DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER AND S YSTEMS SCIENCES
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY / STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY
PAUL JOHANNESSON, GUDRUN JEPPESEN, ULLA-STINA JUHLIN, 010128
ASSIGNMENT IN SAP R/3
The purpose of this assignment is to give an overview of the main notions in a representative
Enterprise System, SAP R/3. In particular, you will learn about how enterprise systems:
- represent organisational structures
- manage master data
- support transactions
- enable users to analyse business data
- facilitate integration between organisational units
The assignment consists of four parts, called exercises. In order to provide you with a mental
image of the contents of the exercises, we will outline the main ideas in each one of them.
1 Enterprise Structure
The enterprise structure describes the organisational units that exist in a company and their
interrelationships. For example, it describes the different sales organisations in the company.
Other typical entities are sales offices, purchasing organisations, and plants. The enterprise
structure is the skeleton of an enterprise system. All of a company’s master and transaction
data (see below) is linked to these organisational units.
Plant Hamburg
Plant New York
Sales organisation Scandinavia
Sales office Kista
Sales organisation France
Some Entities in an Enterprise Structure
2 Master Data
In the enterprise and its environment, there exist a large number of long-lived entities. There
are business partners, products, raw material and other resources, etc. These long-lived
entities in the enterprise and its environment are described by so called master data. The
master data is always linked to the enterprise structure, which means that vendors,
customers, products, etc. are always handled by some organisational unit. Two different
organisational units may interact with the same external entity, e.g. a vendor. In such a case
the organisational units may maintain different master data about the same entity, e.g. the
contact person for a vendor may vary between different purchase organisations.
MASTER DATA
Vendor Dell
ENTERPRISE STRUCTURE
Material
PC22
Plant Hamburg
Retailer ICA
Plant New York
Sales organisation Scandinavia
Sales office Kista
Purchasing organisation Scandinavia
Material
Table11
Sales organisation France
Customer ABB
Customer IKEA
Some Entities in an Enterprise Structure Surrounded by External Entities described by
Master Data
3 Transactions
In the day-to-day business of an organisation, many events take place. Customers order
products, materials are ordered from vendors, deliveries are made, shipping notifications are
sent, etc. To handle such events, SAP R/3 uses the notion of transactions. A transaction
often involves two actors: an organisational unit within the company and an external entity,
e.g. a customer, a vendor, or a distributor. The transactions do not occur randomly, but are
organised within processes. A purchasing process, for example, starts with a purchase
requisition, followed by a purchase order, then the goods is received, and finally the invoice
is paid.
2
TRANSACTIONS
MASTER DATA
Vendor Dell
Purchase Order
ENTERPRISE STRUCTURE
Retailer ICA
Plant Hamburg
Material
PC22
Plant New York
Purchasing organisation Scandinavia
Sales office Kista
Sales organisation Scandinavia
Material
Table11
Sales organisation France
Sales Order
Customer IKEA
Customer ABB
Transactions Involve Organisational Units as well as External Actors
4 Business Analysis
An Enterprise System contains valuable information for decision making. For example, it is
possible to analyse the transactions to find out which customers are the most profitable ones,
or which vendors are most reliable, or which products are most popular. SAP R/3 provides
tools for analysing transactional data. An important feature of these tools is that you can start
at a very high level looking at heavily summarised data, e.g. annual sales per region, and
you can then drill down to find data at a lower level. You can even drill down to the very
bottom, i.e. to individual transactions.
Roles and Integration
There are two main themes in Enterprise Systems that run through all of the exercises: roles
and integration. People in an organisation do not act on their own behalf, but as
representatives of the organisation in different roles. For example, one person may accept
purchase requests and make purchase orders, another person may receive goods and
inspect them, a third person may pay invoices. It is essential that people can work smoothly
together and to do this they need access to the same information. The Enterprise System
satisfies this need by maintaining all data in one huge database and providing different users
with different views of the same data. In this way, the Enterprise System supports integration
between roles and functional units in the organisation.
In this assignment, you will play several different roles in the context of a purchase process
and thereby get different views of the data. Note that you are always working with the same
3
data regardless of which particular role you play. There are seven roles predefined for this
assignment:
Employee. Any person employed by the company is an Employee. In the context of a
purchase process, an Employee has only one authority, namely to request that something be
purchased. For example, an employee may request that a personal computer be purchased.
