How can I remove the cover letter when sending the SDS?

[nc1264]

Is there a way NOT to send the cover letter with the SDS in the report shipping process. I have been looking at customizing ("EH&S: assignment table for cover sheet..."). When I remove the lines for the given sales org or remove the cover letter template from this table I get errormessage indicating that this is not allowed. I have adjusted the email that is being sent so there is no point in having the cover letter. Suggestions are appreciated

[ashish25bp · Accepted solution]

Hi Ranjan,

Can you once try removing the tick from 'Cover sheet' in Specify shipping reason>> IMG and check if it works or not.

Regards,

Ashish

[nc1264 · Accepted solution]

Ashish,

nice! I went through all the menu I thought but this one did not catch my attention. I told the business it could not be done but I will test this for sure just to see if it has the proper effect.

Thanks for looking into an old item here!

Kind regards,

Ranjan

[nc1264]

Ashish,

there is a trick to it. If there is an active cover letter the config will not be followed. Once the cover letter has been deactivated or deleted will it not be sent. When the cover letter is removed without the config change you get an error message. This is understandable.

A peculiar way to handle this by SAP but it works so thank you for you tip!

Kind regards,

RB

[christoph_bergemann]

Hello

my explanation seems still not be good enough... If you check the EHS online help a d the subchapter "Shipping Reason" you will find this sentence:

You can also control the following:

• Whether a cover sheet is to accompany the report

So the process has two step. In the first step you define generally the need to "do something" and in the second setp (as discussed here) you define: which WWI template to be used as a CoverSheet (Customizing action "assignment table for Cover sheet...".)

SAP transaction CG4b does have a different purpose. Here you define the CoverSheet WWI template to be used later in the process.

Clearly you can use only "mail header" and "mail body" for communication with the customer.

Hope it is now clear..

With best regrds

C.B.

[nc1264]

Christoph,
In our EHS setup we have completely removed the manual sending of the SDS. Because of the Exposure Scenario's that we have we could end up with SDS's that are over 100 pages. I think the current record is 420.
As we have no means to print and envelopes that can hold them we decided not (!) to print any sds's. The customer service people have been tasked to ensure that for every customer the SDS recipient (SR partner) is defined and maintained.
I have made downloads on regular basis to match the customer that should have received the SDS actually have the SR partner.
We have also seen that every once in while the email is rejected as the SR partners email address is no longer valid. CVD1 does not really give the proper overview.

I was once told that things in EHS were 'complex...not complicated' but things are very tricky indeed. I agree that the cover letter has a purpose but in our case it does only say that the customer is getting an SDS (or multiple ones). That can also be done in the email itself. So this is more about reducing 'complexity'. But again...if this proves to be complicated I will just adjust the email itself and leave the letter for what it is.
I would like to know what I'm doing wrong in trying to remove it. The way you are describing it I read it as...in CG4B I remove all cover sheets. In customizing I remove the lines in "assignment table for Cover sheet...". Is this indeed how things need to be? I never realized that I needed to do something in CG4B itself.

Kind regards

[christoph_bergemann]

Hello

my explanation was not good enough. During the set up of the "Report shipment process" you define if or if not you would like to use e.g. CoverSheet etc. This is done in one core customizing of report shipment. As long as you do not remove the "CoverSheet" flag then the process will always try to look for a "CoverSheet" and if you have not assigned this...you get errors in the process.

Please check customizing (e.g. read cross this: https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_ERP_SPV/8a399f5444164440ac4f426e847ec901/24a5ce5314894208e10000000a174...

Anyhow: I encourage you to "adjust" your WWI set up for the CoverSheet to share "needed etc. information". As mentioned: it is Best Practise to use a Cover Sheet.

You need to imagine that not for all recipients an "eMail" address is available; ich such cases you would use the "LET" communication fo shipping the MSDS/SDS. And this case you should really dispatch as well a CoverSheet to the recipient.

C.B.

[nc1264]

Christoph,

thanks for your elaborate answer. I was also under the assumption that when remove the lines from the config table that the cover letter would not show up. However, the moment I did this I got an error message and the process stopped. I tried the following

1) removing these lines for the sales org
2) keeping the lines but removing the values in document and version

Both cases resulted in an error message that I showed earlier.
Am I missing something? Should I have looked elsewhere in the config to ensure the letter is dropped completely?

Thanks for your time on this.

Kind regards.

[christoph_bergemann]

Hello

the "CoverSheet" and the look and feel and content is completely "company specific". You can nearly show any "parameter value" here (like material number, material text, Sales Organisation acting can be described etc.)

You need to differentiate may be three topic:

a.) the mail contains a "mail header" (if i rememeber corrrect: In SAP EHS Standard: here a "phrase" is used

b.) a mail "body" (same as before: normally you canuse "phrases" for the text (so that the translation is "easily" available)

c.) and attachments (e.g. Cover Sheet + Safety Data Sheet)

How you design the "mail header" and the "mail body": it is you decision (and you can do a lot here).

In the CoverSheet you could add clearly more data (as "material number" representing the material number as maintained in your SAP system and many other stuff)

What you "show" in the CoverSheet should help the customer to understand (in most cases) why he/she is receiving a Safety Data Sheet (e.g. you can print a "Sales Order" number or any other number from your SAP System (as available in SAP SD process))

You need not to add a "CoverSheet" to the eMail (or Print). This is defined via Customizing.

So you can (as Ralph explained) remove the "Cover Sheet" flag and the customer will only get Safety Data Sheet (and email header + eMail body).

But it is (from my point of view) best practise to use a "Cover Sheet"

C.B.

[nc1264]

Christoph,

it is more about cosmetics. What we now send out is an email holding the cover letter and one or more sds's if more than one language is involved.
The cover letter is rather pointless as it does not tell much (see below). This is an example where in SOST the cover letter and 2 sds's are included in the email.

The cover letter as we have it (I have removed the address). We never showed the generation variant nor the language in the cover letter

I would therefore rather replace the cover letter by making the email more in-line with the cover letter.

If this can't be done it's fine. I was just trying to find out if this could be done. From a config point of view I expected that removing the lines from the table would work but that didn't do the trick.

Kind regards,

Ranjan Brahma

[christoph_bergemann]

Hello

a.) a cover sheet is "not released". It just exists and is used then in the Report shipment process (if needed)

b.) you are showing the "log" which is generated during processing of a report shipment order; you can not remove here something; So i did not get your story what you have tried to do..

c.) It is best practise for nearly any chemical company whcih i know to use a cover sheet in the "SD_CALL" process. For other processes as MAN_CALL: this could be discussed a well. But most of the companies use a CoverSheet here as well

So: Why do you would like to skip the generation of a CoverSheet if this is "Best Practise"?

C.B.

[nc1264]

Ralph,

I tried removing the entries first from this table.

Here I kept the entries but removed the released cover letter

Both therefore failed to work.

Thanks for looking into this!

Regards,

Ron

[Ralph_P]

Hi Ranjan,

That is in Customizing (EH&S-->Product Safety-->Report Shipping-->Basic Settings-->)Assign Templates: Cover Sheets/Acknowledgment of receipts) and remove the template for the cover sheet.

Best regards,

Ralph