With the below blog i would like to collate information about 3PL from business center, help center and some interesting SCN Blog/document on the same for easy understanding and consumption.

What is Third Party Logistics Integration(3PL) ?

With the Third party Logistics (3PL) integration functionality, it is possible to connect SAP Business ByDesign system to an external warehouse management system of a third-party logistics provider. SAP Business ByDesign is used for purchasing, sales, and fulfillment processes including invoicing, whereas warehouse execution and transport is outsourced. The 3PL provider (warehouse provider), takes responsibility for all topics concerning the execution process. Communication is done via B2B interfaces (following UN/EDIFACT standard)

The scenario supports outbound, inbound, and inventory change processes that are physically carried out by the warehouse provider.

The supported outbound processes are:

- Sell from Stock

- Return to Supplier

- Stock Transfers

The supported inbound processes are:

- Procure to Pay

- Return from Customer

- Stock Transfers

The inventory side reflects "inventory changes in externally managed location", scrapping, consumption/return for cost center or projects, changes of stock attributes, and inventory alignment postings with the externally managed location

Related Content:

The Below beautiful pretty much covers everything about 3PL scenario

How-to Guide (For SAP Business ByDesign May 2013)

1)System Setup

• Business Configuration
• Master Data
• Warehouse Provider
• Company Settings
• Externally Managed Warehouse
• Communication Arrangement
• Document Numbering
• 3PL Process Settings
• Data Migration Business ByDesign – External Warehouse System

2)Business Processes: (Scenario running with master data)

• Outbound Process: Standard Deliveries - Manual Posting and B2B Message
• Outbound Process: Return to Supplier
• Outbound Process: Stock Transfer
• Inbound Process: Standard Deliveries
• Inbound Process: Standard Deliveries - Manual Posting
• Inbound Process: Standard Deliveries – B2B Message
• Inbound Process: Customer Return
• Inbound Process: Stock Transfer
• Inventory Notifications
• Inventory change in Externally Managed Location
• Inventory Alignment with Externally Managed Location

There are 6 Different B2B message or 6 Webservice we use in 3PL scenario covered in mentioned link.

Inbound Delivery Execution In

Inbound Delivery Execution Out

Inbound Delivery Replication Out

Inventory Notification In

Outbound Delivery Execution In

Outbound Delivery Execution Out

The following information are covered in each B2B message

• General Rules for using this Web Service
• Pre-requisites for using this Web Service
• Message Header
• Message Body – Mandatory Elements
• Root Node - InboundDeliveryExecution
• Node – Item
• Node – Material
• Communication of master data identifiers
• Scenarios

Related Blogs :

Third Party Logistics in BYD - Top 10 Best Practices

http://scn.sap.com/community/business-bydesign/blog/2014/03/25/third-party-logistics-in-byd--top-10-best-practices

Third party Logistics overview - part 1

http://scn.sap.com/community/business-bydesign/blog/2014/01/23/third-party-logistics-in-byd-using-external-warehouses--an-overview-part-1-of-2

Third party Logistics ovewview part 2

http://scn.sap.com/community/business-bydesign/blog/2014/01/28/third-party-logistics-in-byd-using-external-warehouses--an-overview-part-2-of-2

This blog gives overview on how Contract can be Invoice - base on 2 Use Cases and how it can be Completed - depends on 2 conditions .

Customer Contract can be Invoice base on two use case .

1. Invoice with reference to 'Customer Contract Invoice Request' and HOW-TO prevent 'Conflict' status.
2. Invoice with reference to 'Schedule Invoice Request' and HOW-TO Cancel Invoice Schedule with OPEN-dates.
   
   

Use Case 1 :-

This use case explains on how Customer Contract Invoice Request gets invoice and how to prevent getting this Invoice Request as Conflict.

• Go to Sales Order work center ->Create New Contract (where ABC is Contract ID) and maintain all the madatory details.
• Go to Items tab and enter Item of type Service - Fixed price without actual ->Release the Contract.
• Go to Customer Invoicing work center ->Invoice Request view ->Search with Contract ID 'ABC'.

