Setting up a Release Strategy for PO : Part 2 (Concepts & Best Practices in SAP ERP)

Welcome to Part 2 of setting up a release strategy for PO in SAP ERP. Let's look at how to setup a sample PO release strategy, with an example.

How to Set up a PO Release Strategy in SAP

Business Scenario : Company ABC is in to importation & sale of Pharmaceutical drugs and Consumer goods. The company purchases common consumables, packing materials, etc. locally & the specific trading items (Pharmaceuticals & Consumer) from foreign countries.

Any local purchase of the company is handled by its central procurement division. The Importation of trading items however are handled by the respective business unit (Pharmaceutical Division & Consumer Division)

The two trading divisions are created in SAP as two separate Plants. The Central Procurement unit is also created as another separate Plant in the SAP system

The PO approvals of each division are done as follows, for any value

	Approver 1	Approver 2	Approver 3
Central Purchasing	Executive Purchasing	Manager Purchasing
Pharmaceutical	Executive Logistic : Pharma	Manager Logistic : Pharma	Director Pharma
Consumer	Executive Logistic : Consumer	Manager Logistic : Consumer	Director Consumer

Let’s see how to map the above scenario to an SAP PO Release Strategy. I have taken Pharmaceutical Scenario out of the three, for the sample setup

Step 1 : Create a Class (Release Class)

SPRO --> Materials Management --> Purchasing --> Purchase Order --> Release Procedure for Purchase Orders --> Edit Class

Or 

Tcode CL02

Select the Class Type as 032 and enter a name for the Class. Click New & Enter

Enter the Description of the new Class & Save

Step 2 : Create Characteristics

SPRO --> Materials Management --> Purchasing --> Purchase Order --> Release Procedure for Purchase Orders --> Edit Characteristic

Or 

Tcode CT04

Enter the name of the Characteristic & Select New/ Create

Enter the Description for the new Characteristic, Data Type & the Length

I have set this Character as ‘Multiple Values’ since it could have more than one Plant code

Enter the Language & Description as follows, in the next tab

Select the Table name & the relevant Field for the Characteristic. CEKKO would be the main SAP table in which, PO release related characteristics are stored. You could check the other available fields in the table using SE11

Assign the characteristic to Class Type 032 & Save. By doing so, it would be available for any new Class under 032. A single characteristic, could be assigned to multiple release classes

Using this method, create all the characteristics required

Step 3 : Assign Characteristics to Class

Edit Class created using CT04 & assign all the required characteristics to Class ZPO_RELEASE. Save

I have assigned four characteristics to it. This means, the PO approval would get triggered based on these four factors

Step 4 : Create Release Group

SPRO --> Materials Management --> Purchasing --> Purchase Order --> Release Procedure for Purchase Orders --> Define Release Procedure for Purchase Orders --> Release Groups

Enter the Release Groups, Class & the Descriptions. Save

Step 5 : Create Release Codes

SPRO --> Materials Management --> Purchasing --> Purchase Order --> Release Procedure for Purchase Orders --> Define Release Procedure for Purchase Orders --> Release Codes

Create Release Codes for each PO approver under the relevant Release Group. In this example, I have created 3 approvers under the Release Group PH. A0, A1 & A2 would be the codes of each approver in the Pharma division

Step 6 : Assign Workflow

Assign the PO approvers user IDs to each Release Code. The approvers’ name in the user ID would appear in the PO. Further, this would direct the approval notification to approvers SAP inbox

Step 7 : Create Release Strategy

Finally, we create the PO release strategy now

SPRO --> Materials Management --> Purchasing --> Purchase Order --> Release Procedure for Purchase Orders --> Define Release Procedure for Purchase Orders -->  Release Strategies

I am creating a PO release strategy named ‘Pharma Import’ as follows. P1 is my Release Strategy code under the Release Group PH. I have assigned the three approver codes created earlier, to the strategy

Set the Release Prerequisites as per the requirement. In my example, I’ve defined A0 should fully approve before A1. For A2 to approve, both A0 & A1 should approve

Now set the Release Statuses. In my example, if only A0 has approved the PO would be in Blocked state. Only after the approval of A0, A1 & A2 the PO would be Approved

Check if the characteristics are appearing under ‘Classification’. Then check if the approval is functioning as expected, with ‘Release Simulation’. Save

Now we have completed the PO Release Strategy configurations. We need to assign the values for the release strategy created, for it to trigger in a PO

Step 8 : Assign Values

Goto CL20N. Enter the Release Group & Release Strategy. Enter

Click ‘Values for Assignments’ and enter the values for each characteristic. In this example, the PO Release Strategy PH PI gets triggered when an Import PO (ZIMP PO Type) is created for Plant PH01, using the Purchase Group PHM (Pharma)

You could assign multiple values to a single factors using ‘Insert Row’ function. Save once all values are entered

Create a new PO & check whether it works. Once you get the basics correct & the idea, you could experiment & be creative