SAP SCM Interview Questions, Answers, And Explanations: SAP SCM .

SAP SCM Interview Questions QUESTION 9USING CU STOM KF IN TRA NSFER PRO fiLES IN DPWe are using the Custom Key Figure in DP and I am usingthe same custom characteristic figure in the transfer profilefor the transfer of forecast from APO to R/3. It is not gettingtransferred nor does it throw any error log, and the othersettings are fine (Publication types etc). What I would like toknow is if it is possible to use the Custom KF in the transferprofile? Or should we use 9AMATNR only for the transfer offorecast requirements? ANSWERYou can use the custom characteristics to replace product(9AMATNR) and location (9ALOCNO) in APO. However,you have to define those characteristics when you build theMPOS.You can do this in the screen of Configuring POS usingEXTRA-- Assign Prod/LOC.This should solve your release problem.- 10 -

SAP SCM Interview Questions QUESTION 10STORA GE B U CKET P RO fiLEWe are required to carry out storage bucket profilemaintenance in Production system as the horizon of storagebucket profile is getting expired (data backup from planningarea has already been taken into cubes). Can I transport itto production by defining a new storage bucket profile intothe development system? Or do I have to define it in theProduction system directly? If I can transport the storagebucket profile, what is the Tcode for that? ANSWERYou can use the standard transport connection for DP andSNP using the transaction /SAPAPO/TSOBJ. You will alsohave to transport the planning area from dev to Prod plus allthe relevant details like POS, Storage buckets, and planningbuckets. Planning books will also get transported if you donot remove them manually from the request.From hereon, it’s your call to transport these things or justchange the storage buckets directly in production.- 11 -

SAP SCM Interview Questions QUESTION 11SA LES HISTORYFOR DPWe are trying to remove the duplicate storage of sales historydata in two places and the consequent system overheads ofloads and other similar items. Is it always necessary to loadsales history into APO or can it be stored in the central BW(non-APO) and referenced via a remote cube in APO? ANSWERThis should be possible using BAPI “ PlanningBookAPS” andusing the methods “ GetDetail” and “ChangeKeyfigureValue”.Similarly, this procedure also works for uploading data fromexcel to live cache without using info cube.- 12 -

SAP SCM Interview Questions QUESTION 12INP U TTING A MA CRO NOTEHow can I enter or attach a note to a macro in APO 4.1 MacroWorkbench or MacroBuilder? ANSWERNote can be maintained by clicking Macro workbench - Planning Book.When you click this, window is split in two and you get allthe macros available.From here right click the macro, you will get the option toadd a note to macro.Then, choose the change mode of the planning book RightClick on any value in the planning table choose ‘displaynotes’. From there, you will see the notes and be able to giveyour own notes too.- 13 -

SAP SCM Interview Questions QUESTION 13TRA CKING OF ALERTSWe have a requirement to see and keep track which AlertsUser was worked on.For Example: we have 19 alerts and want to see on whichalerts (the number of alerts) the user worked on and howmany more remaining alerts he/she needs to conclude thework.How do I track, monitor and identify these alerts? ANSWERThe alerts have status which tells you whether they havebeen processed or not. If you look at the alert monitor screenyou will find that there is a prompt whether to accept thealerts or undo it. Therefore, your option is on ‘alert’ monitorscreen. Meanwhile, ‘alert’ status is stored in a structure. Youcan easily do a little research and put these all together tofulfill your requirement.- 14 -

SAP SCM Interview Questions QUESTION 14PA RA M ETER CONVERSION ERRORHow can I resolve the parameter conversion error whenrunning alerts? ANSWERYou can run a consistency check on the alert and then reactivate it.- 15 -

SAP SCM Interview Questions QUESTION 15PA ST DU E DEM A NDS (BA CKORDERS ) A ND APOOP TIM IZERWe just started testing APO Optimizer v4.1 and have thefollowing issue:‘THE OPTIMIZER IS IGNORING PAST DUE DEMANDS’EXAMPLE: We have a Sales Order with due dates in the past.This shows up in the INITIAL column of the planning table(transaction SNP94). When we run the optimizer, it ignoresthese Sales Orders (and any other past due demands). Thisaction results in Supply Shortages throughout the entireplanning horizon.Heuristics does consider past due demands. Unfortunately, itdoes not meet our needs for developing a constrained supplyplan.How can we fix this problem so that the APO optimizer willreflect Past Due Demands (Backorders)? ANSWERThere are some settings in the optimizer profile that areused when building the model to send to the optimizer. If thedemands are not met when sending the optimizer model, avalue needs to be passed so that the system can recognizethat it is possible to build a pegging link, which can then beanalyzed and incorporate a ‘waiting’ program for possiblebackorder delays.- 16 -

