Understanding Integration in Purchasing

Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
  • Depict integration overview and integration concept.
  • Illustrate Dangerous Goods Processing in Purchasing.

Integration Overview

Learn about the integration of dangerous goods processing in purchasing.

This image outlines the integration process of dangerous goods in sales, delivery, transportation management, and purchasing, highlighting critical points where dangerous goods checks are processed.
This image lists different purchasing document types and their associated availability for Dangerous Goods Transport Permissibility Check, with Intracompany Stock Transport (Purchase) Order and Standard Purchase Order with Transport Responsibility both having the check available, but no data output options for document printout or EDI (SOAP).

Dangerous goods data is not mandatory for purchasing, but it is required in case of transport responsibility, for example to pick up the purchased goods at a harbor and therefore plan the final leg. The integration of the standard purchase order with transport responsibility and the therefore created freight unit assure compliant transport planning and provision of required dangerous goods documents with the freight order.

*) Dangerous goods checks can only be processed successfully for products having a released dangerous goods assessment for packaged products. This means, the item on the purchase order must be a packaged product.

Integration Concept and Customizing

The dangerous goods check is integrated into the purchasing document as follows:

  • The result of the dangerous goods check is stored in the dangerous good status for the item and the dangerous good status for the header in the purchasing documents.
  • The dangerous goods check execution is automatically processed by the system and the item and header status is updated, when:
    • The purchasing document is created, and an item is added.
    • The following fields of an item in a purchasing document are changed:
      • Material (Product)
      • Receiving Plant (Destination Country/Region)
      • Delivery Date (Planned shipment date is calculated by the delivery date)
    • The purchasing document is saved.
    • The dangerous goods expert released the missing dangerous goods assessments and open requests from logistics have been found. This triggers an automated rechecking of the document and the requests from logistics are automatically closed.

The dangerous goods check is integrated into the purchasing document as follows.

Warning Messages in the log are displayed in the purchasing document to inform the purchaser about any issues when the dangerous goods check has one of the following item status:

  • Warning - Transport Restricted
  • Blocked - Decision Pending
  • Blocked - Transport Forbidden
  • When the dangerous goods check sets the item status to "Blocked - Decision Pending", a request from logistics is automatically created. If the relevant dangerous good assessments are not released or the regulation situation in a country/region is undefined (there is no entry for a country/region in the "Apply Regulations - Dangerous Goods" app), the dangerous goods expert receives a launchpad notification. From the SAP Fiori launchpad notification, the dangerous good expert can directly navigate to the affected object.
This image outlines various compliance statuses and transport permissions for products, classified based on dangerous goods assessments, ranging from Not Relevant to Transport Forbidden

OK – Not Relevant: Product is NOT compliance relevant.

OK – No Dangerous Goods: The product is compliance relevant. Released dangerous goods assessments exist for all relevant regulations. All relevant dangerous good regulations are classified as "No Dangerous Goods".

OK – Transport Allowed: The product is compliance relevant. Released dangerous goods assessments exist for all relevant regulations. At least one or all are classified as "Dangerous Goods". The transport is for all relevant dangerous goods regulations and modes of transport is "Allowed".

Warning – Transport Restricted:

The product is compliance relevant. Released dangerous goods assessments exist for all relevant regulations. At least one or all are classified as "Dangerous Goods". The transport is possible, but for SOME dangerous goods regulations and modes of transport the transport is "Forbidden" *.

Blocked – Decision Pending:

Several reasons are possible: The Compliance relevance is "Undefined". No compliance view exists, but the product is compliance relevant. The role "Transported" is not assigned to the compliance view. At least one of the relevant regulations has no released dangerous goods assessment. A country/region has been determined that has no entries in the "Apply Regulations – Dangerous Goods" app. → In all cases a request from logistics is created. If a dangerous good assessment is not released, a launchpad notification is sent to the dangerous goods specialist.

Blocked – Transport Forbidden:

The product is compliance relevant. Released dangerous goods assessments exist for all relevant regulations. At least one or all are classified as "Dangerous Goods". The transport is NOT possible, because for some or all dangerous goods regulations and modes of transport the transport is "Forbidden" *.

