Alternative-based confirmation (ABC) of Advanced ATP in S/4HANA 1809 release for Location substitution of APO GATP

[Mrinal_K_Roy]

Highlighted in my blog https://blogs.sap.com/2017/05/22/future-of-apo-and-its-migration/ that Advanced ATP (aATP)is the successor for APO GATP and stated the road map for Advanced ATP.

Most of the APO GATP customers use Location and / or material substitutions. Recent S/4HANA 1809 release has provided the much awaited functionality for location substitution with new name Alternative-based confirmations (ABC) and this blog will highlight its features and limitations.

Location substitution is used to check the availability of a material in a different plant if the material is not available in the plant of the sales order. Suppose, Sales order for material is being created in Frankfurt plant and the same material is not available in Frankfurt plant, then the system can check its availability in an alternative plant (say plant in Munich) and confirm the sales order. In APO GATP, this location substitution is done with Rule based ATP (RBA) based on business rules set as a part of master data.

Release 1809 offers the option for Location substitution with 2 new Fiori Apps as below

• Configure substitution strategy: Strategy for substitution is created with this App. Present 1809 release only offers ‘Plant substitution’ as in the below image. Option for material or product substitution will be in later release. Presently, building rule is only MAX_ON_TIME_CONFIRMATION which selects the plant which can confirm the maximum quantity (from the requested quantity) among all plants i.e ABC in Advanced ATP in S/4HANA checks for all plants for the material availability unlike RBA in APO GATO which looks for availability for plants in sequence (not all at a time) thus reducing the number of partial deliveries. This app will be enhanced with more building rules etc in later releases.

 

• Configure Alternative control: Characteristics for substitution are selected with this App and then assigned to the Substitution strategy as created in the previous App. SAP has provided standard characteristics based on several fields on Sales order and master data which can be configured based on the business requirement. Two characteristics (Sold to party and material) have been chosen as in the below image.

 

Now, let us consider a very simple situation for location substitution. Below image shows that there is no stock for material FG215 in plant 1010, however there is a stock of 50 quantity in plant 1011 as in below image.



 

Now, if we create a sales order for Sold to party 10100001 and material FG215 with the requested quantity of 25 at plant 1010, then the original plant 1010 is substituted by plant 1011 as depicted in the below image. Sales order is saved with plant 1011 and the delivery is then carried out from the plant 1011.



Note that the present release 1809 is the 1^st iteration of ABC and has some limitations as below

• ABC is feasible only with Sales order creation i.e not in Sales order change mode


• ABC does not work with Product allocation (PAL) and Back order processing (BOP)

Hence, ABC functionality as of initial 1809 release can not go for production , these limitations are expected to be removed in next Feature pack / release. However, this Alternative-based confirmations look very promising and is expected to be a powerful tool with enhanced and new features in upcoming Feature packs / releases.

 

[venu_ch8]

Hello Mrinal,

 

Nice document..keep it up

[former_member325979]

Good work. I want to explore this function as well, but I don't have a 1809 system yet. 🙂

[sriranjinik]

Hello Mrinal,

In the example above I could not clearly understand where was the customization for replacement of 1010 with 1011 made. Am I missing something here?

 

Regards,

Sri

[Mrinal_K_Roy]

Hi Sri,

It is controlled through 'Building rule' - no IMG configuration.

Regards,

Mrinal

[sriranjinik]

Hello Mrinal,

Thanks for the reply and also the writeup.

Wish you a happy new year!

Currently I dont have  a system to check this. I am trying to understand with the screen shot in the blog.

First step: We create a Substitution strategy

• Here you give the name for the substitution strategy and a description
• The Substitution method = Plant Substitution
• Substitution Item type = Force Inline Substitution
• Building Rule = MAX_ON_TIME_CONFIRMATION.

Second Step: Configure Alternative Control

• Create a new Alternative Control and assign the strategy that was created earlier.
• Add the characteristics ( Sales Document Type, Customer etc.).
• Enter the values for which the ABC needs to be performed and activate.

But what I dont understand is how and from where the system will know that it has to substitute Plant 1010 with 1011 from the example that you have mentioned above.

Also my second question upto how many plants can be maintained as substitution plant(alternative plant).

I am not sure if I am missing anything here.

I read the help however  I could not clearly understand how the plant and how many plants can be determined.

Regards,

Sri

[govindagouda_pwc]

Hello Mrinal,

Thank you for sharing the information. We have 1809 system. I configured both apps as you mentioned. I created scenario and the alternative plant  is not considering. Is there any other configuration I am missing. I deactivated product allocation and BOP. But still plant is not replacing with maximum stock plant. Can you let me know the possible reasons.

Thank you in advance.

[Mrinal_K_Roy]

Hi Sri,

Good question.Note the answers as below :

1. System will check for all material - plant combinations


2. There is no limit as i understand for the number of plants . Note it is not like GATP where you need to maintain the rule which plant to be looked for for ATP. AATP has different business logic from that aspect.

Hope that I am able to clarify.

With regards,

Mrinal

[Mrinal_K_Roy]

Hi,

Suggest to check whether

1. the sales order is already confirmed or not . ABC will propose another plant only when the sales order is not confirmed


2. Is the material maintained for other plant

With regards,

Mrinal

[former_member311128]

Hi Mrinal,

Great article - thanks for putting this out there!

 

I was wondering if you happened to know which FPS the ABC limitations would be taken care of by:

• ABC is feasible only with Sales order creation i.e not in Sales order change mode


• ABC does not work with Product allocation (PAL) and Back order processing (BOP)

 

Thanks,

Michael

[mitke315]

Hi Mrinal,

Thank you for this article and keep up with good work!

We have client who runs 1809 release and wants to use ABC functionality to substitute plant for another one which can confirm full quantity.

