Tick-tock SRM 7 EHP 2 is here!

Well, SAP silently added the EHP 2 pack to SRM 7. Looks like some fine tuning in the requirements. Soon I will update you on this..

Update-

*EHP2 has more new functionalities for the SAP SRM PPS solution.
*Unknown Account Assignment category (U) can be used


Update - I have added one new post for EHP2

SRM and enterprise portal

New SRM uses the enterprise portal with webdynpro (WD) technology. New WD makes easy for tailoring the look and feel of the enterprises portal in more simple way.

SRM 7 EHP 1.0 - Pick and choose what you need

Nowadays business landscape covers many geographies and various business needs. Hence SAP choosen path of Enhancement Pack EHP and provided the 'pick and choose' power to customers. I believe EHP is nice concept. For SRM 7.0 likewise path is chosen by SAP. Latest EHP 1.0 is available for SRM and it address to customer specific needs. I believe there will many expectations from upcoming EHP in areas of technical achievements and application packaging.

SRM and industry specific solution

SAP offers the two flavours of the SRM - normal and industry specific - SRM PPS (Public Sector Procurement). SRM PPS is targeted for the public sector companies and government agencies as these enterprises have very specific requirement.

SRM and record management

ERP has been complex, it needs to comply with the various legal requirement and public sector companies needs the maximum regulations complaince !
SRM 7 has feature of the Record Management and it adds value to DMS solution.

Why SRM ? and well why SRM 7 ?

Well, I am core SCM chap and believes money saved in purchasing is as good as increasing the sales!
Nowadays the organizations are supply chained in complex network and needs its strategic buyer to concentrate on strategic purchasing and increasing supplier stability (on-time delivery, quantity and quality deliverables and other factors). Many regulatory compliance must be adhered (particularly for public sector companies). Approvals and Payments should have auditable trails.
New emerging markets and technologies help purchaser to get better in market.
SAP offered SRM (EBP - Enterprise Buyer) which enables employee (internal customer!) to put the purchasing requirement in special channel. As solution grew, the offerings of SRM and integration with other modules became strong.
New SRM version 7 is based on SAP's EHP (Enhancement Package) technology and offers well integrated solution (if its SAP ERP then its one of the best possible integration). There are many features which organization can explore.

SRM and Vendor master data

Since SRM 5.0 the vendor data is detached from organization structure and now sits in transaction PPOSV_BBP.

Still the principle is valid- only the vendors having purchasing view are replicated in the SRM. ERP is always the leading system (aka source of truth). The initial replication should be carried out by using BBPGETVD. For further update the synchronization report BBP_VENDOR_SYNC. If you wish to bring in your custom fields then you should use BADI.

Vendor master can be modified in SRM and transfer to ECC, allowing business to use SRM as leading system.

A more complex and wide scope requirement can be fitted along with Supplier Lifecycle Management (aka SAP SLC) integration. This integration maps the end-to-end onboarding of the supplier. Also offers the option to maintain the master data in SAP SRM and then distribute to SAP ECC.

SRM and connecting with supplier marketplace

SRM offers good option to connect over the network of the suppliers. SRM connected with Hubwoo- leverages the supplier network connectivity, supplier enablement and electronic automation (order/invoice) - marketplace advantages.

SRM and BW Reporting Capabilities

SRM is tool for procurement and BW provides the required the reporting capabilities. BW is good tool to analyse the data and off-load the data burdon from performing system. SRM combine with Contract monitoring, Spend analysis and various reports to satisfy the reporting requirements. Also custom development can be added to meet the requirements.

New product SAP HANA gives the BW report new power circuit of fast computing. Well, this will take a while to come to mainstream.

Substitute to take care in your abscence !

SRM offers the delegation facility through substitute functionality.

You can define the substitutes for the period for the activities- Approval, Confirmation, Invoice.

Sometimes the substitution may not be planned (un-planned absence) then substitute can take over by Admin.

Until SRM 6 the requisitioner did not substitute functionality however with the functionality of team purchasing seems to address this issue.

Following steps enable the team purchasing cart
- Configuration - Team purchasing to be used - Organisation details
- Create the Cart as team cart  (user action)
- Maintain the functional substitute (user action) - validity, action, transaction

- Substitute takes over the cart and owership is transferred to new owner
-If you wish to enhance the behaviour, the filtering of the organisation or the emergency team purchasing could be achieved with bespoke code or enhancement.