Purchase Order Manager. A Purchase Order Manager is a middle manager who handles
purchase orders. She has two main tasks. The first is to determine whether purchase
requests from employees should be accepted or not. The second task is to find the most
appropriate vendor to purchase from.
Notification Manager. A Notification Manager is a clerk who registers shipping notifications
from vendors. When a vendor sends a notification to the company that some material has
been shipped, the Notification Manager will enter this notification into the enterprise system.
Material Manager. A Material Manager is a clerk who registers data about the materials used
in the company. Furthermore, the Material Manager assists other employees by providing
them with information about the materials.
Vendor Relationship Manager. A Vendor Relationship Manager is a middle manager who is
responsible for handling the relationships with vendors. In particular, she should ensure that
correct and up-to-date information about the vendors is available. She also participates in
negotiations with the vendors about the conditions they provide.
Goods Receiver. A Goods Receiver is a warehouse worker who accepts goods into the
warehouse and registers their arrival.
Business Analyst. A Business Analyst is a middle or top manager who analyses business
data in order to obtain knowledge for making better decisions.
As you work with the exercises, you will see what people in the different roles are allowed to
do.
4
I N I T I AL E X E R C I S E
In this exercise, you will learn the basic navigation in SAP R/3 by displaying information
about a particular material.
In Windows, choose
Start Programs SAP Frontend susap
Enter the client number, your user name, and password. Click Enter.
Click Enter. You navigate to transactions by menus. In the figure below, you find two sets of
menus: Favorites and SAP standard menu. The latter gives you access to all of the
transactions in R/3. In this exercise, however, you will work only with a small number of
transactions accessible from Favorites. These have been structured according to a set of
roles in the company.
5
Choose Favorites - Material Manager – Display Material
Press Enter (you may need to press Enter twice).
6
Click the icon to the right of the yellow Material field in order to choose one of the available
materials. The dialog box below will be displayed.
7
Click the ’Continue’ icon (the leftmost icon at the bottom) or press ’Enter’. A list of materials
in the IDES system is displayed as below.
Choose material P-101 by double-clicking it or by marking it and clicking the ’Continue’ icon.
8
Click the ’Enter’ icon or press Enter. In the following dialog box, mark the check boxes as
below.
Press Enter or click the ’Continue’ icon.
9
Investigate the material by scrolling and clicking on the Basic data 1 and Basic data 2 tabs.
Experiment with the Online Help by clicking in various fields and click F1.
In order to return to the main menu, click the ’Back’ icon repeated times (the green icon with
a back arrow). If you get lost, you can always return to a familiar place by backing in this
way. Sometimes, the back icon is disabled; you can then use the ’Exit’ icon (yellow icon) or
the ’Cancel’ icon (red icon).
It is sometimes useful to create an extra session. You do this by clicking the third icon from
the right under the top menu. Test this out.
Log off the system by choosing
System – Log off (in the top menu)
10
EXERCISE 1 – ENTERPRISE STRUCTURE
Construct a conceptual model for the Enterprise Structure as defined in the SAP R/3 system.
Your model may be expressed in any notation, e.g. UML class diagrams or ER diagrams. All
multiplicities (cardinality rules) must be explicitly stated. The model shall contain all the
nouns listed below. You will find descriptions and examples of these nouns in the SAP
Library at four places:
1. Under Implementation Guide -– Enterprise Structure (most useful information can be
found under Definition – Logistics, Sales and Distribution, Material Management,
Logistics Execution).
2. Good examples and explanations can be found in the following way. Choose the Index
tag. Enter “enterprise model”. You will be given three alternatives to choose from, choose
the last one “Enterprise Modeling”. In the header, click at the small red box to the right.
Click the Contents tab and open the Structure Scenarios Examples.
3. In order to find more examples, look in the SAP Library under IDES – Logistics – Sales
and Distribution – Sales and Distribution in IDES – Organisation.
4. For an individual noun, you can look it up under the Index tag. Here you can find
definitions as well as examples.
In addition to a diagram, you should include short descriptions of all object types. Include
relevant attributes.
