Alternative-based confirmation (ABC) of Advanced ATP in S/4HANA 1809 release for Location substitution of APO GATP

Highlighted in my blog https://blogs.sap.com/2017/05/22/future-of-apo-and-its-migration/ that Advanced ATP (aATP)is the successor for APO GATP and stated the road map for Advanced ATP.

Most of the APO GATP customers use Location and / or material substitutions. Recent S/4HANA 1809 release has provided the much awaited functionality for location substitution with new name Alternative-based confirmations (ABC) and this blog will highlight its features and limitations.

Location substitution is used to check the availability of a material in a different plant if the material is not available in the plant of the sales order. Suppose, Sales order for material is being created in Frankfurt plant and the same material is not available in Frankfurt plant, then the system can check its availability in an alternative plant (say plant in Munich) and confirm the sales order. In APO GATP, this location substitution is done with Rule based ATP (RBA) based on business rules set as a part of master data.

Release 1809 offers the option for Location substitution with 2 new Fiori Apps as below

• Configure substitution strategy: Strategy for substitution is created with this App. Present 1809 release only offers ‘Plant substitution’ as in the below image. Option for material or product substitution will be in later release. Presently, building rule is only MAX_ON_TIME_CONFIRMATION which selects the plant which can confirm the maximum quantity (from the requested quantity) among all plants i.e ABC in Advanced ATP in S/4HANA checks for all plants for the material availability unlike RBA in APO GATO which looks for availability for plants in sequence (not all at a time) thus reducing the number of partial deliveries. This app will be enhanced with more building rules etc in later releases.

 

• Configure Alternative control: Characteristics for substitution are selected with this App and then assigned to the Substitution strategy as created in the previous App. SAP has provided standard characteristics based on several fields on Sales order and master data which can be configured based on the business requirement. Two characteristics (Sold to party and material) have been chosen as in the below image.

 

Now, let us consider a very simple situation for location substitution. Below image shows that there is no stock for material FG215 in plant 1010, however there is a stock of 50 quantity in plant 1011 as in below image.

 

Now, if we create a sales order for Sold to party 10100001 and material FG215 with the requested quantity of 25 at plant 1010, then the original plant 1010 is substituted by plant 1011 as depicted in the below image. Sales order is saved with plant 1011 and the delivery is then carried out from the plant 1011.

Note that the present release 1809 is the 1^st iteration of ABC and has some limitations as below

• ABC is feasible only with Sales order creation i.e not in Sales order change mode
• ABC does not work with Product allocation (PAL) and Back order processing (BOP)

Hence, ABC functionality as of initial 1809 release can not go for production , these limitations are expected to be removed in next Feature pack / release. However, this Alternative-based confirmations look very promising and is expected to be a powerful tool with enhanced and new features in upcoming Feature packs / releases.

Source: https://blogs.sap.com/2018/10/28/alternative-based-confirmation-abc-of-advanced-atp-in-s4hana-1809-release-for-location-substitution-of-apo-gatp/