This may be my longest title ever, but I wanted to make sure it was something you could find. Despite the really long title, this is one of the most powerful pieces of service management functionality I'm aware of. This portion of configuration allows you to take the cost information from the service order in an automated fashion. The reason there is so much power in this functionality is for multiple reason. First is that you can use the same functionality to drive quotation or billing requests (debit memo's or sales order line items). As is often the case, the more powerful the functionality, the more complicated the configuration. I'll do my best to explain the ins and outs of this functionality.
In the IMG, you can find your way to this configuration using the path: Plant Maintenance and Customer Service --> Maintenance and Service Processing --> Basic Settings --> Quotation Creation and Billing for Service Orders --> Profiles for Quotation Creation, Billing, Results Analysis.
Now, this screen is broken up into 2 pieces. The first is the left side, that has the menu with all of the configuration options. Keep in mind that you must work your way down the chain through Usages, then Sources, then Selection for example. You can't skip ahead :smile: We start at the Profile portion. For this walk through we'll grab my own profile: ZPSE0001. Be sure to highlight the profile, then double click usage on the left.
Within Usage you have 2 options, one for billing, and for quotations. The fields you need to fill out are:
Sales Doc Type - this is the type of document that will be updated or created when you run resource related billing/quotations.
SDoc Type CMR - is only valid for billing. This is the credit memo request type in the event that RRB finds you owe the customer money.
Warranty Check - If you set the indicator, the system performs a warranty check and informs you in a dialog box whether a warranty exists for the piece of equipment concerned. To do this, the system calls up the customer exit ICSV0005 (Determining reason for rejection - resource-related billing).
DI w/Material - Determines how dynamic items without material are processed. If you don't check this box, then you get an error if the material isn't defined within the source or material determination (we'll get to this soon). When you check this box, anything that isn't defined is simply ignored and not processed.
Now, you need to select if you want to look at the quote or billing portion. I'm going to drill into the quotation creation. Keep in mind, the configuration is the same for both...
Highlight the quote and double click on Characteristics. I'm going to show several screens to show you all the fields I use by default to drive my resource related billing.
Now, I'm sure you've noticed, this is quite a list. This is where the power comes from. You have a long list of characteristics to choose from. Then to complicate things, you have different check boxes for each characteristics... Let me talk about those next.
CharactRelevant - this is the easy one. If you check this, the DIP will look at this characteristic
Mat. Determination - this determines if Material Determination should be used for this characteristic. Let me give you the most common example for this. Cost Element. In my example, I drive my materials off of the cost element. So things like Labor, Subcontract costs, etc... are all determined directly by the cost element.
NoSummarization - By default (if you don't check this), all of the same items will be summarized into a single item on the sales order/billing request. So if you have 5 different items that drive to the material of labor, your order will only have one line item for labor with the total qty. If you check this box, you would receive 5 different line items.
Structuring - If you check this, you get the option to structure things even further. Checking this box opens up even more fields to define what set to look at, sequence etc. This is functionality I really haven't used before, but I believe this would allow you to structure items within the sales order using the higher item number (UEPOS) and allow you to build items into a hierarchy on the sales order. All the remaining fields if you scroll across are directly related to the structuring. In a future post, I'll go into more details when I have the time to investigate this functionality further.
Now, if you look at the characteristics, the typical settings include the following:
- Cost Element
- Material
- Object Number (default)
- Period
- Transaction Currency (default)
- Unit of measure (default)
- Value Type
This baseline will drive your items based primarily on the cost element.
One more feature to keep in mind is that you can always use the standard user exits to add your characteristics to the DIP. So if you can't find what you need, you can add your own. Like I said, very powerful. Now in general, DIP characteristics settings will often require a bit of trial and error depending on the combination of characteristics and check marks you choose. It tends to be very finicky... but when you get the right settings, it's really pretty awesome how simply it works.
I'll go into the details on source and material determination next time.
If you're interested in great tips and tricks on SAP service management, variant configuration or production planning, check out my blog at: http://paperstreetenterprises.com/blog/ There is also a link to some SAP Easy Buttons 😃
Thanks for reading,
Mike CTO - JaveLLin Solutions, LLC
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