List of nouns:
business area
company code
distribution channel
division
loading point
location
plant
purchasing organisation
sales area
sales office
sales organisation
shipping point
storage bin
storage location
storage type
warehouse number
When you build your conceptual model, try to use analysis patterns. This means that when
you identify a new object type, you should consider whether it belongs to a larger pattern. If it
does, you can include the entire pattern. The most useful analysis patterns are: Hierarchy
pattern, Accountability pattern, and Action pattern.
11
E X E R C I S E 2 – M AS T E R D ATA
In this exercise, you will play two roles. First, you will act as a material manager who is
responsible for managing the materials in the company. Your task will be to check out some
important properties of a material. Secondly, you will act as a vendor relationship manager
who is responsible for managing the relationships with the company’s vendors. Your task will
be to investigate the same vendor in two different purchase organisations.
Call up the transaction for displaying materials as follows:
Favorites  Material Manager  Display
Material
MM03
Menu Path
Transaction Code
On the Display Material: Initial Screen, enter the following data:
Field
Material
100-310
Press Enter.
You will get a dialog box Select Views. Check the first row (click on the box to the left of the
text Basic Data1), and press Enter.
Answer the following questions:
1. To which division does this material belong?
2. What is the weight of the packaging of the material?
3. Two different purchasing groups (plants) can buy material 100-310. Which
are these purchasing groups? (Hint: click the Purchasing tab.) Which are
the differences between the groups with regard to the material?
4. What is the name of the material group of this material?
5. What is the maximum storage period for the material?
6. What is the total value of the material in the Hamburg plant? In the New
York plant?
7. What is the stock in the Hamburg plant? In the New York plant?
8. What is the stock in the Fertigwarenlager in the Hamburg plant?
12
Expand the conceptual model you constructed in Exercise 1. The following
terms shall be included in the model:
gross weight
material
net weight
standard price
stock in plant
stock in storage location
total value
Call up the transaction for displaying vendors as follows:
Favorites  Vendor Relationship Manager 
Display Vendor
MK03
Menu Path
Transaction Code
In Display Vendor – Initial Screen, do the following:
- mark all check boxes
- enter 1005 for Vendor
- leave Purchase Organization blank
- press Enter
You will get an error message. Remove the marks from the check boxes Purchasing data
and Partner functions and press Enter. Now there is no error message.
Explain why you get an error message in the first case but not in the second.
Press Back and mark the check boxes Purchasing data and Partner functions. You must now
choose a Purchasing Organization, and there are two possible choices.
Which purchasing organisations are there?
Inspect vendor 1005 for both these purchasing organisations and explain the
differences between them. (Note that in order to navigate between the
screens you have to select Goto in the menu at the top and then select Next
Screen or Previous Screen.) It may be helpful to create a new session.
13
Expand the conceptual model you constructed earlier in this Exercise. The
following terms shall be included in the model:
country
order currency
sales person
street number
VAT reg. No.
vendor
14
E X E R C I S E 3 – A P U R C H AS I N G P R O C E S S
In this exercise, you will work through a standard purchasing process. The process consists
of several steps:
1. An employee requires that a certain material be purchased.
2. A purchase order manager will be informed about the employee’s request by the R/3
system. She starts by selecting the most appropriate vendor for the requested material.
3. The purchase order manager continues by accepting the purchase requisition and
creating a purchase order, which is sent to the vendor.
4. The vendor sends a shipping notification when he ships the material, and a notification
manager registers this shipping notification.
5. When the material arrives, a goods receiver registers the goods receipt.
Role
Employee
Purchase
Order
Manager
Action
in the need of
consumer
goods informs
a purchase
order
manager
about this
need
Message
data
Article
Quantity
Delivery date
…
Employee
makes a
purchase request
Notification
Manager
Goods
Receiver
receives the
makes the
purchase
purchase
request and
selects a
vendor based
on a
predefined
criterion
receives and
registers a
message from
the vendor
notifying the
company
about the
delivery date
of the
purchase
receives the
goods and
registers the
receipt
Price
Delivery date
…
Purchase
order
Delivery date
…
Purchase
order
Delivered qty
Storage
…
Purchase Order
Manager assigns
a vendor
Purchase
Order
Manager
Vendor data
…
Purchase Order
Manager makes a
purchase order
Notification
Manager registers
shipping
notification
Goods Receiver
registers
goods receipt
You will take on several different roles in this exercise, but note that you will always work with
the same underlying data although it may be presented in different views depending on your
particular role.
