Utility Product Integration Layer (UPIL) in S/4HANA Utilities for Customer Engagement – Part 1

[AmritVader]

We all know that SAP S/4HANA Utilities for customer engagement is a simplified version of SAP CRM embedded into SAP S/4HANA. The capabilities of Utility IC Agent existing in CRM 7.x versions have been harmonized into S/4HANA Utilities for customer engagement. While doing the harmonization SAP has introduced new concepts in certain processes. Product integration (UPIL) in Utility Sales Process is one of those topics. In this blog I tried to present my understanding about this concept which I learnt while performing the system set up.

The Utilities Product Integration Layer (UPIL) provides an interface to translate Utility Product in to Billing Master Data of SAP S/4HANA Utilities. This framework provides the ability to map rate operands of SAP S/4HANA Utilities with attributes of the utility product. When setting up utility Sales Contract, the product attributes flow to ISU Contract/Installation as Billing Operands.

The Utilities Product Integration Layer (UPIL) has below building blocks:

1. Utilities product (commodity product) definition (Reference Product & Utility Product)
2. Map Product Attributes with Billing Operands
3. Sales contract management

As part of Part 1 of this blog series, we will discuss on first building clock i.e. Utilities product (commodity product) definition. Remaining topics will be discussed in subsequent blogs.

1. Introduction: 

   Utilities Contract Management processes in SAP CRM 7.0 utilizes Product Workbench to design various plans for Gas, Electricity services and various product attributes will be mapped with IS-U billing artifacts (e.g. operands for discounts, charges) via Master Data Template.

   As part of UPIL Concept, product must be created as material in S/4 HANA (Transaction - MM02) and various material characteristics are directly mapped with IS-U Billing artifacts without Master Data Template.

2. Utilities product (commodity product) definition:
   • Reference Product: It is a reference product is a non-salable, configurable product that you use as a template when creating utilities products. A reference product is created before creating utilities products.
   • Utility Product: The underlying object of a utility product is a material, which is hereinafter referred to as a product of the Product Master component of SAP S/4HANA. A utilities product inherits the characteristics from one reference product only, and multiple utilities products can refer to one reference product.
   • Material Group: It is a grouping of materials and services according to their characteristics. With material groups materials with the same attributes or purpose are grouped together. Material Group is different for Utility Product and Reference Product
   • Class: Classes stores the characteristics of the Utility Product and Reference product.
   • Characteristics: Characteristics for Common Fields that are inherited among all utilities products that are based on the reference product. Characteristics for the product attributes of the reference/utility product. Characteristics to store the time slices of the recurring charges, recurring discounts, usage charges, and optionally billing attributes of the reference product.
3. Schematic Representation of Product Model: 
4. Configuration Steps
   1. Define Material Group
      • Use Define Material Groups (transaction OMSF)
      • Create new entries to enter a material group, for example, UIL_PRO for Utility Product and UPIL_REFP for Reference Product and enter a material group description.                                                                                                                   
   2. Define Characteristics
      • Characteristics for Common Fields:                                                                                     
      • Characteristics for Product Attributes:                                                                                
      • Characteristics for the Time Slices of Product Attributes                                                   
      • Above characteristics are created using transaction code CT04                                        
   3. Define Class
      • Define Configurable Class to store the product attribute characteristics.
      • Define Non-Configurable Class to store the common field characteristics and the time slice characteristics.
      • Class can be created using transaction code CL01 and assign the characteristics.                                                                                            Class: ISU_UIL_CONFIG                                                                                                                                                            
                                          Class: ISU_UIL_NONCONFIG                                                                                                                                    
   4. Create Reference Product
   • Create Material to use as a Reference Product using transaction MM01                                                               
   • Specify Organization level - Choose Org. levels, Select the Basic data1 and the Classification views and Choose Continue.
   • Update details as highlighted below:                                                                                                            
   • In classification tab, maintain class type 300 Variant and configurable class as highlighted and update characteristics.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

   • In classification tab, maintain class type 200 Material and non-configurable class as highlighted. Upon clicking on SAVE button ‘Reference Product’ will be created.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

                                                                                                                                                                                            
   5. Create Utility Product
      • Create Utility Product using transaction MM01 and follow the same steps as mentioned for Reference Product
      • Update Material Group as highlighted below:                                                                                                                                                     
      • Update Reference Product ID created in above step in Non-configurable attributes as highlighted below. Upon clicking on SAVE button ‘Utility Product’ will be created.                                                                                                                                                                                               
5. Summary                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Creating Reference Product and Utility Product is the first step in UPIL. Both products have configurable and non-configurable characteristics. Reference Product ID is maintained as one of non-configurable characteristics of Utility Product. Multiple Utility Products can be created under single reference product.                                                                                                      
6. Reference                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Utilities Product Integration Layer | SAP Help Portal