Exploring Ship Notice Transaction Integration

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to demonstrate an overall understanding of the Ship Notice transaction integration from the SAP Business Network to the SAP System

Ship Notice

A Ship Notice is a document that provides detailed information about a pending delivery. Its purpose is to notify the customer when shipping occurs and provide physical characteristics about the shipment so the customer can be prepared to accept delivery.

Suppliers send a Ship Notice from SAP Business Network when they are ready to ship the items in the purchase order.

Buyers can receive ship notices with the following information from SAP Business Network suppliers:

  • A single ship notice against multiple purchase orders
  • Multiple ship notices against single or multiple line items in a purchase order
  • Ship notice against purchase orders having line items with zero quantity to indicate the items have not shipped
  • Ship notice against a purchase order having material line items
  • Ship notices against purchase orders having BatchIDs for the line items

Note

  • To utilize confirmation control keys, buyers must specify the confirmation control key in their purchase orders.
  • Buyers need to configure their SAP system to accept shipping notices for multiple purchase orders.
  • Buyers can include the manufacturer's name and manufacturer part IDs on purchase orders to ensure that the supplier sources the item from the specified manufacturer. The manufacturer part ID is also included in the order confirmation and shipping notices related to the purchase order. Please note that the manufacturer part ID is available in order confirmations and shipping notices only for material type HERS.

Buyers can use confirmation control keys to validate delivery quantity tolerances when suppliers create ship notices against standard purchase orders. When buyers configure the confirmation control key in ship notices, buyers can enforce or restrict suppliers from exceeding the delivery quantity while creating ship notices. This is useful when buyers require a specific shipped quantity.

The confirmation control keys specified in the Ship Notice are applied when a supplier creates a Ship Notice from their SAP Business Network account. These keys allow buyers to override default business rules for ship notices configured on the SAP Business Network.

Buyers can receive and process updates to line items in the edited ship notices that suppliers send from the SAP Business Network to their SAP system. The inbound delivery document stored on the SAP system contains the updates in the changed ship notice.

When a supplier changes values for the line items in ship notices, the SAP system updates the inbound delivery document on the SAP system with those changes. Suppliers can change values for line items in the Ship Notice created against a single or multi-line purchase order, scheduling agreement, or a Ship Notice containing line items created against a purchase order and scheduling agreement. The edited ship notices that suppliers send from SAP Business Network can store comments and attachments.

The following changes are allowed while updating the Ship Notice:

  • Change in the quantity of the line items
  • Deletion of line item
  • Addition of line item
  • Delivery date
  • Gross weight
  • Gross weight unit of measure
  • Volume
  • Volume unit of measure
  • Supplier batch ID

Cancel Ship Notice

When suppliers submit a cancel ship notice, the associated ship notice is removed from the Confirmations tab, and the inbound delivery is deleted from the SAP system.

When a shipping notice is canceled, it is assumed that products have yet to be received for that delivery. Suppliers cannot cancel a Ship Notice after receiving the associated Goods Receipt.

Prerequisites and Limitations

  • To validate delivery quantity tolerances when suppliers create ship notices against standard purchase orders, configure the confirmation control keys in purchase orders and order confirmations. When creating purchase orders, ensure that you maintain the following fields in the Confirmations tab:
    • Choose a value in the Conf. Control field for the order confirmation.
    • Check the Acknowl.Reqd field
  • You must maintain the Confirmation control keys for order confirmations and ship notices, as well as the Confirmation categories for order confirmations(AB) and ship notices (LA).
  • Buyers enabled for SAP Business Network for Supply Chain must configure the required shipping configuration to create the outbound delivery for components. Ensure that you extend the components to the sales view.
  • To send the component ship notice to two locations (two-step movement), configure the item Category Determination for delivery items. Buyers enabled for SAP Business Network for Supply Chain require this configuration.
  • SAP Business Network currently does not support the time tolerances functionality in Ship Notices. However, it is supported in SAP Integration Suite, managed gateway for spend management and SAP Business Network.

Hint

More information on the prerequisites and limitations can be found in the SAP Integration Suite, Managed Gateway for Spend Management and SAP Business Network Overview Guide. Navigate to Transactions for SAP Business Network > Supported Transactions and cXML Interfaces > Inbound Transactions for SAP Business Network > Ship Notice > Prerequisites and Restrictions section.

Log in to track your progress & complete quizzes