3.1 Creating the Purchase Requisition
You now play the role of an employee who requests that a particular material be purchased.
Call up the transaction as follows:
15
Favorites  Employee  Create Purchase
Requisition
ME51
Menu Path
Transaction Code
On the Create Purchase Requisition: Initial Screen, enter the following data:
Field
Document type
Delivery date
Plant
Storage location
Purchasing group
NB
Two weeks from today
1000
0001
001
Press Enter.
If the system asks whether the delivery date can be met, confirm.
What does NB (a German abbreviation!) mean? What other order types are
there?
On the Create Purchase Requisition: Item Overview screen, enter the following data:
Field
Material
Quantity requested
100-310
100
Confirm your entries by pressing Enter. If any warning messages appear, choose Enter.
Choose Save (an icon looking like a floppy disk).
The system confirms the posting and assigns a purchase requisition number. Make a note of
this number.
Choose Back (the green back arrow at the top).
16
3.1 Source Determination for the Purchase Requisition via Price Simulation
You now play the role of a purchase order manager, who will be informed about the
employee’s purchase request by the R/3 system. There are several vendors that can supply
the requested material, and your task is to determine which one to choose. You will do this
by comparing the prices of all vendors. Clearly, there are more sophisticated ways of
choosing a vendor considering delivery times, track records, etc. But for this exercise, we
base the choice on price only.
Call up the transaction as follows:
Favorites – Purchase Order Manager 
Assign and Process
ME57
Menu Path
Transaction Code
On the Assign and Process Purchase Requisitions screen, enter the following data:
Field
Material
Plant
Fixed vendor
100-310
1000
No entry
Press Execute (an icon resembling a clock, positioned leftmost at the top).
Select your purchase requisition number, i.e. mark the check box to the left of the purchase
requisition number, then choose Assign automatically.
The dialog box Source Overview for Purchase Requisition contains a list of all possible
vendors for the material in the purchase requisition.
Choose Price simulation/all.
The dialog box Price Simulation for Material 100-310 that now appears contains the
parameters for the price simulation.
Select all three parameters Incl. cash discount, Delivery costs, and Effective price. (Effective
price is the actual price to be paid when discounts, taxes, delivery costs, etc. have been
included in the calculation.) Press the Enter key on your keyboard to confirm your entries.
On the Price Simulation for Sources of Supply screen, make a note of the most favourable
vendor in the list. The first line for this vendor reads: Best price in this comparison.
Explain how it is possible that the most favourable vendor does not have the
lowest gross price.
Select the vendor number for the most favourable vendor and then choose Info record.
17
Explain the concept of an info record. Use the info record you are looking at in
order to illustrate your explanation with a concrete example.
On the Display Info. Record: Purch. Organization Data 1 screen choose Back.
On the Price Simulation for Sources of Supply screen, choose Back to return to the dialog
box Source Overview for Purchase Requisition ###
Position your cursor on the vendor number of the most favourable vendor, then click Choose
(the green mark to the left at the bottom).
Make sure that the check box is marked. Choose Save.
The information record for the source determination is assigned to the vendor.
Click Back until the overview tree appears.
18
3.3 Creating a Purchase Order (from the Purchase Requisition)
You continue to play the role of a Purchase Order Manager, but this time your task is to
actually create the purchase order.
Call up the transaction as follows:
Favorites – Purchase Order Manager 
Create Purchase Order Via Assignment List
ME58
Menu Path
Transaction Code
On the Ordering: Assigned Purchase Requisitions screen, enter the following data:
Field
Purchasing group
Purchasing organization
Vendor
Plant
001
1000
1005
1000
Choose Execute.
On the Ordering for Assigned Requisitions: Overview of Assignments screen, position your
cursor on the second line for your vendor, then choose Process assignment.
If the Process Assignment: Create PO dialog box appears, enter NB in the Order type field.
Press Enter. Skip any warning messages by pressing Enter.
If the Create Purchase Order: Extension Option dialog box appears, choose New Purchase
Order.
On the Create Purchase Order: Selection List: Purchase Requisitions screen, select your
requisition (you do this by marking the leftmost rectangle on the chosen line) and choose
Adopt + details. Skip any warning messages by pressing Enter.