You can see the 'Customer Contract Invoice Request' is with status To be Invoiced.

Select the Invoice Request ABC and click on Invoice button ->Save the Invoice (without release).It creates Invoice(where Invoice ID is INV),which can further be released.

***Please Note :=>

• a) If you Cancel the Contract ABC ->Item with Invoice Cancelation as 'Cancel Pending Invoice Request' .

OR

• b) Make certain change within Contract e.g. reduce the Contract ->Item's quantity(this changes possible ONLY prior to Invoice is released) .

=>Then it will make the Customer Contract Invoice Request status as 'Conflict'. So please ensure ,you do not make any changes/cancelation within Contract to prevent Invoice Request getting conflict.

Use Case 2 :-

How to create Schedule Invoice Request and Cancel - Invoice Schedule with Open dates.

• Go to Sales Order work center ->Create New Contract ABC ->Go to Items tab and add Service Item as line-item '10'
• Go to Pricing and Invoice tab ->Invoice Schedule sub tab ->Add line-item 10
• Maintain two dates as : dd.mm.yyyy and dd1.mm1.yyyy1 and later release the Contract.
• Go to Customer Invoicing work center ->Invoice Request view ->Search with Contract ID :ABC
• Create and Release Invoice for the Schedule Invoice Request of date dd.mm.yyyy (not for dd1.mm1.yyyy1).
• Now if you check Invoice Schedule tab of Contract ABC,you can see for date dd.mm.yyyy the status is Invoiced whereas for date dd1.mm1.yyyy1 status is Open (since NO - Schedule Invoice Request yet created).
• If you want to Cancel the Item 10 with Open date dd1.mm1.yyyy1 ( + Including all other Open dates which will come in future),follow the below step:-

• Go to Items tab of Contract ABC ->Select Item '10' and perform Action Finish Fulfillment and then follow by Finish Invoicing .

=> This will change status of date dd1.mm1.yyyy1 from Open to Canceled.

WHEN THE OVERALL STATUS OF CONTRACT WILL BE COMPLETED ?

The overall status of Contract will be Completed ,if either of the below 2 condition is satisfied.

Condition 1: If Contract ->Items are having the Cancelation Status as 'Canceled' ,which will results into Item status as Completed.Once all item status will be Completed ,then the overall Contract Status will also be completed.

Condition 2 :The other way by which Item/items will have status as Completed ,when for those line-items:-

1. Fulfilment Status is Finished
2. Invoice Status is Finished
3. and Validity of Item is Expired.(i.e. Contract ->Item - End Date is reached).

Same as in condition 1,once all Item have status 'Completed' it will overall complete the Contract status too.

KEY POINT TO REMEMBER :=>

• Edit Contract ABC ->Go to Items tab ->Select line-item '10'.

=>If you perform the Action : Finish Fulfillment ,it will make the Cancelation Reason as non-editable .So if you want to perform cancelation on Contract->Item ,please ensure you do not trigger action Finish Fulfillment (Note : Once Finish Fulfilment is done ,it can not be reverted back).

Reference : Help Center ->Customer Contracts Quick Guide.

Once SAP propose solution to an incident you will get a notification from SAP Cloud Support which as shown below.

We would like to provide following best practise and methods to help us service you better.

Best Practise #1: Don’t Leave Us in the Dark: Confirm our Solution – or Reject It

Of course, we always strive to do our best. However, to maintain our high standards, it is important for us to know whether you are completely satisfied with the solution proposal provided by SAP Cloud Support.

• If the proposed solution solves the issue you reported, please take the time to confirm the solution.
• If the proposed solution does not solve your issue, please reject it and send the incident back to us for further processing.

How You Benefit

• Clear overview of open incidents
• Timely response ensures timely processing.

How We Benefit

• We know the extent to which a proposed solution solved your issue.

Feedback #2: Let Us Know Your Mind: Customer Feedback on Incidents

Whenever we provide a solution to your incident, you will receive a separate email containing a link with the following questions with

- '0' for Very Unsatisfied,

- '5' for Neutral

- '10' for Very Satisfied.

• Please take the time to provide your feedback and send it back to us.

