- SAP Managed Tags
This blog will give you an overview of our two recent releases in SAP Business Network for Logistics. It is intended for shippers and solution owners, carriers, and data providers as well as sales and presales colleagues who already have a detailed understanding of SAP Business Network for Logistics.
Amongst the highlights of the past two releases, are several customer requests:
- Provider API for Order Events (for GTT and FC) now supports attachments in WORD and EXCEL format
- External Planning APIs in SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration now support NLQ (Normalized Load Quantity) and ANLQ (Additional Normalized Load Quantity)
- Upload of .jpeg, .tiff and .tiff-fx attachments now supported to increase consistency amongst FC and GTT
- Execution process in SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration, the Freight Order for Reporting app got a new filter for ‘Proof of Delivery’
- Dock Appointment Scheduling in SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration restriction of maximum duration of consecutive time slots now available
- Settlement process in SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration now allows for tax codes and their validation
- Settlement process in SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration can now handle charge items with zero charges
- Navigation to source document is now available from all fulfillment tracking apps in SAP Business Network Global Track and Trace
Before going further into the details, I would like to point our carriers and data contributors to the new features that are relevant for them:
- Cross Solution
- Provider API for Order Events (GTT and FC) supports attachments in WORD and EXCEL
- Validation of transaction set count for ANSI 210
- Removal of redundant reason code "OTHERS" in EDIFACT messages
- SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration - Contracting
- External Planning APIs now support NLQ and ANLQ
- Upload of .jpeg, .tiff and .tiff-fx attachments now supported
- SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration - Execution
- Freight Order for Reporting app: new filter for ‘Proof of Delivery’
- SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration - Dock Appointment Scheduling
- Restrict maximum duration of consecutive time slots
- Self-Book Dock Appointment app: navigate to the freight order
- SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration - Settlement
- Manage Invoices app: use predefined tax codes and percentage values
- Exclusion of zero charge codes during invoice creation
- Manage Invoices app: submit an invoice with planned charges at zero amount
Cross SAP Business Network for Logistics
Machine translation on-the-fly for SAP Help Portal content
Machine translation (MT) On-the-Fly is now active for all content on SAP Help Portal whenever no human translated language deliverable is available.
For more information, see: Machine Translation (MT) On-the-Fly on SAP Help Portal.
Provider API for Order Events (for GTT and FC) now supports attachments in WORD and EXCEL format
The ‘Provider API for Order Events (GTT)’ now supports upload of WORD and EXCEL files with the format .doc, .docx, .xls and .xlsx. Before only images and pdf files could be processed.
Validation of transaction set count for ANSI 210
A new step, ‘Validate Transaction Sets Count for ANSI 210’, has been introduced in the integration process for the ANSI X12 210 message. This step occurs before the EDI-Splitter to ensure the number of transaction sets (invoices) in an ANSI X12 210 message doesn't exceed the 10.
If a higher value better suits your business needs, you can create a ticket with the component SBN-LBN-INT to increase the maximum number of transaction sets allowed in one ANSI X12 210 message.
Removal of redundant reason code "OTHERS" in EDIFACT messages
We've enhanced the processing of EDIFACT event messages by removing the reason code ‘OTHERS’ in EDIFACT messages, which used to cause issues with SAP Transportation Management.
SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration
Contracting: External Planning APIs now support NLQ (Normalized Load Quantity) and ANLQ (Additional Normalized Load Quantity)
In the ‘Consumer API to Request for Planning in External System’, ‘Provider API to Create Planned Freight Document from External System’, and the ‘Update Generic Document API’ for the central freight documents, the following new fields have been added at the header-level:
- Normalized Load Consumption Total Quantity
- Normalized Load Consumption Total Quantity Unit Code
- Additional Normalized Load Consumption Total Quantity
- Additional Normalized Load Consumption Total Quantity Unit Code
The following new fields are added the item-level:
- Normalized Load Consumption Quantity
- Normalized Load Consumption Quantity Unit Code
The fields are not mandatory.
Contracting: Freight Order and Freight Booking for Confirmation apps: show cargo and services items
Carriers can now view cargo and service items on the detail pages of the following apps:
- Freight Orders for Confirmation
- Confirm Freight Bookings (Ocean)
- Confirm Freight Bookings (Air)
Additional details are displayed in a separate dialog box, with cargo items being displayed in a hierarchical view. To mirror these changes, the ‘Cargo’ tab has been renamed to ‘Cargo and Service Items’.
Contracting: Upload of .jpeg, .tiff and .tiff-fx attachments now supported
You can now upload attachments with file types .jpeg, .tiff and .tiff-fx.