The system has inserted the key 0004 (taken from the info record) into the ConfContrK field
of the purchase order.
Explain the meaning of the ConfContrK field. What does the value 0004
mean? What other values are possible and what do they mean?
Why are the fields Plant and Storage Location included in a Purchase Order?
How will they be used?
Choose Enter.
19
Write a few sentences in natural language that express the contents of the
screen Create Purchase Order: Item Overview. You need to consider the
different tab pages.
Choose Save.
The system confirms the posting and assigns a purchase order document number. Make a
note of this number. Skip any warning messages by pressing Enter.
Click Back until the overview tree appears.
20
3.4 Creating a Shipping Notification
When the vendor ships the material, he will also send a shipping notification to notify your
company that the material is on its way. You now play the role of a Notification Manager, and
your task is to register the shipping notification from the vendor.
Call up the transaction as follows:
Favorites – Notification Manager  Register
Shipping Notification
VL31N
Menu Path
Transaction Code
On the Create Inbound Delivery screen, enter the following data:
Field
Vendor
Purchase order
Delivery date
1005
No entry
Delivery date should be
before the delivery date of
the purchase order.
Choose Enter.
On the VL31 Purchasing Documents screen, select your purchase order item (you do this by
marking the leftmost rectangle on the chosen line), then choose Adopt selected.
If desired, you can enter additional details at header or item level. You can also specify the
delivery quantity.
Choose Save.
The R/3 System confirms the transaction and displays the assigned shipping notification
number.
Choose Back.
You now return to the role of the Purchase Order Manager and inspects the status of the
purchase order.
Go to the tree view and from the Purchase Order Manager, choose Display Purchase Order
(ME23N).
If your purchase order is not displayed, click the icon Other purchase order (positioned at the
top). In the dialog box Select Purchase Order that now appears, enter your PO number, then
choose Other purchase order.
If required, you can expand the item detail area, by choosing Item detail (positioned at the
bottom left).
21
Explain in natural language all information provided about an item in a
purchase order. You will have to work through all tab pages in Item detail.
3.5 Entering the Goods Receipt for the Purchase Order
The goods have now arrived at your company. You play the role of a Goods Receiver and
your task is to register the Goods Receipt.
Call up the transaction as follows:
Menu Path
Transaction Code
Favorites – Goods Receiver  Register Goods
Receipt
MIGO
The Goods Receipt <User> screen appears.
Enter the following data:
Field
Purchase order
Data
Your purchase order number
Press Enter.
The system copies the header data of the purchase order into the header data area of the
GR document.
The purchase order items appear in the GR item overview.
The PO number you entered appears in the Current purchase order field, and the PO
number field is once again ready to accept input.
If you click on individual items, the system displays an item data screen (allowing you to
change the incoming quantity, for example).
In the header data area of the tab page General, enter the following data:
Field
Document date
Posting date
Data
Today's date (default)
Today's date (default)
Select your item, then choose the tab page Where at the bottom of the screen to check your
organisational data.
If necessary, enter the following data:
Field
Storage location
Data
0001
Select Item OK, then choose Save.
22
The system confirms the posting and assigns a material document number. Make a note of
this number. (if you get an error about posting periods, just ignore this and go on to the
exercise below.)
Expand the conceptual model you constructed in Exercise 2. The following
terms shall be included in the model:
goods receipt
purchase order
purchase requisition
shipping notification
Include as many relevant attributes as possible for the object types you
introduce. You should now have constructed a conceptual model with about
30 object types, and it may look like a cobweb… To improve the layout of the
graphical diagram, use analysis patterns! This means that you should identify
the patterns that occur in your model and group together object types
belonging to the same pattern. As stated in Exercise 1, the most useful
patterns are: Hierarchy pattern, Accountability pattern, and Action pattern. In
addition to these, you should also consider the Action-Workflow pattern. It
might be argued that this pattern is not applicable, as it is a process pattern
rather than an analysis patterns describing relationships among object types.
However, in your conceptual model you have made several events into object
types, and you can then express the relationships among these.
23
E X E R C I S E 4 – S TA N D A R D A N A LY S I S
In the previous exercise, you played the roles of different people that were responsible for
the operative, day-to-day activities of the company. You will now play the role of a business
analyst who analyses the information in your company’s enterprise system. SAP R/3
provides a tool, called the Logistics Information System (LIS), for analysing business data.