How You Benefit

• You have a chance to trigger improvements at our end.

How We Benefit

• We have a chance to detect areas for improvement which we will certainly explore.

NOTE :

1. Once feedback submitted you cannot open the link again with an error message "The Feedback is final".

2. The survey link is valid only for 28 days and you cannot provide feedback anymore as the link is expired.

Hi,

there seems to be some uncertainty about the "date" that is being displayed

• In the "Time and Expense Items" for a project that is located in work center view "Not Invoiced Time and Expenses" in Project Management
• In a project invoice request and
• In the data source "Revenue Contribution" (PROCPIU03)
  • Please note: The date is being displayed as "Provisioning Date" as of ByD 1602 and as "Source Document Provisioning Date" as of 1605 where the datasource was substantially extended.

The documentation reads:

"The date is the provision date of the service or the date of the expense."

It is a bit more complicated, but not much:

• Time confirmations from the employee time sheet
  • "Date" = date from the time sheet.
• Expense reports
  • Expense Report Item
    • "Date" = Period End Date
      If the detail screen shows a period that gives more information as compared to the expense date - e.g. the start and end date of a hotel accomodation.
    • "Date = Expense Date
      If the only date information is the expense date.
  • Mileage
    "Date" = Expense report trip end date.
  • Per diem
    "Date" = Expense report trip end date.
• Supplier invoices or credit memos
  • Delivery date / service period filled
    "Date" = Delivery date, end date of service period
  • Delivery date / service period not filled
    "Date" = supplier invoice posting date.
• Goods or service receipts
  • Manually created time/expense recordings
    "Date" = Posting date.
    Please note that for the most common use case of time recording, the time recording is displayed in "not invoiced time and expenses" for both external time recordings as well as intercompany time recordings althought the goods or service receipt is the document that is relevant for Financials.
  • Representing intercompany expense reports
    "Date" = Delivery date / service period to.
    The system makes sure that the delivery date / service period to is filled accorind to same logic that is described for expense reports.
• Goods issues and goods returns
  • "Date" = Creation date of goods issue/return

Best regards

  Otfried

Here's the issue:

You run a customer project that requires participation from resources that are employed to other companies in your group.

Say company B - the buying company ... that sells the customer project - orders services from company S - the selling company. In addition to the services you also order an expense product. The employee from S who renders the services for B - creates an expense report that is account assigned to the customer project in B. On posting the expense report in S, the system also creates a goods and service receipt (GSR) in B. Unfortunatly, in B, there is no way to find out the expense report that is associated with the GSR.... until now!

This is what you currently see in ByD:

The expense report is account assigned to a customer project CPSO78 and has three receipts:

Project management: "Not invoiced time and expenses":

The solution is to create a data source with SAP Cloud Application Studio means and then provide analytics report that allows you to identify the expense report:

Here are the steps:

1.

2.

3.

In this blog, we'd like to introduce you to one of the things that are new or have been changed in the May 2016 version of SAP Business ByDesign.

Of course you can find more information in the What's New in SAP Business ByDesign documentation, which is available online.

Today, we are going to talk about contract renewal with re-determined item price.

You can now create a renewal rule with condition to re-determine item price in contract. When you apply this rule on a contract, item price will be fetched from product master data in renewed contract or contract item, instead of copying the price from previous contract or contract item. For more information, see Customer Contracts Quick Guide.

To create a renewal rule with condition to re-determine the item price, go to Maintain renewal rules under Renewal and Cancellation for Customer Contracts activity in Business Configuration work center, as highlighted in the snapshots below:

Click Add Row to create a new rule, enter rule decription and choose Re-determine Price and other required conditions under Renewal Rule Definition.

Are you familiar with the What's New video in SAP Business ByDesign? You can have a look at it here.

In this blog, we'd like to introduce you to things that are new or have been changed in the May 2016 version of SAP Business ByDesign.

Of course you can find more information in the What's New in SAP Business ByDesign documentation, which is available online.

Today, we are going to talk about defining new campaign types and web services for campaign management.

