Loading and Unloading Freight Orders

As part of the advanced shipping and receiving process, the Load or Unload Freight Orders app allows you to process shipping and receiving activities. With this app, you can:

• Handle deliveries that are managed in Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) and Inventory Management

• Assign or unassign loading points, unloading points, and doors to inbound or outbound deliveries

• Indicate whether inbound deliveries are ready for warehouse processing

• Indicate whether goods arrive at, or depart from, doors

• Indicate whether goods are loaded or unloaded

• Indicate whether goods are loaded or entirely unloaded on stop level

• Indicate the staging area, staging area group, and staging bay of the goods on product level and stop level

• Post a goods issue or a goods receipt

• Process loading and unloading activities for a single warehouse visit

The goods issue of an outbound delivery can be triggered as soon as the execution of a freight order starts. You can use transportation-related events to control and trigger the execution of goods movements automatically. Goods issue for an outbound delivery can only be associated with the execution of a freight order covering the first stage of the transport. You can control the goods issue of a freight order using transportation-related events such as Loading Begin, Loading End, or Departure. An additional prerequisite for posting goods issue is that all delivery items that are relevant for picking have been picked.

For inbound deliveries, goods receipt can be triggered once the execution of a freight order ends. It can be associated with transportation-related events like Arrival at Destination, Unloading Start, or Unloading End. Goods receipt for an inbound delivery can only be related to the execution of a freight order covering the last stage of the transport.

In Transportation Management in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, you can use Document Information Extraction with generative AI technology to analyze delivery documents attached to a consignment order, extract their header data, item data, and item reference data, and insert it into a consignment order. This allows you to reduce manual checks at the gate and improve operational efficiency at goods receipt.

In TM, you upload your delivery documents, such as PDF documents, to a consignment order. If you created a consignment order based on an advanced shipping notification (ASN), it might already have the delivery documents attached. You send your attachments to the extraction service. You can monitor the processing status directly in Document Information Extraction. Since Document Information Extraction doesn't send success messages, you retrieve your extraction results by refreshing the consignment order. The system compares the extracted data to existing data for your consignment order. The data is filled into your consignment order based on the extraction and comparison results. During the process, you might run into errors. You can view and resolve any document errors related to this process on the Document Errors tab of the consignment order. Depending on the error solution, you can continue with the consignment order data or the extracted data. You have to resolve all document errors before the system can determine the correct requirement documents to continue.

The following steps describe in detail an example process of how to automatically process data from delivery documents that are attached to consignment orders:

1. You scan a delivery document and attach it as a PDF document to a consignment order.
2. You submit your attachment to the extraction service using the Extract Attachment Data function. Your consignment order is blocked for planning.
3. Document Information Extraction receives the data from the attachment and starts the extraction.
4. While the extraction is running, you check the processing status in Document Information Extraction.
5. You refresh the consignment order and see that the extraction is done.
6. The system retrieves the extracted data and enters it in your consignment order.
7. The extracted data is compared to the data in the system.

   You are notified that an item mismatch creates a document error. You can view the error message on the Document Error tab.

   The data comparison results show that one of the items in the consignment order is missing in the extracted data. You can check the information in the attachment and find a typo in the corresponding item in the delivery document. Because of the typo, the extraction service couldn't read the data correctly. On the Document Error tab, you choose Delete to delete the error and continue with the consignment data.

8. The processing block for the consignment order is removed.
9. The system determines the correct requirement documents based on the extracted data.