SAP SCM Interview Questions QUESTION 16SNPIf not using DP and PPDS, how does SNP Work? I understandthat Demand Plan has to be fed to SNP in order for SNP todo short to mid term planning. I also assume that PPMscame thru PPDS and if not using PPDS, we can use PPMs asAPO Master data. If my knowledge of R/3 is accurate, then Ifurther assume that we can transfer the demand plan fromR/3 to APO and then execute SNP. However, I am not sure ifthese assumptions are accurate. Am I on the right track? Ifnot, can I have some inputs so I may adjust accordingly? ANSWERThese are some facts about SNP:1. SNP has CTM, where you could actually use PP/DSPPMs.2. For Heuristics you’d need SNP PPMs only if you have inhouse production.3. You can plan for Demand (as you said can be transferredfrom R/3) as well as sales orders, depending on the above2 scenarios.- 17 -

SAP SCM Interview Questions QUESTION 17APO SNPMy CTM run produces no result. I have created PPMs andassigned them to a model.I am using standard planning book 9ASNP94. I am able tosee my resources having capacity of 8 hours a day and alsoinitial demand with stock on hand for my products.I didn’t make many changes to the CTM engine (all Imentioned is VERSION) and selected all master data. Thelog does not show any errors.What could be the problem? ANSWERCheck your master data selection. Incorrect master dataselection reflects no errors in Evaluation and yet does notproduce any planning results either.- 18 -

SAP SCM Interview Questions QUESTION 18PPDS quantity alertsI found the results of the PPDS quantity alerts to be difficultto interpret in a real time business situation. Is there away for these alerts for receipts and requirements to beprogrammed so as to reflect actual shortage and surplus interms of percentages? ANSWERThe PPDS alerts are based on the pegging situation of therequirements and receipts. You can change the peggingwindows and the alert windows mode on the demand tab/pegging sub tab. This will change the results significantly. Ingeneral, set a broad range on the pegging limits that lets thereceipts peg to the requirements. Afterwards, set the alertlimits to see if things are late or early. This should take careof your concern.- 19 -

SAP SCM Interview Questions QUESTION 19How to CIF the PPM without operationsWe have setup a subcontracting flow. However, I need toplan it in APO. I need to start from a DP forecast, in PPDSto create a subcontracted PR (I have the subcontracted inforecord in APO) I need a PPM with the BOM. But, I can’t CIFthe BOM (ProdVersion) since it doesn’t contain an operation.Must a PPM always contain an operation? I don’t need thatoperation in APO, for the simple reason that there are noactivities (except for the handling), and the service cost is inthe info record. I would like to know what the best way is togo about it.Should I create a dummy WorkCenter, and some dummyactivity, just for the sake of being able to CIF the PPM? ANSWERProceed to create a dummy, infinite resource and a masterrecipe with 1 phase with a fast duration e.g. 1,000/hr.As the PPM is used for the BOM explosion, the details of thetask list are irrelevant.- 20 -

SAP SCM Interview Questions QUESTION 20COM P LEX SETU PTIM E CA LCU LA TIONWe are trying to figure out how to handle a complexcalculation of setup times. We are working in a metal millindustry and setup times depend on dimensions. This meansthat setup is a very big factor for increasing width, but zerofor decreasing width. As far as I know it is not possible tomodel something like that using setup groups and setup keysbecause this could lead to an infinite number of combinations.If you also consider thickness or other characteristics likecolor and even process characteristics like temperature,then the whole thing gets too complicated to handle viasetup keys. How can I find a simpler method to approachthis and fulfill the requirement of setting up a program thatwill automatically set up complex time calculations? ANSWERYou might be interested in some SCM 5.0 developmentswhere the system can generate its own composite matricesbased on matrices that you enter for swaps betweenindividual characteristic evaluations. I mean characteristicevaluations, not setup groups. In this development, you canmaintain a setup matrix for setup swaps between thicknesscharacteristics, and another for length.The system can then generate a composite matrix that willhave many more entries (but it saves you from doing it), andit’s possible to specify that the composite swap should eitherbe the max, sum or badi dependent value with regard to theindividuals.- 21 -

SAP SCM Interview QuestionsThe system also generates its own ‘setup group’ which itapplies to the order that can then be used to build the swaptime for the order in planning.There are some restrictions, and you’ll need to contact SAP toget some consulting if you are interested in taking it further.- 22 -

SAP SCM Interview Questions QUESTION 21No Entry FOR bw user in the table RSADMINI am maintaining a source system in the Administrationworkbench of the APO by the Menu Supply chain planningDemand Planning-Basic setting-Administrator workbench.Once I create source system type Sap-r/3 Manual creationselection and selected the R/3 Destination and logical systemname from the Popup menu, the system indicates ‘No entryfor BW USER in the table RSADMIN is available’.When I check for details, the following information is given:‘No entry for BW USER in table RSADMIN available;Message no. RSAR 059Diagnosis: Missing entry in table RSADMINSystem Response: Process for creating a source systemterminated.’I then went to the table RSADMIN. It is having entry for BWUSER as‘Object BW USER’ and further indicated: ‘Value ALLREMOTE’When I need to maintain another entry in this table, I plan toload the data from Sap/r3 Info structure to APO Info cube.For this I am going to do the following setting:Procedure: In Customizing maintain Proposal for Users inthe Source System:BW Customizing Implementation Guide - Business InformationWarehouse - - 23 -

