This document provides a 4-step process for setting up purchasing release strategies in SAP. It begins with determining the approval matrix based on factors like cost center and purchase value. Next, it describes configuring characteristics, classes, and defining the release strategy. Setting up appropriate security roles is also covered. The document provides tips for each step, such as keeping the approval structure simple and transporting characteristic values between environments. The goal is to make this complex SAP process easier to implement and manage.

1. February / March 2007 Volume V Issue 1
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Please Release Me:
SAP Purchasing Release Strategies Made Easy
®
By Jocelyn Hayes, SAPtips Director of Consulting and Training
Editor’s Note: The words “SAP”
and “easy” are rarely used in the same
sentence, but SAPtips Practice Director Jocelyn Hayes is ready to prove it
can be done. In her debut article she
sets out a four-step strategy that is
not only practical, but achievable. In
fact, Jocelyn has employed this strategy at multiple installations, across
a variety of purchasing methodologies with great success. Her secret for
success? Jocelyn says it’s all about
keeping it simple.
Yes, I know, you are skeptical. But
Purchasing Release Strategies can
be made easy if you understand the
fundamental concepts of how to configure them and to follow the KISS
principle (keep it simple, stupid). In
this article, I will point out some tips
and tricks I have learned through
implementing Purchase Requisition
Release strategies at seven different
client locations with very different
purchasing approval methodologies.
This article will also explore some
tricks to managing the constantly
changing security roles and assignments due to company reorganizations or attrition.
This article is written using SAP
R/3 Enterprise (4.7). It is applicable
for all SAP R/3 and mySAP® ERP.
It does not cover Workflow for Purchasing Release Strategies. For more
information on workflow scenarios,
reference:
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_470/helpdata/
en/1d/ea9d9c7aca11d194b70000e82dec10/
frameset.htm
The Four-Step Process
I will present a four-step process
to lead you through the setup and
implementation. Each step offers tips
to help you tiptoe through the potential minefield of gotchas.
Step 1: Determine the Corporate
Purchasing Approval Matrix
This can actually represent the
most difficult step in any organization.
Tip #1 – Encourage purchasing policy makers to keep it simple.
The reason here is not to make the
implementer’s job easier, but to make
it easier for people responsible for
entering purchasing requisitions to
know who must approve the requisition. I cannot tell you how many times
I have agreed to implement a complex release strategy, only to go back
later and simplify. Why? Because the
user community complained that it
was too difficult to figure out who
was responsible for holding up their
requisition from becoming a Purchase Order.
In my experience, most companies
base purchasing approvals on Cost
Centers. I have implemented pur-
chasing groups to be synonymous
with Cost Centers. This allows you to
not require the Cost Center on purchase requisitions.
Tip #2 – If you require the cost center
on the requisition, you do not have
to require the G/L account number,
but you should, because most users
do not know how to select the correct
G/L account. If you do not require
the G/L Account on the purchase
requisition, it is not required on the
Purchase Order (without a custom
developed user/field exit). If your
purchasing agent forgets to add the
G/L account, the receiving department will get an error when they
try to receive, because SAP does not
know how to post the material document.
Figure 1 illustrates the example I
will follow for this article. I will use
two values from which to determine
the release strategy:
1. Purchasing group
2. verall value of purchase
O
requisition
Department
Position
Approval Limits
101
Manager
Up to $10K
101
Director
Up to $50K
101
VP
Up to $100K
101
CFO
Everything over $100K
102
Manager
Up to $5K
102
Director
Up to $50K
102
VP
Up to $200K
102
CFO
Everything over $200K
Figure 1: Approval Matrix Example
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2. February / March 2007 Volume V Issue 1
The Example presented in this
article is for an Overall Release procedure. This means that when someone approves the requisition, they
are approving the entire requisition,
and not each line. This simplifies
the action required of the approvers,
because they only have to approve
once, but it does restrict you from
allowing your users to combine purchase requisitions across departments.
Step 2: Configuration
SAP has published a decent note
that includes a pdf document (Note
207490) with steps on how to complete the configuration. Below, we’ll
discuss the three components
of configuration: (A) Create
Characteristics, (B) Create
Class, and (C) Define Release
Strategy.
• he overall amount of the purt
chase.
These two parameters equate to
characteristics. The characteristics must be represented by values
entered in the purchasing document.
In this scenario, the characteristics
will be:
• urchasing Group – to represent
P
the department
• verall value of requisition
O
To determine what parameters
are available as characteristics, run
transaction SE11 and view table
CEBAN. This table stores what fields
are available in the release strategy
determination. Figure 2 shows where
to correlate the characteristic to the
field used for determination from
CEBAN.
