region using a factory calendar. During charge calculation, the system uses the country or region of the location and the factory calendar to determine whether the date used for charge calculation is a working day or a non-working day. This enables you to charge your customers with additional charges for providing services on non-working days.

In the area of transportation cost settlement there are two configuration activities:

You can enhance the solution with custom fields and custom logic using a no-code/low-code approach. Enhancing business documents with own fields does not require programming. You can enhance freight units, freight orders, and freight bookings on header, item and stage level. Business Add-Ins (BAdIs) are used with low code to add custom logic. The custom logic allows you to perform custom checks, set field properties, set or change values on custom fields. Furthermore, APIs are available to access data from outside the system. You can use APIs to get access to document information, to interact with the system and to subscribe to business events. For freight orders and freight bookings APIs are available for creation, reading, updating and deletion. For freight units there are APIs to read and update. You can subscribe to business events for freight orders, freight bookings, and freight units.