Web services are now available for creating campaigns via social media platforms, querying target group for contact information of members and uploading campaign responses to the SAP Business ByDesign system.

In addition to the existing SAP delivered campaign types, you can now define new campaign types from Business Configuration work center.

To do so, go to Campaign Type activity under Business Configuration work center.

Add new campaign type using the Add Row button and click Save.

The newly created campaign type will appear in Campaign Type drop down while creating a new campaign in Campaigns sub-view.

Are you familiar with the What's New video in SAP Business ByDesign? You can have a look at it here.

In this blog, we'd like to introduce you to one of the things that are new or have been changed in the May 2016 version of SAP Business ByDesign.

Of course you can find more information in the What's New in SAP Business ByDesign documentation, which is available online.

Today, we are going to talk about the payment due date for customer invoice request.

You can now manually set payment due date in customer invoice request without selecting payment terms. In case you select payment terms, corresponding due date will be displayed. The manual selection of due date will provide you the flexibility to decide the due date as per your business requirement. You can find this date specified in the invoice document received from the invoicing party.

To specify payment due date for customer invoice, navigate to Customer Invoicing work center and then Invoice Requests view.

Create or edit an invoice request. Under Payment, choose a due date.

Alternatively, if you select the Payment Terms, the corresponding Due Date is derived as shown in the following screen.

Are you familiar with the What's New video in SAP Business ByDesign? You can have a look at it here.

In this blog, we'd like to introduce you to one of the things that are new or have been changed in the May 2016 version of SAP Business ByDesign.

Of course you can find more information in the What's New in SAP Business ByDesign documentation, which is available online.

Today, we are going to talk about the late changes in pricing for sales orders.

You can now make changes to Price, Quantity andShip-todetails of project based services or expense items in sales order until the delivery or invoicing is not completed. This would be relevant if you execute long term projects with ongoing price or quantity negotiations during the project phase (ex. if the budget or requirements have changed during project execution). This could also be relevant if there are legal requirements that mandate that a certain fee must be related to creditable costs and can be determined only at the end of delivery.

The following snapshot illustrates that the late changes in Quantity, List Price and Ship-To fields are allowed in a sales order containing item of type Service - fixed price (project) with Invoice Status as In Process.

You can enable this feature from Business Configuration work center and Implementation Projects view. Select your project and click Edit Project Scope.

Note: Configuration settings are usally performed by an adminstrator. If you do not have the required authorization, contact your administrator.

In the Scoping step of the guided activity, in Product and Service Portfolio for Sales under Sales, select Sell Project-Based Products and Services. In the Questions tab, select the statement/question under the business option Late Changes for Project-Based Services.

Are you familiar with the What's New video in SAP Business ByDesign? You can have a look at it here.

In this blog, we'd like to introduce you to one of the things that are new or have been changed in the May 2016 version of SAP Business ByDesign.

Of course you can find more information in the What's New in SAP Business ByDesign documentation, which is available online.

Today, we are going to talk about invoice and credit memo items in a customer invoice request.

You can now add invoice and credit memo items into a single invoice request. This will help you maintain a single invoice document containing all the sales and return transactions.

To do so, go to Invoice Requests view under Customer Invoicing work center.

Create new invoice request and add items. Specify the item type in the Type field as either Invoice Item or Credit Memo Item.

The Type field needs to be enabled from the Personalize screen.

You can enable this feature from Business Configuration work center. For more information, see the Quick Guide for Invoice Requests.

Enabling this feature will also allow you to combine credit memo invoice requests and customer invoice requests into a single invoice document, provided the other invoice-split parameters match.

Are you familiar with the What's New video in SAP Business ByDesign? You can have a look at it here.

In this blog, we'd like to introduce you to one of the things that are new or have been changed in the May 2016 version of SAP Business ByDesign.

Of course you can find more information in the What's New in SAP Business ByDesign documentation, which is available online.

Today, we are going to talk about the enablement of workflow rules for service requests.

You can now define workflow rules for service requests in Workflow Rules view under Application and User Management work center, as highlighted in the snapshots below. It is now possible to create, edit and activate rules for service requests, in order to trigger notifcations to the recipients when items have changed under various conditions.