Tip #3 – If the field you want to use
for the release strategy does not exist
in the CEBAN communication structure, (a custom field, for example)
you can use the following user exits:
• 06B0003
M
release
-
For
item-wise
• 06B0005 – For overall release
M
To start, navigate the IMG
(Implementation
Guide)
using transaction SPRO. Follow the menu path:
Materials Management
Purchasing Purchase Requisition Release Procedure
Procedure with Classification, then
A) Create Characteristics:
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In Step 1, you probably
developed an approval matrix
in Excel or on a napkin. Now
you need to translate that
Release Strategy. What you
need to ask is, “what are the
parameters that determine
the approval person?”
In the scenario illustrated
in Figure 1, the parameters
that determine the approval
person are:
• he department requestt
ing the purchase
Figure 2: Create Characteristic Additional Data Screen
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Tip #4 – Notice in Figure 2 how
the “Not Ready for Input” box is
checked in the Procedure for Value
Assignment area. I cannot tell you
how many times this has stung me!
Make sure you deselect it. Otherwise,
it will prevent a value from being
assigned to your characteristic and
your release strategy will not work!
It does serve a purpose, in the case
when the value is inferred by object
dependencies, but that is only applicable when Characteristics are used
in Variant Configuration for configurable make-to-order materials in the
Sales and Distribution module.
Once you complete the Reference
to Table/Field, SAP will import the
characteristic formats from the data
dictionary (the SAP table/field definition). If you click on the Basic Data
tab, you will see the data format and
value assignment pulled in from the
data dictionary field definitions.
Figure 3: Create Characteristics Basic Data Screen
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There are many
advantages to
using one release
strategy for multiple
departments.
Tip #5 – SAP will carry over default
values to the value assignment portion (shown in Figure 3). Make sure
you pay close attention to whether it
allows intervals (which you will want
in the case of a range of values, like
value of requisition) and if it allows
multiple values (which you will want
if you plan to use one release strategy
for multiple departments or purchasing groups). There are many advantages to using one release strategy for
multiple departments, including ease
of configuration and ease of security
role setup.
B) Create Class
Once you have created your characteristics, you must assign the characteristics to a class. On the first
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screen, make sure you use the Class
Type 032, which is the class type for
Release Strategy. See Figure 4.
C) Define Release Strategy
Here we’ll discuss 5 steps for your
Release Strategy definition: Release
Group, Release Codes, Release Indicators, Release Strategies, and finally
we’ll discuss the tie in to Workflow.
1. reate Release Group
C
this step, you create release
In
groups (Figure 5). A release
group will have the same release
levels and strategy. In the scenario illustrated back in Figure 1, there will be two release
groups needed because the
approval interval values are dif-
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Figure 4: Create Class – Assign Characteristics
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ferent between the two departments. If there were a third
department that had the same
approval interval values, it
could share a release group and
the release strategy would be
for more than one department
(or in this example, purchasing
group).
Tip #6 – You can only have ONE
CLASS per release “type”. Release
type is defined as “overall release”
or “item-wise release”. This can be
quite a limitation if you have a complex approval structure. You can
have characteristics that are assigned
to the class, but not utilized in the
release strategy.
2. reate Release Codes
C
release code is an identifier
A
that is associated with the person responsible for approving
Figure 5: Create Release Groups
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5. February / March 2007 Volume V Issue 1
the purchase requisition (Figure
6).
Tip #7 – You can utilize a customer
user exit for purchase requisitions,
M06B0001, to define the workflow
and generate notification and work
list objects for the person responsible
for the approval.
3. reate Release Indicators
C
release indicator shows the
A
release status of a purchase requisition. In the standard system,
a purchase requisition release
status is either “Blocked” or
“RFQ/Purchase Order”. The
“RFQ/Purchase Order” status
indicates that the Purchase Requisition has been fully released
and can now be converted into
an RFQ or Purchase Order.
Figure 6: Create Release Codes
In the standard system, SAP will
not allow changes to the quantity,
unit of measure, or price when an
approver is executing the release
transaction. If you require that other
fields, such as delivery date, plant,
etc., not be modified via the release
transaction, follow TIP #8.
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Tip #8 – If you want to allow certain
fields to be changed during or after
a release, you can modify the Field
Selection Key. To modify the Field
Selection Key, follow the menu path
in the IMG: Materials Management
Purchasing Purchase Requisition
Define Screen Layout at Document
level. Once you have created a custom field selection key, you should
create a custom release indicator by
maintaining a new entry in the “Create Release Indicators” screen.