LIS provides information from the areas of Sales and Distribution, Purchasing, Production,
Inventory Management, Warehouse Management Plant Maintenance, and Quality
Management. You can get information in different ways from the data bases in LIS. In this
exercise, we will look at a type of analysis called standard analysis. In standard analysis, you
start by choosing the object you want to analyse, for instance a vendor, a customer, or a
material. These objects are called characteristics.
The analysis report is presented as a list of attributes, key figures. You can choose which key
figures you want to see in the list.
These key figures are quantitative figures, for instance purchase order quantity. They consist
of accumulated information in accordance with the characteristics.
Maybe you want to analyse the co-operation with customers for a certain period.
- How big is the order stock?
- What is the difference between purchasing order quantity and invoiced order quantity?
- Etc.
The list contains a number of columns. The first column to the left specifies one
characteristic. The other columns are the key figures you want to get information about.
By double clicking on a row in the characteristic column you drill down to a new description
level and get other corresponding values, i.e. the key figures.
If you don’t want to se the whole list but only for instance five of the most important
customers, you can select a top list. The currency may differ from customer to customer. It is
possible to get a uniform currency for all the customers.
Call up the transaction as follows:
Favorites – Business Analyst  Analyze
Purchasing
MCE1
Menu Path
Transaction
On the Purchasing Group Analysis: Selection screen, enter the following data:
Field
Purch. organization
Period to analyze
From 0001 to 1000
Preferred period
All other fields must remain empty. For preferred period, you can choose 93-10 – 00-12.
Choose Execute.
The displayed list consists of the characteristic Purchase Group and the key figures Order
Value, Invoiced Amount, and POs. You can see the value of other key figures related to the
characteristic. Do this by selecting a customer and double clicking on one of the key figures
in the list. Now you get a window with all the key figures and their values.
24
Note that different currencies are used. In order to get one single currency, proceed as
follows. Choose Analysis currency (a mainly red icon at the top).
Enter a currency in the dialog box (For example USD or DEM) and press Enter.
Suppose you would like to see the three purchase groups with the highest order value. You
can identify these easily by placing the cursor on Order Value and choose View – Sort in
descending order from the menu.
In the present view, you can see the key figures for a number of purchasing organisations.
Suppose that you would like to analyse one purchasing organisation more careffully. You
might, for example, investigate the order values for different months for that purchase
organisation. Or the order values for different vendors. What you want to do is to ”drill down”
behind the given key figures.
Place the cursor on the purchasing group Mr. Sanchez and choose from the menu View 
Drill down by Month. You will now see the key figures for the different months of the analysis
period for the purchase organisation Mr. Sanchez.
But you can drill down even further. Place the cursor on the month 2000-02 and choose from
the menu View  Drill down by Vendor. You will now see the key figures for the different
vendors during 2000-02 for the purchase organisation Mr. Sanchez.
You can still drill down one more level, namely by purchasing group. When you have
experimented with that, return to the screen with all the vendors by pressing Back.
There are many possibilities to get a graphical view of the key figures. Choose the Graphics
icon (at the top, icon four from left). Experiment with different views!
You have so far only looked at summary data, but it is also possible to easily view the
underlying transaction data as well as master data. Suppose you would like to check the
address of Tiefland. Position the cursor on that vendor and choose from the menu Extras 
Vendor Master. Check out the address of the vendor.
You can also view single underlying purchasing documents. Position the cursor on Tiefland
and choose from the menu Extras  Documents for Vendor. Make sure that only the fields
Vendor and Scope of list are non-empty and choose Execute. Look at particular purchasing
documents by double clicking.
Answer the following questions:
1. Which were the three top vendors in 1999-01 with regard to invoiced
amount in the purchasing group Mr. Sanchez?
2. Which were the three top months for the vendor Jotachi with regard to
invoiced amount in the purchasing group Mr. Sanchez?
3. What is the address of the top vendor in 2000-01 with regard to order
value in the purchasing group Mr. Sanchez?
25
4. List at least ten materials that were purchased in 2000-01 from the top
vendor with regard to order value in the purchasing group Dietl, B.
26