SAP SCM Interview QuestionsConnections to Other Systems - Connection between SAPSystems and BW - Maintain Proposal for Users in the Source System (ALECommunication).I am concerned though that I might encounter the sameresponse from the system. How do I resolve this issue? ANSWERCheck for the following:1. Verify if you have the BW USER set up both for the R/3system and the APO system. They need to have the samepassword set for both systems.2. Double check if you do not have BWREMOTE user. If youdon’t have it, go create a remote user (in IMG) and thatwill fix the problem.- 24 -

SAP SCM Interview Questions QUESTION 22Location transfer via CIFWe have a new plant and we are trying to CIF to APO at CFM2system. It is showing the error ‘Location does not exist forexternal location number EF00, type 1001, BSG’. How do wecorrect this error? ANSWERFirst thing to do is to make sure you assigned the correctlogical system (R/3) to a business system group. Secondly,check the Planning version attached to the plant. It shouldreflect ‘000’.- 25 -

SAP SCM Interview Questions QUESTION 23PROP ORTIONA L FA CTORI need to set the proportion factor between a pack size (levelhigher) and product for the entire forecasting period.Example: Under pack size PK1 give 100% for product A formonths 1, 2 and 3 and 100 % for product B for the remainingmonths. This will help me so that after every monthlyforecasting run, the plan numbers are disaggregated to thecorrect product (i.e. the active one for that month).I can make the changes directly to the proportional factorkey figure to achieve the above result but the problem is thatevery month, the proportional factors will be regenerated(i.e. new sales month included) and because of this, thepercentage settings will be lost.Can anyone suggest a clean approach to handle thisproblem? I need for the end user to maintain this and not theIT maintenance team. If I need to use macros, can you pleasegive details on how it should work (i.e. the logic)? ANSWERThere are two possible ways to approach this:1. Create a new key figure that will hold proportionalfactors and make your changes in it. Then copy that tothe proportional factors row using a copy macro. Everytime you regenerate your prop factors, remember to runa background job that will rewrite the proportional factorbased on the new prop factors row. Don’t keep your- 26 -

SAP SCM Interview Questionsoriginal prop factors row open to editing. Keeping thenew proportional factors open to edit must be enough.2.Another solution is to use a new Key Figure. Store valuesthat you do not want APODPDANT to overwrite in thisKF and allow manual editing for this. Then overwritethis MANUAL KF with APODPDANT with a mass jobor interactive fashion. Write batch planning books withminimal rows and macros for the mass job.- 27 -

SAP SCM Interview Questions QUESTION 24Using fact sheet from one product todetermine sales of another productThe sale of some of our products is based on the sale ofanother product. For example: a sale of product A will leadto 2 sales of product B. So we should not have to forecastproduct B since it will be derived from product A.How do I factor this in APO DP so that forecasting should beautomatic for product B? ANSWERCheck the DP BOMS. It might present some possiblesolutions.- 28 -

SAP SCM Interview Questions QUESTION 25Global view of DemandWe have created demand planning areas for different regionsin Europe, Americas, and Asia.If I want to have a Global view of my demand, what do I needto do?Is there a similar concept to a BW multicube available inAPO, kind of a “Multi Planning Area” or something? ANSWERYou should only create one planning area for differentregions. But since you have already created a Multiplan,copy the data from one planning area to another to be ableto show them together in data views. Or extract to BW indifferent info cubes and create a multi cube on top.- 29 -

SAP SCM Interview Questions QUESTION 26Deleting product master from APOHow can I mass permanent delete product master (not justset the deletion flag) from APO? I have tried to use BDC anddone /sapapo/mat1 Mark for deletion but the result comesout to set the deletion flag as supposed to permanent deletewhen you do it manually. Is there another way to do it? ANSWERAfter setting the deletion flag just use the report to deleteproduct master.Try this menu path:Master Data Product Master “Delete Products” off theExtras tab within the Product Master.- 30 -

SAP SCM Interview Questions QUESTION 27Product InterchangeWe have activated product interchangeability function.We want to have a range of substitution (one to manyor vice versa). For example: A

SAP SCM Interview Questions - 6 - QUESTION 5 Choosing day in period for lc order in the DP to SNP order We have a monthly bucket in DP and SNP. When forecast is transferred from DP to SNP, it is created as one live cache order on the first day of the period covering the month. Is