It is also possible to configure the
release to not be restarted if the
amounts have only changed a specified percentage. To do this, enter “4
- Changeable, new release in case of
new strategy or value” and a percentage in the “Value chgs” field, as
shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7: Change Release Indicator
4. reate Release Strategies
C
Release Strategy is a comA
bination of the Release Group
and Release Code. The Release
Group combines the release
codes (think of them as release
levels) and each combination
gets assigned a release strategy.
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For each release level (or code)
you will define the prerequisites
required to get to that release
level, release status, and the
characteristic values that place
the release into that release
level.
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6. February / March 2007 Volume V Issue 1
I have never experienced a business rule that allowed a higher-level
approver to approve a purchase requisition prior to or simultaneously
with a lower level approver. In other
words, I have not had a client that
wanted the purchase requisition
release to go to the approval queue
of a director at the same time as the
same approval request went to the
manager. Directors usually wants
their manager to approve the expense
before they approve it. So, it makes
completing the Release Prerequisites
screen easy to complete (even though,
when you view the screen, it is very
confusing). I just check the boxes in
the lower left corner, as in Figure 8.
Figure 8: Release Prerequisites
In the classification screen shown
in Figure 9, you assign the values or
ranges of values to the Release Strategy.
Tip #9 – Be sure you have entered
the characteristics value assignments
correctly. If you have not selected
to allow an “interval value” for the
“total value of requisition” amount,
you will not be able to enter a range
in the characteristic value assignment.
5. orkflow: Assign Release Codes
W
to Release Point
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Note: You only have to perform
this step if you wish to link this
release procedure to Workflow,
and are not using customer exit
M06B0001.
Here’s a brief description of how
Purchase Requisition Release Strategies work in SAP.
1. hen the purchase requisition
W
is saved, SAP determines which
type of release is required for
the document type. In this case,
the document type is NB and
is flagged in configuration for
Overall release.
Figure 9: Release Strategies: Classification
2. hen, SAP determines what class
T
to use for this type of release.
class are associated to the values
in the purchase requisition.
3. nce the class is determined, the
O
characteristics assigned to the
4. ith the data up to this point,
W
SAP determines which release
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7. February / March 2007 Volume V Issue 1
strategy to invoke and then follow through with any workflow
activities.
Step 3: Security
Security can be the most time
consuming activity in developing
release strategies – particularly if
you have used multiple characteristics to define your release strategies
and you have multiple release levels.
Again lies that recurring theme of
“Keep It Simple”. Also, not that you
don’t want the job security for your
Basis Security Administrators, but
you want the change process to not
be overly complex, so you can react
quickly when there is a major company reorganization.
Tip # 10 – For SOx compliance, do
not use the * function when defining
the roles in security. This will allow
some folks to have approval authority when they should not.
You should set up a role for each
Release Group / Release Strategy
combination. For further security,
include either in this role or another
role, the restriction for other values
that you have assigned as characteristics, such as Purchasing Group.
Step 4: Transport Classes
and Characteristics
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This is the most overlooked step in
the process. The transport you created in Step 3 in your “Gold” SAP
Configuration client, does not include
the values you associated to the characteristics. They are stored in characteristic value tables that must be
moved through your SAP environments via the ALE (Application Link
Enabling) function.
Tip #11 – Don’t forget to request
your ALE with your transport.
Figure 10 is a sample spreadsheet
of transaction codes, which you can
provide to your Basis team.
Object
Transaction
Check
(Target)
Message Type Notes
(BD64)
Characteristics:
PURCHASING_GROUP
PR_VALUE
BD91
CT04
CHRMAS
Class:
PR_RELEASE
Class Type:
032
BD92
CL03
CLSMAS
Class:
PR_RELEASE
Class Type:
032
BD93
CL03
CLFMAS
Don’t worry
about IDOC
e
rror message
“Object S2L3
(T16FS) not
found”
Figure 10: Sample Transaction Codes
Conclusion
In this article I attempted to lay
the groundwork and provide some
good tips to help beginner SAP Configurators journey down the path to
developing a Purchasing Approval solution. Purchase Requisition
release strategies have always ranked
high on my list of the “tricky” configuration challenges (others include
Condition Techniques and Account
Assignments for Inventory Management). But, with a little time and
commitment, you too can master this
skill!
Jocelyn Hayes, Director of Consulting and Training for SAPtips, has
over ten years of SAP experience. She
has enjoyed a successful consulting
career for a Big 4 firm as well as independently. Jocelyn’s focus primarily
has involved the Logistics modules
of SAP, and has she also developed
ESA Roadmaps using NetWeaver™
tools, including Visual Composer, XI,
Enterprise Portal, and BI. She also
led a CRM Business Process Reengineering project. Contact Jocelyn at
Jocelyn.Hayes@ERPtips.com.
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