# SRM 7 and E-sourcing

I believe the SRM solution and E-sourcing (SAP re-branded SAP Sourcing- xCLM/ESO..) are still separated by the border line - Collaborative sourcing.
E-sourcing offers the collaborative sourcing activities. SRM offers the Purchase order execution collaboration (with PLM).

One of the classical integration is SRM talks (create Electronic Requirement) to ERP (SAP ECC as Purchase Requisition) and ERP talks E-sourcing (and carries out the sourcing requirement).

# SRM Analytics

I believe analytics is very crucial for strategic sourcing (as well as operation). In my days of SCM (Purchasing) analytics helped to deal better with the suppliers.

SAP provides the BI (read BW) reporting capability with SRM solution. Spend Analytics (read- FI/AP integrated specnding), contract analytics and many more out-of-box reports to help the purchaser to make informed spending decision.

# SRM 7 and technical implementation scenario

SRM 7 provides more feature in service procurement and the inheritence of SRM 2007 (SRM 6.0) to support Procurement Card (P-card).
On other side classic scenario benefits (depending on your ERP level) the new Contracts - CCTR and GCTR introduced in Sourcing (SoCo).
The technical scenario depends on the 'packages' like SUS, ROS requirements as well.
Still it remains the organization's decision to implement the technical scenario.
A few business may need to have the hybrid scenario (technical scenario controlled using BADI and lot of enhancements).
Classic and Extended Classic remains the choice, a few busines would need standalone or hybrid scenario.

Update - With SRM 7.02 a few changes for technical scenarios - Direct procurement can be handled in Classic mode.

# SRM receiving

As the SRM majorly supports the indirect procurement (cost object assigned) for consumption. It very crucial to identify the receipts is delivered to requestor. Hence, the address should to be updated in these electronic requirements.
If you are using the central goods receipt point then special attention should be given to receiving person!

# Does your cart show on iPhone / Blackberry ?

Well, SAP does not provide the mobile device approval solution as standard feature (out of box).

The consulting solution proivdes the feature to appove the cart in offline mode from the mobile device like RIM BlackBerry.

SAP's own solution of Sybase UWP can enable the SRM users to go mobile!

Also, there a few good third party-applications which provides the mobile/ WAP connectivity. A cloud based solution can be deployed.

Well, I wrote this article when BB was more as business device. Now seems the devices list are grown to Iphone, Ipad, Andriods, Windows Phone!

# User experience that matters- Harmonized UI with SRM 7 portal

SAP UI innovations are quite user friendly and give overall good user interface.

The portal with Netweaver 7.10 give quite good impression and seems to have fliud interface.

From SRM 2007 (SRM 6.0) SAP adopted the WebDynpro technology in the portal- benefit- easy tweaking of frontend (BADI goes away now)-Less complicated to setup through IMG menu path (see in SPRO)-Better approach for error finding.

User can see the 'up-to-date' task dash board as per the POWL results. POWL (Personalised Object Work List) can be adjusted to suit the end user requirement also can be customised throughout the system.

Update - New shiny SAP Netweaver 7.31 promise more.

# Dual Deal - SRM @ ERP

From SRM 5.0 release SAP provides the SRM (classical lean) functionality as Add-on to SAP ERP (ECC).
This is very useful for customer who wish to leverage the indirect procurement functionality of SRM with solid back-end of SAP ERP.
With release of SRM 7.0, the add-on on SAP ECC 6.04 (EHP4), this solution is provides the news features of strategic buying as well !

SRM 7.0 + SAP ECC 6.04 (EHP 4) = SRM@ERP - One client solution

# MDM Catalog

SAP solution for Catalog has gone under lots of evolution since inception. It is also adopted in core R/3 (now read ECC) functionality since R/3 4.7 release. The search capability and user interface are the crucial requirement of catalog solution.
MDM catalog is a refined solution for SAP SRM (see previous products BugsEye, CCI).
Both SAP ECC and SRM can transfer the data to MDM. Source of supply (i.e. Contract, PIR) can be sent to the MDM catalog. The middleware (SAP XI) is needed if you want to import data from SRM, ECC.
The repository holds the catalog data and the required, important configuration data (unit of measure, currency etc), also has the capability of images, documents. The repository schema can be adjusted to suit the organisational requirements.
MDM import manager facilitate the data porting and importing from the various sources(FTP, Excel and so).
MDM data manager facilitates the management of catalog data and other data manipulation activities.
A good feature to mention is the 'browsing' feature which does not load all the details and help user to 'browse' the large content.
MDM interface through OCI settings (as web service) connects to the MDM repository which is maintained in ECC, SRM OCI configuration. The screen fields, features can be configured using the search user interface to suit the requirements.

