Analyzing the Process Steps

When defining an organizational change, you define restrictions on the scope as follows:

• company codes,
• profit centers, and
• a combination of company codes and profit centers.

Without restrictions, only one open organizational change is allowed at the same period.

In test systems, it is highly recommended to set restrictions. This allows several testers to test in parallel.

Note: For the profit center introduction use case:

• Add a single entry to the "Allow Only Selected Profit Centers" table.
• Enter the Controlling Area and leave the Old Profit Center field empty.

There are 3 variants to maintain objects in an organizational change:

1. Manual Entry or Excel Upload
2. Change Objects in their original application
3. By Badi Implementation

For the maintaining object lists in the Manage Organizational Changes app, the objects available include:

• Products
• WBS Elements
• Projects
• Orders
• Assets (not Public Cloud)
• Network Activities / Elements (not Public Cloud)

The process involves the following steps:

1. Create an Organizational Change
2. Download Excel File Template for the required object type
3. Fill the File (replace the example entries with real values, but keep the title row)
4. Upload File with objects and their new Profit Center Assignment

You can manually enter and upload objects for the same object type. When you upload a file, the upload is only possible when all loaded entries are correct.

Objects already maintained aren't deleted when uploading further objects, so you can add objects and the system handles this in a delta approach. If you upload identical lines from a file, the system makes no changes. However, if you load an identical object with a different new profit center assignment, the new profit center is set and the system issues a warning message to inform you about the change to an already maintained object.

For performing changes to cost centers, the maintenance is performed in the cost center master data directly using the time-dependent assignment of the profit center to the cost center.

If the organizational flexibility feature is active, profit center reassignments to cost centers are only possible with a fitting organizational change, otherwise, the system raises an error, as in the screen above.

You can use BAdI's to implement your own logic to identify affected objects for an organizational change and to assign new profit centers.

Objects for which BAdI's can be used include:

• Products
• WBS Elements
• Projects
• Orders
• (Open Items)
• Sales Order Items
• Intercompany Sales Order Items

BAdI's are triggered when objects are created, updated, deleted or when an organizational change is activated.

Running a simulation allows you to:

• Assess the completeness and correctness of root and dependent objects in the Master Data Hierarchy and the Master Data List apps.
• Understand the effect of the change on balance sheet values with the Financial Data Report.
• Check the correctness of the organizational change by analyzing the Application Log.

To perform a simulation of transfer postings you must configure at least one simulation extension ledger (in customizing). It is recommended that the extension ledger is assigned to the leading ledger.

Simulation documents use technical document numbers and the simulation results are deleted when you re-run a simulation or when you activate or process the organizational change.

You can run the simulation only if the organizational status is Inactive or Active. The simulation itself doesn't change the status of the organizational change.

After activation:

• You can no longer add new objects to the organizational change.
• Listeners are switched on to monitor new or changed dependent objects.
• Time-dependent profit center derivation is activated for profit & loss (CO) postings and for open items. This is dependent on the posting date of journal entries.

Processing changes the profit center in master data objects and transfers balances to the new profit center in all accounting ledgers:

• Change documents are created for master data.
• Transfer postings are posted at the effective date.
• Correction postings are used to correct postings with the old profit center that occurred at or after the effective date both for balance sheet and P&L accounts.
• The simulation postings are deleted.
• Predictive accounting entries are recalculated.
• Update all relevant settlement rules with the new margin analysis receiver.

When you process an organizational change, transfer postings from the old profit center to the new profit center are generated for selected balance sheet accounts:

• For accounts without open-item management, account balances are transferred from the old profit center to the new profit center based on the level of detail of account assignments in the balance carryforward.
• Open items in customer, supplier, or selected general ledger accounts are transferred from the old profit center to the new profit center, based on the level of detail of account assignments in the balance carryforward.

Profit and loss (P&L) amounts from historic transactions, will not be corrected or transferred to the new profit center.

When you consider the reorganization correct and complete, you set it to Complete.

After setting it to complete, you can perform further reorganizations for the defined objects, since an object can't be assigned to more than one active organizational change. However, objects included in a completed organizational change can be reorganized in another organizational change with a different effective date.

The completion of an organizational change disables any and all actions (such as „Process") possible for that organizational change.

The figure provides an overview of what each action among simulate, activate, process, and complete do.

• For inactive Changes, you use simulate to identify relevant objects and simulate the postings in order to analyze them in reports.
• The Activation identifies objects as well, switches time-dependency on and integrates staged objects (any objects created during the run).
• You can run a simulation again after the activate step, the simulation of an active organizational change only simulates the transfer postings.
• During Processing the system checks the completeness of the object lists, changes the master data, performs transfer postings, and processes staged objects.
• The Complete step does only one thing: it checks the status of the object lists and sets the final status.

The following statuses are applied after each phase:

• Inactive: You maintain the organizational change and the affected objects.
  • No change of master data or generation of postings.
  • A simulation can be performed for the current list of affected objects.
• Active: Automatic derivation of new profit centers for postings after the organizational change effective date.
  • Root and dependent objects are automatically identified by "listeners" and added to the organizational change.
  • Simulation can still be performed, but master data lists are not rebuilt.
• Processed: Transfer postings and master data changes are completed.
  • The "Listeners" are still active.
• Completed: You decided that the organizational change is complete.
  • "Listeners" are no longer active.
  • Any actions are no longer allowed.