SAP Automation of Orders Creation for Retail

Automate Purchase Order Creation in SAP with SAP GUI Scripting Tool using Visual Basic

Article originally published on Medium.

I. Purchase Order Creation in SAP

1. What is a Purchase Order (PO)?

In SAP Retail, a purchase order is a commercial document indicating types, quantities, agreed prices and delivery information (locations, time) for products or services.

Scenario

As a Store Manager, you want to order 10 Pcs of an article (SAP Code: 145654789 ) at the agreed price of 200$ to be delivered on 20.09.2020 in WH01 by Supplier XXX-XXX (Vendor Code: 15487).

Your store belongs to the purchase organization (Code: PORG ) of the Retail Company (Code: RTCP) with a dedicated purchasing manager (Code: PRGP).

Edit: You can find a Youtube version of this article with animations in the link below.

2. How to do PO Creation in SAP?

ME21N transaction can be used to operate PO Creation

1. Launch Transaction ME21N

To create our Purchase Order we need to fill

• Vendor Code: 15487
• Purchase Organization: PORG
• Purchase Group: PRGP
• Company Code: RTCP
• Material: 145654789
• PO Qty: 10
• Plant: WH01
• Delivery Date: 20.09.2020

2. Validation and Save

After Enter key is pressed, SAP loads missing PO information from Purchase Info Records, Master Data linked to SAP Code and Purchase Organization. We can then save the PO in the system with a PO Number.

3. Checking in ME23N

After PO creation, we can check in ME23N PO is created and extract the PO Number for records.

4. Manual Sub-Tasks

To perform this PO creation, you have a set of manual sub-tasks to be operated. I’ll separate these tasks into two categories:

• 1. Manual Data Inputs: Filling Forms, Clicking on buttons, Uploading Data and any other action of information transfer from User to SAP GUI
• 2. Manual Data Extraction: Checking Results, Downloading Report, Exporting Tables or any other action of information transfer from SAP GUI to User

For the current example, the transaction form filling task can be placed in category 1 and PO Number Extraction in category 2.

3. How to Automate PO Creation using SAP GUI Scripting?

The target is to fully Automate the process with Visual Basic script in an Excel File where Inputs Data will be extracted, and Output Data will be recorded.

Target = Fully Automated Bot

A list of articles with respective plants in an Excel Spreadsheet:

• Column A/../H: Plant, Purchasing Group, Vendor Code, Material Code, Barcode, Quantity, Purchasing Organization to be typed in PO Creation Form [1]
• Column E: PO Number to be extracted from Creation Report ME23N [2]

2. Excel VBA Script

Looking at the two simple examples presented in Part 1, we understand that our VBA Code needs to include three parts:

1. Setting Up Connection with SAP GUI: Procedure Create_SAP_Session
2. Scripting to Perform Action: Function named PO_Function to perform a PO Creation
3. Looping in Excel File: Procedure named PO_Process to loop through all lines to create all listed PO

Declare Public Variables

Setting Up Connection with SAP GUI

Create SAP GUI Object linked to a system and transaction code

• Step 1 to 4: Connect to SAP following System Name that can be found in GUI Window (picture above)
• Step 5: Create the SAP GUI Object
• Step 6: Loop through all SAP Windows and link GUI Object to the one connected to transaction tcode
• Step 7: Scripting Mode “on” like in the SAP GUI Recording Tool Output

Scripting to Perform Action

By asking Plant Code, SAP_Code and Listing Procedure to fill the form:

• Step 1 to 2: Connect to ME21N Transaction
• Steps 3 to 8: Filling the form and validate
• Step 9: Save the PO
• Steps 10 to 12: Go to ME23N to check the PO, get the PO# and paste it in the Excel File

II. Conclusion and Next Steps

This example is a simple solution to automate the PO creation process, with a bit of customization it can be also used to modify a PO that has already been created.

In the next part we’re going to see how:

• 3. Goods Transfer Orders Extraction: Goods transfers allow you to map transfer deliveries in the system in one data entry transaction

About Me

Let’s connect on Linkedin and Twitter, I am a Supply Chain Engineer that is using data analytics to improve logistics operations and reduce costs.

References

[1] Samir Saci, SAP Automation for Retail Using VB

SAP Automation for Retail

Design RPA solutions using Visual Basic scripts built with SAP GUI Scripting Tool

Samir SaciSamir Saci

[2] Samir Saci, Product Listing Automation with SAP for Retail Using VB

SAP Automation of Product Listing for Retail

Automate Product Listing in SAP with SAP GUI Scripting Tool using Visual Basic

Samir SaciSamir Saci