Execution: Freight Order for Reporting app: new filter for ‘Proof of Delivery
There is a new filter called ‘Proof of Delivery’ in the ‘Freight Order for Reporting’ app. It helps show freight orders ‘Reported at Last Stop’ or ‘Not Reported at Last Stop’.
Dock Appointment Scheduling: Restrict maximum duration of consecutive time slots
In the ‘Manage Entities’ app, shippers can now restrict the maximum duration of consecutive time slots in the loading point settings.
This setting ensures that the addition of time slots to be booked by a carrier cannot exceed the total duration of all adjacent time slots. However, carriers can always book at least one time slot.
In the ‘Self-Book Dock Appointments’ app, carriers will get the following message when they exceed the maximum time slot.
Dock Appointment Scheduling: ‘Self-Book Dock Appointments’ app: navigate to the freight order
On the ‘Ready for Booking’ tab, carriers can now navigate to the freight order by following the link in the ‘Freight Order ID’ column.
Dock Appointment Scheduling: Changed appearance in ‘Manage Dock Appointments’ app
The calendar view can now display the non-working hours as greyed-out in 15-minute intervals, based on the validity period of the loading point.
Previously, only full-hour intervals were possible.
Dock Appointment Scheduling: Email notifications about appointment creation
In the ‘Manage Notification Settings’ app, you can now define that notifications are send when a dock appointment was created through a freight order. Before, notifications were only sent when an appointment or an appointment request was created in the ‘Manage Dock Appointments’ app or ‘Self-Book Dock Appointments’ app, or when it was sent through the Provider API for Dock Appointment Scheduling.
To receive notifications, you need to subscribe to the Create Appointment and Create Appointment Request scenarios in the ‘Manage Notifications Settings (Carrier)’ app or in the ‘Manage Notification Settings (Shipper)’ app.
Settlement: Tax codes and validation
Following our customers’ requests, shippers can now create, view and edit tax codes and corresponding percentage values in the ‘Assign Charge Codes’ app. The tax codes can be reused by carriers when creating an invoice.
Shippers can further ‘Enable Tax Code Validation’ in the ‘General Settings’ application. When you enable this setting, any tax code entered by the carrier in the invoice will be validated against the tax codes you have specified in the ‘Assign Charge Codes’ app.
The carrier can use the tax codes and percentage values in the ‘Manage Invoices’ app when adding a tax line.
Settlement: Zero Charges in Invoicing
When you create an invoice from a freight document that includes a planned charge with a zero amount, these zero charges are excluded by default in the invoice document. Carriers receive a message in the ‘Manage Invoices’ app, that indicates the same.
If needed, carriers can review and manually include these charges and submit the invoice despite charges at zero amount.
SAP Business Network Global Track and Trace
‘Manage Event Logs’: Enhancement to auto-retrigger rules
In the ‘Manage Event Logs’ app, the following changes were made to the auto-retrigger rules:
- The maximum number of days since the message was received was changed to 3 days from 30 days.
- The first retrigger can be postponed for up to 3 days rather than 30 days.
‘Manage Events Log’: Export events to spreadsheet
In the ‘Manage Events Log’ app, you can now export events from the worklist to a spreadsheet. Please note: correlated events won’t be exported even if they are selected.
Form more see Export Events from the Worklist to a Spreadsheet.
Add business partner master data to email template
Solution Owners can now add business partner master data as placeholders to email templates such as business partner name, website, address, email, phone, … The respective details are pulled from the address type ‘headquarter’ in the ‘Manage Business Profile’ application.
All fulfillment tracking apps: Navigate to source document
This feature addresses transportation planners. When finding discrepancies in tracking apps, they are now able to navigate to the corresponding source document in S/4HANA, for example to change the existing document, adapt the transportation plan or adjust the delivery.
They can navigate from the SAP Business Network Global Track and Trace standard apps' detail pages to the individual source documents in SAP S/HANA with a single click:
- Freight orders
- Freight bookings
- Freight units
- Sales orders
- Purchase orders (including stock transfer orders)
- Outbound deliveries
- Inbound Deliveries
To achieve this, the corresponding url needs to be configured in the ‘System Connection’ app. For more, see Configuring Links to Business Documents in External Systems or take a look at our feature detail deck.
---------------------
The above summarizes the key innovations for 2504 and 2505. We hope you enjoy the new capabilities. Thanks for reading the blog post and stay tuned!
A full overview of the 2504 and 2025 release can be found under the following link.
To learn more about SAP Business Network for Logistics visit SAP - Business Network for Logistics.
For further questions and feedback related to the blog, please check the Q&A area and feel free to post your questions in the link with the tag SAP Business Network for Logistics.
| User | Count |
|---|---|
| 7 | |
| 2 | |
| 2 | |
| 2 | |
| 1 | |
| 1 | |
| 1 | |
| 1 | |
| 1 | |
| 1 |
