Roles and Applications for Transportation Management
Six business role templates are delivered within SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition with content relevant for transportation management. This lesson describes briefly each of these roles and the associated apps available to users with these role designations.
Transportation Management Business Roles
Master data specialist (TM) | SAP_BR_TRANSP_MDSPEC |
Freight contract specialist | SAP_BR_FREIGHT_CONTRACTSPEC |
Dispatcher (TM) | SAP_BR_DISPATCHER |
Transportation manager | SAP_BR_TRANSPORTATION_MGR |
Transportation buyer | SAP_BR_TRANSP_BUYER |
Configuration expert - business process configuration | SAP_BR_BPC_EXPERT |
Master Data Specialist
A Master Data Specialist manages master data specific to Transportation Management such as locations, organizational units, service products and charge types.
Utilizing the apps in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, they can create and modify location master data related to transportation processes, such as ports, airports, and railway stations, as well as defining and describing commodity codes and applying them to designated products. They can also create organizational units, such as purchasing organizations, specific to transportation processes, and assign those to business partner master data records. They also create the service products and charge types related to transportation, which are used for cost allocation purposes.
The Master Data Specialist is also able to define the relationship between stock or sales units and the corresponding units of measure used for transportation, such as determining the number of units in a pallet.
Apps used:
- Manage Locations
- Create Locations - From Business Partners
- Create Locations - From Shipping Points
- Update Location - From Shipping Point
- Manage Commodity Codes for Transportation
- Classify Products
- Create and Update TM Organizations
- Assign Business Partners to TM Organization
- Define Normalized Quantity
- Create and Update Service Products
Freight Contract Specialist
The freight contract specialist is responsible for freight related master data like the maintenance of freight agreements and rate tables.
Using the apps in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, they can create, edit and delete all freight agreements. They can also modify the details of freight agreements such as the calculation logic and individual rates. A Freight Contact Specialist is also responsible for the maintenance of rate tables. They can create, edit, and delete rate tables, define table structures,validity periods, and variants based on parameters such as source country or gross weight.
Apps used:
- Manage Freight Agreements
- Manage Rate Tables
Dispatcher
A dispatcher is responsible for the planning process. They manage freight units and freight orders, as well as air and ocean freight bookings. They control the execution process by triggering delivery creation and monitoring the execution of freight orders.
Using Apps in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, a Dispatcher will review transportation requirements and plan transport via ground, sea, or air. To this end the Dispatcher can select freight units, available transportation capacities, and existing freight orders and freight bookings for planning purposes. Freight units can be assigned to existing freight documents or new freight documents can be created. Once planning is complete freight documents can be sent to carriers for execution. Once freight documents have been delivered to carriers the dispatcher can monitor the status of shipments in detail or in a list.
Apps Used:
- Manage Freight Units
- Transportation Cockpit
- Manage Freight Orders
- Manage Ocean Freight Bookings
- Manage Air Freight Bookings
- Monitor Execution
Transportation Buyer
The Transportation Buyer is responsible for posting freight costs and monitoring freight documents for errors from the financial perspective. In the case of a calculation error the Transportation Buyer can review individual freight documents to identify and correct the issue. The Transportation Buyer is also responsible to ensure transportation costs are allocated to the correct financial accounts. When freight documents are ready to be posted they can be confirmed in a batch or individually and their status can be subsequently monitored.
Apps used:
- Monitor Calculation Errors
- Monitor Accrual Postings
- Manage Freight Cost Allocation Documents
- Monitor Freight Cost Allocation Document Items
- Manage Variance Posting Errors
Transportation Manager
The Transportation Manager is an overview role. The Transportation Manager can access the same apps as the Freight Contract Specialist and the Dispatcher, they can also perform the financial duties of the Transportation Buyer. Unique to the Transportation Manager role is the ability to monitor and address issues across the full transportation process based on severity, category, and sub-category. The category relevant to transportation is /SCMTMS/TMS.
Apps used:
- Display Application Logs for Transportation Management
- See: Freight Contract Specialist apps
- See: Dispatcher apps
- See: Transportation Buyer apps
Configuration Expert - Business Process Configuration
The configuration expert is a role that is not specific to transportation management. A user with this role can access the configuration activities and configure the solution on the whole. As related to Transportation Management, users with this role can access specific configuration apps to, for example, maintain planning profiles or create freight unit building rules. The Configuration Expert also has the ability to create rules regarding capacity planning and scheduling, as well as set the default view and allowed customizations for the Transportation Cockpit app.
Apps used:
- Manage Conditions
- Manage Freight Unit Building Rules
- Manage Planning Profile
- Manage Capacity Availability Settings
- Manage Capacity Document Creation Settings
- Manage Scheduling Settings
- Manage Transportation Cockpit Settings
- Manage Requirement Grouping Profile
- Manage Capacity Document Creation Settings
- Define Field Catalogs for Transportation Cockpit