Multiple COA for a delivery note

[Former Member]

Hi Experts,

In our industry, we have to give multiple type of COA (since it is required by the standard itself and also customers mandatorily ask for it in this part of the world) when we deliver the product to customer. In our legacy system, it was easily achieved. We are implementing SAP QM. All our products are batch managed. Now my requirement is given below. Is it possible to achieve in SAP? If yes, then what are the steps to be followed?

Certificate 1: COA to be generated for all 100% of the batches in the delivery note. I know it is standard in SAP and we are able to achieve that.

Certificate 2: COA to be generated for 10% of the batches available in the delivery note against a material code. We are working with ABAPer to solve this issue as this is not available in the standard.

For both certificates, we use different SAP script forms and profiles.

Now my question is

I am not able to assign multiple certificate profiles to a material. If I assign a profile with Material/Customer combination & another profile with only "Material" combination, will the system trigger both forms at the time of delivery note while printing? If not, what are the steps to be followed? I prefer automatic certificate generation while creating the delivery note.

I have gone through forum several times, but not able to find the similar type of query. Please answer.

Regards,

RP

[former_member42743 · Accepted solution]

I think that issuing two different COA's isn't really a problem.  This can be done simply by creating different COA output types.  This is already commonly done when you need to send one COA by FAX and one by EMAIL or one for hardcopy.  So multiple output types and COA's is not a problem.

The basic problem is the COA profile. SAP assumes you only need one COA profile per customer/material.  In your case, you have two different types of COA's you want to produce and these each call for their own COA profile.  Typically this cannot be handled by standard SAP.

What I think you can do is use a user exit to change the COA profile determination.  You will need to assign two COA profiles. I would look at using field catalog "usage" in the COA profile determination procedure, use an accss sequence with fields usage/material and if needed, usage/material/customer.

Create ouputs ZCOA and YCOA.  ZCOA is for CERT 1 and YCOA is for CERT 2.

Now assign CERT 1 profile to usage 1/material

Assign CERT 2 profile to usage 2/material

Niow look at using one of the following user exits:

QCPA0003

Certificates: Fill new fields to find certificate profiles

QC100003

QM certificates: Before and after cert. profile determination

I THINK you'll be able to use one of these exits to influence the value of "usage" in your profile determination process.  So if the output type is Z*, set usage to 1 and the CERT 1 profile should be used to create the COA.  If the output type is Y*, set the usage to 2 and the CERT 2 profile shoudl be used.

You will need to try this all out but theortically I think it might work.

FF

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

FF,

Many thanks for providing a good workable solution. We will try the same and will come back once it is done.

RP

[Former Member]

Just to clarify, the same customer gets the 100% COA and the 10% COA for the same delivery? If so, why not have your ABAP'er create a form that has both of those on the same form instead of two separate forms?

[former_member42743]

That's a good idea.  If the second "COA" was primarily a statement cert, like a COC, with no characteristics on the second form, I think that would work.

I think the problem would come in as to how to have two separate groups of MIC's printed in the respective areas of each cert utilizing the same COA profile.

FF

[Former Member]

I say we let the ABAPer solve that problem

[former_member42743]

NO!  Because they will almost always suggest changing the COA program because they don't want to work with SAPscript! 

FF

[Former Member]

FF,

We are trying the solution suggested by you. As per your advice, after creation of Z output types, access seq, I am able to attach multiple certificate profiles according to Material/Customer/Usage or Material/Usage as well. But when I am triggering certificate through VL02N, it is not triggering the user exits suggested by you. Instead, suggested user exits are getting triggered only thorugh QC20.

Is there any way, we can trigger user exits while saving delivery note as we want to print the certificate automatically while saving delivery note? Or else is there any other user exit during delivery note creation to influence the certificate profile determination?

Regards,

RP

[former_member42743]

Have you changed the processing program used by your COA output types?  Or any of the submoudles used?  That could cause the exits to not be triggered.  I have never had cause to use the exits I mentioned, (remember I said it was all theoritical?), so I wouldn't know why SAP wouldn't trigger them for both activities.  I would definitely put in an OSS note and ask about this, (after searching OSS on the exit names first).

But if you run QC20 and the exits work there, it should work for an output triggered through VL02n. The standard output programs used by VL02n should be the same: RQCAAP03.  But many places change the processing program in config for their output types. Then they don't understand why QC20 doesn't work or if it does, looks way different.  (You might check my blog on this: http://scn.sap.com/community/erp/operations-qm/blog/2012/02/10/coa-programs--why-are-they-being-chan... )

FF

[Former Member]

FF,

We have not changed the COA program. Eventhough we are able to maintain multiple profiles through Material/Usage combination, system is not identifying the profiles in QC20 as well as VL01N / VL02N.  We have raised OSS note. Meanwhile we have tried debugging VL02N program to find the place where SAP is determining certificate profile. But still we are not able to identify the place where it is determining profile. Could you please throw some light on this matter?

Regards,

R.Ponniah

[former_member42743]

Have you looked at the processing logs for the output in the delivery to determine exactly what COA profile tables it is looking at and in what order.

I would think that if the user exits were not being called, it would still be accessing your sequence of tables and this should be visible in the logs. Just t see if the process is working at all like you would expect.

FF

[Former Member]

Hi FF,

We have resolved the issue using your suggestion and an enhancement. I will explain the steps followed in more detail in 2 or 3 days for all others to benefit in case if they come across this kind of requirement.

Regards,

RP

[anup_patil3]

Hello Ponniah,

I am really not sure if it will help you...

But considering your requirement of two diff certificates, my thought would be go into Tcode-NACE and define a new output type for aplication-V2 (Shipping) along with it's corresponding Certificate form (With all required ABAP coding to fetch data from QM). Also maintain condition records for this output type so that this certificate would be printed automatically after delivery creation.

So you'll two Certificates printed after delivery, one from QM application & other from Shipping.

Check & revert...

Regards,

Anup

[anand_rao3]

Hi RP,

Kindly excuse me as I have not understood the exact difference between 2 certificates by virtue of 100% and 10% batches. But it seems that these 2 are different forms with different layout and you want to print these both at the same time with reference to inspection lot / delivery as input.

If so, I think this could be feasible through ABAP. You can develop a custom program with separate tcode for COA print. Have 2 radio buttons there. The respective COA form will be called up as you select the option. A good programmer can help you in this regard.

Regards,

Anand

[Former Member]

Hi Anand,

We don't want to create a separate custom T-code for generation of certificate as it becomes manual activity. We want to generate certificate through standard only. How can I assign multiple profiles to a material and it needs to be triggered at the time fo delivery? Is it possible?

Regards,

R.Ponniah