Select business object and enter basic information in step 1.

In step 2, define conditions that trigger the workflow actions.

In step 3, define the workflow actions which are to be performed.

Are you familiar with the What's New video in SAP Business ByDesign? You can have a look at here.

Data silos occur when different departments within the same organisation start competing with each other and create data noise that do not lead towards the same business goals. When the departments don’t share their data that in return might benefit the goals of the entire organization, the managers face the problem of data silos.

Small Businesses can improve efficiency by locating pain points and by framing a Business Process Improvement (BPI) strategy. Mapping a visual representation of the data process that needs to be fixed is helpful. Brands are already investing a ton for branding purposes and many times we come across deficiency in processes that hampers the marketing and branding activities. The small business resource center offers useful tips and case studies for streamlining the branding activities. In the case of small business, survival depends on adaptability and businesses that are adaptive remain operational for a long period of time.

How SAP Business ByDesign Helps to Maximize Efficiency

SAP Business ByDesign is a great product that streamlines end to end processes and runs on highly secured data centers to maximize efficiency of your entire organization.

1- Flexible Sharing - It offers a single software solution for all the important business processes like marketing, sales, service, finance, supply chain management and HR. Projects can be staffed easily and the activities can be made to operate in an efficient manner. Data can be shared easily and the problem of data silos can be resolved.

2- Cloud ERP - Without any significant IT expenses like hardware and support staff, cloud based ERP solution offers built in updates which prove to be extremely cost effective in the longer run. Cloud based platform offers easy access to files and resources without any geographical barriers thereby easing out on the availability of the data.

3- 360 degree visibility - It offers a 360 degree visibility into spending, supplies and informational assets. With built in analytics and management dashboards to achieve operational excellence. Integrated, automated and streamlined processes help to improve transparency across data storage thereby leading to improvement in productivity.

4- Modular and Scalable - SAP facilitates phase by phase implementation where new modules can be added over time as required. The software supports ubiquitous browsers and all sorts of mobile devices.

Rich business intelligence combined with integrated analytics capabilities, SAP offers SMEs to collaborate, communicate and exchange data as and when required. By providing the ability to find information quickly, the new enterprise search technology helps to solve the problem of data silos and maximizes the overall efficiency.

I was very happy to join the SAP Business ByDesign day last Monday (May 16th) and SAPPHIRE Now 2016. I had very exciting contacts with colleagues.

For those who are interested in my presentations, please find a compilation on available material.

• SAP Business ByDesign Day
  • Localization
    • Slides: see below
    • JAM Page - send me an email to get access
      
  • Integration
    • Slides: see below
    • Replay: my colleague Reinhard Ernesto Herbst talking about the same topic (without demo) on integration at SAPPHIRE
      
• SAPPHIRE Now
  • Microverticals (PDI", SAP Cloud Application Studio), together with Tomas Fertig (Seidor) and Geoff Ashley (Navigator Business Solutions)
    • Slides: see below
    • Replay
    • Demo recording also at link below
  • Actual Costing
    • Slides: see below
    • Replay
    • Help Article

All slides (PDF and Microsoft Powerpoint format) can be found here for the next 90 days.

For those who are interested in learning more about the SAP Cloud Application Studio, you can attend an openSAP course for free.

Dear All,

If you find 'Add Extension Field to Section Group' missing in the Extensibility Explorer of the UI DEsigner as mentioned in the below screenshot .

Please check for the Anchor.

'Add Extension Field to Section Group' will only be available when Extension Anchor is configured in the UI Designer.

Regards,

Deepty Mohnani

SAP Business ByDesign will be withdrawing support for scanner devices starting from May 2016. Below is the guideline for the usage of scanner devices for SAP Business ByDesign.

• With the May 2016 release, the support for rugged devices is deprecated. This means that SAP will not offer further enhancements for this functionality.
• With the May 2016 release, only minimum support will be offered for existing customers using this functionality. No support will be available for new customers.
• With the August 2016 release, Windows Mobile: Mob Warehouses software installation package available in the download center in service marketplace will be withdrawn.

