Partner processing consists of automatically finding out the business partners involved in a particular business transaction. Advantage of this means, it will ease the use of order entry, business user does not have to specifically find out the involved parties in a business transaction every time. Also it offers a way to override system found business partners in a business transaction.
Partner determination procedure is a set of rules that determines how the system works with the business partners during transaction processing.
In SAP CRM, we need to understand the following terminology with respect to partner processing.
- partner function category
- partner function
- partner determination procedure
- access sequence
Partner function category is a overall responsibility of business partner. Example, there is a Partner function category called "Employee". Now Partner functions can be multiple like sales manager, sales employee or sales analyst but finally they all belong to the partner function category "Employee".
To make life easy, there is a undefined partner category, this is used when none of the partner function category suites your busines needs. So you can create partner function like "3rd party negotiator" and include them as undefined partner category. Undefined partner function by default is not bound by any rules. An undefined partner function is assigned to undefined partner function category and is assigned to assigned undefined relationship category(not necessary).
Relation ship category means to say what kind kind of relationship he/she will have in a business transaction. example, contact person will have a relationship "Is Contact Person for".
Now take a look at the Partner Functions SPRO Configuration from SAP CRM IMG
CRM SPRO->CRM->Basic Functions->Partner Processing->Define Partner Functions
Block means , if you set Block, then if a Business partner is found as a Sold-to party in a business transaction, then he cannot be his contact person. If Block is unset, the BP can be contact person as well as Sold-to party.
Partner determination procedure is set of rules defined to search the relevant business partners in a business transaction. Partner determination procedure is assigned to a business transaction type and/or to item category.
Access sequence, like access sequence in pricing and condition types, they consists of search sequence to find the business partners in a transaction from multiple data sources like BP master data or organization data. Access sequence is a search strategy.
Following are the basic configuration steps in SAP CRM to quickly set up partner processing and play for CRM Technical Developer.
1) Define Partner Determination Procedure
Copy Partner Determination Procedure (00000001) into ZPS01 (PartnerDetProc 01) in CRM SPRO->CRM->Basic Functions->Partner Processing->Define Partner Determination Procedure
2) Create an Access Sequence
CRM SPRO->CRM->Basic Functions->Partner Processing->Define Access Sequences
3) Add Contact Person to the Partner Determination Procedure
Added contact person to the partner function to be determined.
Assigned the Access Sequence created in Step2.
4) Add "Receive Goods" for partner function Ship-to Party is used.
5) Assign the Partner determination procedure (ZPS01) to the Transaction type (ZA01 - Quotation)
6) Test Case : When User Creates a Quotation with the Business Partner (123), then system has to automatically find out the Contact Person(1000000363) maintained as "Has Contact Person" relationship and populate the Parties Involved with the Contact Person.
Quick Facts about Partner processing :
1) It is not possible to create partner function categories in SAP CRM Customizing.
2) If you save a transaction and then subsequently alter it, no new partner processing (determination) takes place.
3) The business partner categories are delivered with SAP CRM and cannot be changed after a business partner has been created. It is not possible to define additional categories.
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