# Redistribution of the workload

Sourcing cockpit allows purchasing manager to re-distribute the workload- where they can manually re-assign to another purchasing or BADI can be used to (BBP_PGRP_ASSIGN_BADI) automate the re-distribution.

# Sourcing !

Till the recent release of Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) Sourcing has got more options under it cap. The sourcing as been more buyer centric now. Until release of SRM 5, buyer was able to change the cart in sourcing application however in SRM 7.0 buyer can assign the source of supply and update the price in the cart. This seems to be more of compliance to the regulations.

New enhacements in SRM 7 latest EHP offers the sourcing related activities related trigger event if workflow needed to be started.

# SRM organization Structure & SAP HR integration

Organization structure (internal) is crucial master data of SRM; as all of attributes, approval hierarchy, and lot, more is maintained here.
If SAP HR is in place for the organization units for which SRM is under implementation, then as best practice SAP HR can be used to leverage the SAP SRM organization structure.

SAP HR Infotype 1001 (along with 1000, 1002) provides the major of the user data.
Synchronization report (RHALEINI) is used to integrate the both systems, please note SAP HR will be the leading system.
Updates are carried out using the IDoc (HRMD_ABA), for the specified change pointers (report RBDMIDOC).
Transaction BBP_BP_OM_INTEGRATE can be used to fix if something missing.
Obvious but to remember - purchasing specific data (P. Org, P Grp..) needs to be maintained in the SRM.

The changes done in the SRM Organisation structure can be tracked with the maintenance of customisation in table T77CDOC_CUST. The changes can be with report RHCDOC_DISPLAY.
As change logging can deteriorates system performance only important and audit critical infotypes should be used. For exaple- approval limit, spend limit.

Note- SAP tells to limit the number of users in organisation unit maximum two hundred to avoid performance problem. As the attributes search, partner search is performed it takes longer time.

# Team purchasing

World is collaborative, hence the business and purchasing !

New feature of SRM7, help team to complete the purchasing activity in collaborative way.


Team can take over the carts once you nominate the substitute. This is controlled if employee or admin user can assign the team carts. The set of users can be contrlled with the configuration.


Please be informed that this feature is available for the Process Controlled Workflow (PCW) .
SRM 7 customers who are using Application Controlled Workflow this feature is not available.

# Confirmation

In SRM the confirmation is like Goods Receipt in ERP.
The communication of Confirmation is routed through IDoc (SAP ERP) to the back-end after automatic approval or user approval.

Till SRM 5.0 SAP provided functionality like Express Confirmation considering the user navigation (as they may not be familiar with regular confirmation/GR process screen). However, since SRM 6.0 this functionality is not seen.

# SRM -Business Rule Framework (BRF) based workflow

From SRM 6.0 (SRM 2007- only ramp up customer release) SAP moved to Process Controlled Workflow from Application Controlled workflow.

With SRM 7 and further releases both - Application Controlled Workflow (ACW) and Process Controlled Workflow (PCW) are available.
Most of the worklfow object uses the PCW framework and a few are on the ACW.


New framework brings the technical as well as functional benefits. New Process Controlled WF is interesting!

SAP has provided guidelines to consider for the workflow upgrade considering the efforts on the migration. Certainly the upgrade factors also have more weightage for workflow.
New Workflow is the workflow of the future.

# SAP SRM Plan-driven procurement

Plan-driven procurement (PDP) or External procurement is one of my favorite area in SRM.

PDP leverage the sourcing capability of the SRM. The Requirements (read- Purchase Requisitions) are created across the system from different module and may not valid source of supply. The Purchase Requisitions can be channeled in SRM as Requirements (similar to Carts) and then sourcing is carried out in the SRM.

The customizing table entry (V_T160EX and V_T160PR) decide (and/or- with BBPK0001) which PR to be pushed in SRM and report BBP_EXTREQ_TRANSFER in back-end bring these in SRM.

SRM 7 offers new features and possibilities if the back-end is SAP ECC 6.0 EHP4 or above.

With EHP 4 new BADI- ME_REQ_SOURCING_CUST provides the collective processing of Requirements in PDP and helps organization to consolidates the requirement coming from different modules (read- PM,PS, CS, SD)./ back-ends in more efficient way after release/approval. The complex service scene is also possible. You can also integrate the it along with MRP - use BADI - MD_PURREQ_POST

# SAP SRM 7 blog

Its all about you wanted to know about SAP SRM 7 and further releases!