If you want to continue to use this functionality, please contact your implementation partner. For more information, see Scanner Strategy in Business ByDesign

Hi, Please refer to the following document for the topic "How to add custom field to Standard Query as Parameter"

http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-73531

Thanks, Pradeep.

1 - How SAP By Design is groin 2014:

SAP Business ByDesign update from SAP TechEd

2 - SAP Business ByDesign UK Customers Running Better

SAP Business ByDesign UK Customers Running Better

3 - New SAP Cloud product videos on YouTube

New SAP Cloud product videos on YouTube

4 - Great videos from Rainer Zinow

Comprehensive SAP Business ByDesign Overview

5 - SAP Support portal

Home | SAP Support Portal

6 - SAP By DEsign Help portal

SAP Business ByDesign – SAP Help Portal Page

Netting of Payables and Receivables

Netting is the process of offsetting payables with receivables to partially or completely clear the open items. In an organization receivables and payables transactions occur between the organization and the business partners. Such receivables and payables items are posted to the respective customer or supplier account. All the receivables and payables pertaining to a customer account is processed in customer account monitor and similarly the due/open items pertaining to a supplier account is processed in the supplier account monitor. Netting business option enables you to club these receivables and payables to clear all open items.

Prerequisites:

•You have selected netting functionality in your system configuration. To find this option,

1. Go to Business Configuration work center àImplementation Projects view àImplementation project à click Edit Project Scope.

In the Questions step of the guided activity, in Payables and Receivables Processing under Cash Flow Management, select Payment Clearing. Check the statement related to Netting of Payables and Receivables.

  •You have maintained netting relationships between two business partners. You can do so in the customer and supplier master data.

Process Flow

1.      Go to Business Partner Data Work center & find the Supplier (AMS Pvt Ltd) in Business Partner View.

.

2.      Click on Create As button & select Account to create the Supplier as Customer.

.

3.      Supplier (AMS Pvt Ltd) is now created as a Customer.

.

4.     Check the Trade Receivables in the Customer Account in Receivables Work center.

.

5.    Also, check the Trade Payables in the Supplier Account in Payables Work center.

.

6.     Click on Clear Manually button on either Supplier or Customer account.

.

7.      Here, you can see both Payables& Receivables open documents are showing.

8.      So here, you can choose the documents which you want to clear as I have shown in the below screenshot.

9.    You can see the cleared documents in the below screenshot.

.

10.      Journal Entries for this posting:

If you have got any issues, you can contact me.

Thanks & Regards,

Anant Patel

SAP BYD CONSULTANT

Phone: +91-9716100326

Email: anant3113@gmail.com

Skype: anant.3105

Hi,

I have created a document : http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-73609

at the community "SAP Cloud Applications Studio"

with subject How to Update Business Object at various contexts

so thought of sharing it here as well.

Thanks, Pradeep.

Dear Partners and Customers,

Last week we run another important SAP ByD ISV ( Independent Software Vendor) webinar, focused on Asset Maintenance. This add-on enhances SAP ByD for certain verticals by addressing Inhouse Maintenance and Facility Management for our customers running maintenance processes.

Thus, we have shared latest developments from all4cloud to be released on 1608 including:

• Counter base preventive maintenance
• Service request for machine operation (IoT scenario)
• Demo on html 5 UI
• Sales case studies from industries such as Public Sector, Primray Metals or Engineering and Construction.

This micro-vertical add-on provides a complete set of features that successfully combines business management and maintenance task such as plant descriptions, technical view, functions, preventive measuremnets or budgeting to nane a few.

I remind the recorded session-as any other ISV win bigger webinra series- is published in PartnerEdge. Just in case some of you want to watch the demo or learn details about this partner add-on.

For any further question on ISVs or Enterprise Asset Management add-on from all4cloud, you can contact either Antonio Sanchez Coullaut (SAP) or Detlef Aden (all4cloud).

Stay tune for upcoming blogs summarizing ISV add-ons  from our ecosystem which continuously grow ByD portfolio with new extended scenarios or micro-verticals.

Antonio Sanchez Coullaut