Customizing Core Components of Output Control

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to customize Core Components of Output Control

Central Customizing Objects

In the last lesson, I showed you the application perspective of SAP S/4HANA output control. Now I would like to explain central customizing objects to you. They are highlighted below.
Central customizing objects

Framework of Output Management

1. Decision of the Framework

To use SAP S/4HANA output management in connection with sales documents for outputs, the SAP S/4HANA output management must be activated for the application object type, Sales_Document. In SAP S/AHANA, the SAP S/4HANA output management is activated by default. If output determination (SD-BF-OC) is to be used for output in the context of sales documents, SAP S/4HANA output management can be deactivated for the application object type, Sales_Document, in the customizing.

If you change the activation status for an application object type, this is only valid for new documents. Existing documents are always processed through the output management framework that was active when they were created.

How to Choose the Framework of SAP S/4HANA Output Management

Output Type

2. Define Output Types

The output type describes the deed with which you exchange information with the business partners based on the document. An output type establishes a connection between a document and an output and defines the output parameters for the document. SAP delivers a number of output types for existing applications. One or more output types can be assigned to each application object type. For the application object type SALES_DOCUMENT, possible output types can for example be a quotation, an order confirmation, a direct debit request, a sales contract, or a customer return.

The standard system covers all requirements for output types. SAP does not recommend that the customer create their own additional output types in production environments. Although SAP does not recommend creating additional output types, we will show you in this course how to create new output types in general. In practice, a new output type only makes sense in conjunction with its own callback class. However, the definition of a callback class is not part of this course.

How to Define an Output Type

Output Parameter Determination

3. Define Business Rules for Output Parameter Determination

This is the central customizing activity. Here, you can define how the system determines the output parameters for a specific business document. It is comparable to "output condition records finding by condition technique" in output determination (SD-BF-OC).

Based on document attributes, rules from decision tables determine the output type, the recipient, the channel used for output, the printer settings (only valid for the PRINT output channel), the sender/recipient's email address (only applicable for the EMAIL output channel), the form template that is used for generating a PDF document and the output relevance.

The maintenance of output parameters in decision tables and the determination of output parameters from decision tables is the core of output control and is described in detail in Lesson 3: Determining output parameters.

Output Channel

4. Assign Output Channels

The output channel is the medium of the output. For example, you can print the output or send it by email. The SAP S/4HANA output Control supports the channels EMAIL, PRINT, and EDI in connection with the application object type SALES_DOCUMENT. The EMAIL channel allows for flexible configuration of the sender and receiver, as well as the use of email templates. The PRINT channel enables printing of outputs by the SAP Spool System. The EDI channel supports the technical message formats IDocs or SOA (XML messages) for sending messages to business partners.

The IDoc channel is intended only for internal billing. For all other use cases, the IDoc channel is not supported. The XML channel is designed for integration with SAP Ariba and cannot be used for any other use case.

You can use this activity to display all available combinations of application object, output type and channel. If you have defined a new output type, this activity must define the potentially desired output channels for the new output type, in order to be able to assign this channel when defining business rules for the new output type.

How to Assign Output Channels to Output Types

Form Templates

5. Assign Form Templates

The form template defines the content and especially the layout of the output. SAP delivers standard form templates for each business application. You can also create your own form templates and use them with the new output control. However, the forms and especially the corresponding print program must be compatible with the new output control. The new output control supports the "classic" form technologies SAPscript, Smart Forms and PDF-based print forms without fragments.

It also supports the new form technology PDF-based print forms with fragments. SAP recommends using PDF-based print forms with fragments. With this activity, you can ensure that the business applications use the correct delivered and user-defined form templates. You can check which standard form templates are assigned to specific application objects and output types. If you have created custom form templates, you can add new records and assign the templates to specific application objects and output types.

How to Assign Form Templates to Output Types

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