*) For more details, see the "DG Processing in Purchase Order with Transport Responsibility – Check Logic" slide.

This image outlines the different statuses for Dangerous Goods (DG) items and headers, along with the rules for aggregating header statuses based on individual item statuses, indicating various levels of transport allowability and restrictions

DG Processing in Purchase Order with Transport Responsibility - Check Logic

  • The dangerous goods check is executed based on the departure and the destination country/region.

    • The departure country/region is derived from the address of the supplier.

    • The destination country/region is derived from the address of the receiving plant of the item. If the address of the receiving plant has been overwritten, the data is derived from the overwritten address.

  • The determination of the dangerous goods regulations for the departure and the destination country/region are based on the settings in the "Apply Regulations – Dangerous Goods" app.

    Note

    The country/region assignment in the compliance requirements is not considered. The compliance requirement reflects only the legal situation and not necessarily how companies apply the dangerous goods regulations.

  • The solution is currently supporting dangerous goods checks only for "DG ready packed" products.

    Generally, dangerous goods must be packaged products in the sense that they represent a dangerous good packaging. Unpackaged products are only allowed on an outbound delivery if all dangerous good regulations are classified as a "No Dangerous Goods". Products that are not compliance relevant, are not checked and therefore always allowed (item status "OK – Not Relevant").

    Note

    Please note that the scenario of filling dangerous goods in tanks or bulk containers and the flexible packaging process in the supply chain are not supported.

This image outlines the guidelines for determining the transport status of goods, indicating OK for no dangerous goods or transport allowed, Blocked for decision pending or forbidden transport, and Warning for transport restricted, based on compliance and regulations assessments
This activation of the Dangerous Goods Integration into the Value Chain business feature in SAP S/4HANA enables the integration for dangerous goods checks in sales, delivery, purchasing, and transportation management but it is not supported to use it alongside the Product Safety and Stewardship solution within the same system

With the activation of the "Dangerous Goods Integration into the Value Chain" business feature in the Customizing, the integration for dangerous goods checks and documents with dangerous goods data is active in:

  • Sales
  • Delivery
  • Purchasing
  • Transportation Management with:
    • Freight Unit
    • Freight Order

Note

It is NOT supported within one S/4HANA system to use the dangerous good integration of the new S/4HANA for Product Compliance solution and in parallel the dangerous good integration of Product Safety and Stewardship.

This image displays an SAP configuration screen for specifying excluded purchasing document types, alongside a note indicating that dangerous goods checks cannot be excluded for any purchase order types within the designated business feature

For the selected "Dangerous Goods into Value Chain" business feature, you are not allowed to exclude any purchase order types from dangerous goods checks.

On this level, it is not possible to decide on the relevance of dangerous goods checks, since a specific purchase order type can be used multiple process scenarios. However, dangerous goods checks do not need to be processed in all these situations. Therefore, other criteria are applied to decide on relevance of the check processing (see next slide).

This image explains the setup and importance of defining the transportation relevance of purchasing documents in SAP Transportation Management, including identifying responsibilities and activating the Dangerous Goods Integration into the Value Chain feature

Only when you have a purchasing document with transportation relevance, you definitively have to process dangerous goods checks. Therefore, processing of process dangerous goods checks is defined by the integration settings in Transportation Management.

A purchase order with transport responsibility is identified by:

  • Purchasing group
  • Purchasing organization
  • Purchasing document type

These settings are defined in the Customizing for TM under "Integration".

Keep in mind, that, nevertheless, the "Dangerous Goods Integration into the Value Chain" business feature must be activated as a prerequisite.

DG in Purchase Order

Learn about dangerous goods processing in Purchase Order With Transport Responsibility.

This image illustrates the process flow of a Standard Purchase Order with Transport Responsibility, beginning with a purchase order initiating a sales order at the supplier and a freight unit for transport planning at the buyer, which is further processed in the freight order.

Transport planning in Transportation Management (TM) is mandatory for standard purchase orders with transport responsibility.