The problem is that, in our case, ABC should consider only 3 out of many plants for this substitution and to ignore the rest. So, in other words, we need alternative determination in situation when multiple plants can confirm full quantity.

Tie-breaker logic seems to be the best solution as I think we can use it based on shortest transit time to get unique plant for substitution. But, I understood that Tie-breaker logic (as well as ON_TIME_CONFIRMATION) are not in 1809 release. Can you confirm that?

So, since this is pretty urgent issue and client is still not ready for 1909 release, we are left with only one option - to try to change building rule MAX_ON_TIME_CONFIRMATION and to add our own Z-logic in order to prioritize only those 3 plants and others to be ignored for substitution.

1. Is MAX_ON_TIME_CONFIRMATION building rule that controls this? Can it be changed somehow?


2. Is there user-exit where we can implement our own Z_logic and make ABC work as client expects?


3. Is activation of aATP reversable (client will not use product allocation functionality)?

[Mrinal_K_Roy]

Hi Miodrag,

SAP is providing new building rules in 1909 release , suggest you to evaluate those rules first before going for Z logic.New building rules are already in cloud release. PAL in aATP is not reversible , but ATP and aATP can co-exist together in same system as aATP is dependent on availability check group (which is set in material master).

Regards,

Mrinal

[ole_elmose3]

Hi Mrinal,

Long time no see! Thanks for the clear explanations and for your investigations in the new S/4HANA features. Your examples are all referring to plants. Does this also work for multiple MRP Areas within plants? If not, do you know if is this planned for later?

 

Regards, Ole Elmose

[Mrinal_K_Roy]

Hi Ole, How are you . Yes, long time 'no see'. 

Present ABC will not work for MRP area . I also looked into SAP roadmap for AATP. I do not see anything regarding the substitution of MRP area . However, if you want to distinguish storage location (MRP area) within the same plant from ATP perspective, then you may explore the concept of segmentation in S/4HANA as highlighted in my blog  https://blogs.sap.com/2017/12/30/segmentation-with-advanced-atp-aatp-in-s4hana-1709-release/

Hope, that helps.

Regards,

Mrinal

[Sycntegral]

Hi all

I have another question related to this topic indirectly: if I have my products always available in Plant A and Plant B, but trucks in plant A and Plant B are not always available, could I actually take ATP on the means of Transport (Trucks) instead of on products?

If yes, how? Could I split Sales Order Item (at the Sales Order Save) to two lines based on the availability of the Truck in plants A and B instead of based on the availability of the product itself?

And if yes, how?

We are on S4HANA 1909 if this helps (the latest and greatest SP)

Kind regards,

Adi

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[Mrinal_K_Roy]

Hi Adi,

Suggest you to refer my below blog to model truck availability / capacity.

https://blogs.sap.com/2020/01/14/new-product-allocation-pal-features-in-advanced-atp-aatp-of-s-4hana...

Regards,

Mrinal

[manideep_chaturvedi]

Hi Mrinal

I followed all steps , but in my case even if master plant has stocks, substitute plants always changed.  so every time I create new order, the plant is changed even though I have stock in original plant . have you witness this?

[elin-sterner80]

Hei Mrinal,

We are setting up AATP for a new customer on-prem S/4HANA 2020 - Retail, we have started to setup the  new solution in AATP  “Supply Protection (SUP)” that was realized on 2020.

We now found one issue when we read the note;  2885961 - Restriction Note for advanced Available-to-Promise (aATP) in SAP S/4HANA 2020 - SAP ONE Su... .

This is regarding the restrictions that can have an effect on the process, since the customer will us Route scheduling for STO`s to their stores.

In the note it is stated a general restrictions in the advanced ATP check, for the Route scheduling (Routenfahrplan - AULWE), and since we are using for the store planning; does that mean that we cannot Route scheduling? If that is the case, we can not use AATP, since we need to have Route scheduling for the stores.

Hope you have time to answer our questions.

Best Regards, 

Elin 

[Mrinal_K_Roy]

Hi Elin,

I have not worked much on 'Route scheduling' in recent past.

But, I work on similar requirements for another client , but all these scgeduling are managed in SAP TM which has very extensive solution with 'Fixed route' or 'Schedule' . Integration of TM with AATP is also in SAP's roadmap.

With regards,

Mrinal

[Mrinal_K_Roy]

Hi Adi,

SAP TM has very extensive functionality in selecting the right Mtr based on several parameters. But, TM is a separate application.

With regards,

Mrinal

[elin-sterner80]

Hi Mrinal,
Thanks for the answer. But I got an answer from SAP that the good old route scheduling might not work properly with the most sophisticated features of aATP like ABC, etc. Furthermore SAP are currently working on a new Sales Order Scheduling solution which will provide features like regular departure times etc. Unfortunately SAP can’t provide a migration from AULEW to the new solution. They therefore put the old AULEW on the limitations list. The new scheduling, which is supposed to be available latest with 2023 (may be there will be a slim version available next year already, but without guarantee). If the solution is implemented and in the defined scenario it works well – ok, then so be it, but SAP might change the scheduling integration logic, when delivering the new scheduling solution, so it could be, that at some point in the future the current scenario will not work anymore and then the customer would need to migrate to the new scheduling.

Elin

[Mrinal_K_Roy]

Thanks Elin for the update from SAP ..

[Sycntegral]

My question was pure functional. I also think Embedded TM in S4hana included in basic SAP item list.

And may be my client could afford ...

 

[Mrinal_K_Roy]

Yes, Basic TM in embedded version is included in S/4HANA license, however addl licenseis required for advanced TM functionalities like transportation cockpit , comnibation of inbound & outbound in same freight order etc.

Regards,

Mrinal