Only based on this integration via:

  • Purchasing group
  • Purchasing organization
  • Purchasing document type

Transport-relevance is given and dangerous goods checks are processed.

Dangerous goods documents are created with the freight order in TM.

Prerequisites

A purchase order with transport responsibility implies, that the purchasing company has to organize at least partial legs of the transport, such as the final leg from a harbor or a rail container terminal to the final destination.

The processing of dangerous goods checks and document generation for purchased materials require the following:

  • Product master of the purchased material/product has to fulfill the following requirements:
    • The product/material is a packaged product.
    • The compliance-relevant indicator is set to "Yes".
    • The product has a dangerous goods assessment.
  • In case the supplier is classifying the packaged raw material differently than the ordering company, separate packaged raw materials must be created.

The departure and destination country/region are used to derived the applicable dangerous goods regulations as follows:

  • All "domestic" modes of transport of the departure and destination country/region.
  • In addition, the international dangerous goods regulations IMDG and IATA.
This image depicts a purchase order in an SAP system in approval status, highlighting key identifiers such as purchasing group, purchasing organization, and document type, with a note indicating that transport responsibility settings are defined in the Customizing for TM under Integration.

A purchase Order with transport responsibility is identified by:

  • Purchasing group
  • Purchasing organization
  • Purchasing document type

These settings are defined in the Customizing for TM under "Integration".

This image displays a purchase order screen in SAP, highlighting the supplier contact data section where the supplier's address determines the departure country/region for the order.

The departure country/region for the purchase order is taken from the supplier address.

This image depicts a purchase order in SAP software, showing the delivery address details, item information, and a highlighted note indicating that the destination country of the purchase order is India, taken from the delivery address.

The destination country of the Purchase Order is taken from the Delivery Address.

This image displays an SAP purchase order item screen showing that dangerous goods checks have been processed with no restrictions for item 10, indicating transport is allowed.

With the departure and the destination country/region of the purchase order, dangerous goods checks are processed for the following regulations:

  • Domestic transport for departure and the destination country/region.
  • International Transport – IMDG and IATA-DGR

In the given case, there are no restrictions for item 10.

This image shows a SAP Purchase Order interface highlighting the Product Compliance tab with specific attention to the Dangerous Goods Status being aggregated from item level to header level.

The dangerous goods status from item level is aggregated on header level.

This image demonstrates how to identify a purchase order containing dangerous goods in the Manage Purchase Orders app, showing that a status of OK – Transport Allowed indicates no transport restrictions on such items.

You can identify a purchase order with transport responsibility, which contains dangerous goods even in the work-view of the "Manage Purchase Orders" app by the dangerous goods status.

In this example, the status "OK – Transport Allowed" indicates that there are no restrictions regards transport permissibility of the contained items classified as dangerous goods.

DG in Intracompany Stock Transport Order

Learn about dangerous goods processing in Intracompany Stock Transport Order.

This image illustrates the optional process path in transportation planning for intracompany stock transfer orders within a company, outlining the flow from stock transport order creation to goods issue at the delivering plant, involving freight units and orders, and finally to inbound delivery at the receiving plant.

Transport planning in Transportation Management (TM) is optional for intracompany stock transfer orders.

This image illustrates the address details of a stock transport order in SAP, emphasizing that the departure country/region is derived from the supplying plant's address.

The departure country/region of the stock transport order is taken from the address of the supplying plant.

This image shows a held stock transport order screen in SAP, featuring a delivery address with highlighted details indicating that the destination country/region of the stock transport order is derived from the delivery address section.

The destination country/region of the stock transport order is taken from the delivery address.

This image shows a held stock transport order in SAP with a material item that passes dangerous goods checks, indicating no transport restrictions for the specific item.

With the departure and the destination country/region of the stock transport order, dangerous goods checks are processed for the following regulations:

  • Domestic transport for departure and the destination country/region.
  • International Transport – IMDG and IATA-DGR

In the given case, there are no restrictions for item 10.

This image shows an SAP interface where the dangerous goods status at the item level, indicating transport is allowed, is aggregated to the header level on a Held Stock Transfer Order screen.

The dangerous goods status from item level is aggregated on header level.

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