Trip number range concept

[former_member221103]

Hi All,

Please explain me the concept of trip number ranges that would be beneficial in production environment. I have few doubts:

1. Are trip number ranges based on yearly basis i.e. is it possible to change the trip number range on year basis.

2. What is main logic to keep in mind for trip number ranges for a production environment.

3. We have 40 personnel areas..so we are planning to keep different number ranges for each Personnel Areas. Is it the right approach?

Please advise

Regards

[Lukas_Weigelt · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I usually report interview questions by reflex, but in this case I'll make an exception, because I find the IMG documentation to be blurry.

The number ranges are not concepted annually, they are permanent. It is possible to delete the ranges' entries with technical means in general, but this will most probably lead to inconsistencies, so don't do this. I would recommend using one number range and pipe all trips into one single number interval, i.e. one single number subobject, check BADI TRIP_WEB_NUMBER. Using different number intervals, in my humble opinion, does not hold any benefit. It's not like you can use 40 identical overlapping intervals to multiply your number volume by 40, intervals should not be used more than once, because an employee might change the personell area which would lead to duplicate keys.

Cheers, Lukas

[former_member221103 · Accepted solution]

Thanks Lukas

Actually it is a scenario which is to be done in real time. I am new to Travel Management and doesn't know the logic behind number ranges in travel management.

If the number ranges are Permanent then how it is possible to estimate the trip number for next 5 years. Also, approximately more than 200 trip request will be created daily.

Also, if we assign different number range to Personnel Areas then it would be easier to find out to which Personnel Area an employee is travelling from. What will be the drawback for using different number range.

Please advise since we are about to reach the cutover deadline.

Regards

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

The number range should taken as big as possible.

Different number ranges are only for "us as human beings" interesting.

E.g. You have two trip provision variants for one country/ company (sales force and office stuff).

Than it would make sense to define two number ranges 1 and 2 - all number starting with 1 are form sales force...

At the end for the system the number together with the employee is unique...

If your organization do not need this - than the best is to not play about these ranges.

[former_member221103 · Accepted solution]

Agreed...but we have 40 Personnel Areas. In this case also the suggestion is to go for one number range for all 40 Personnel Areas??

Say in future after 10 years the number range gets finished then what is the option?

Please advise.

[Lukas_Weigelt · Accepted solution]

Please advise since we are about to reach the cutover deadline.

I understand your are having time pressure, but pretty please with sugar on top, don't add such set-phrases. Nobody, especially not those people who can help you, will answer your question faster or prefer it over others just because you write "urgent urgent" . Don't take this as a rebuke, it's just a well meant advice.

Back to Topic:

Agreed...but we have 40 Personnel Areas. In this case also the suggestion is to go for one number range for all 40 Personnel Areas??

Yes, I would still go for one number range, let me elaborate:

Even if you take different number ranges for each Personnel Area, you still have to scale it in a way, so they don't overlap. A common misunderstanding about using different number ranges is, that you can use the same for each Personell area; example:

Let's say you have a number volume of 1000 and 3 personnel areas

1. Example how it is NOT done:

Personnel Area 1: 0-1000

Personnel Area 2: 0-1000

Personnel Area 3: 0-1000

Why not? In your case you'd have a multipliction of the number volume by 40, right? Wrong, because what happens when an employee switches the personnel area? Data inconsistency happens, because the trip numbers of employee who switches the PA might already be taken by another employee. That's why you don't do it this way.

2. Example how it should be done according to SAP (not good in my humble opinion):

Personnel Area 1: 0-333

Personnel Area 2: 334-666

Personnel Area 3: 667-1000

Now we have nicely split number ranges for every PA and if an employee switches the PA, the trip number can't have been given to an employee of this PA he switched to because it isn't defined there. So now everything's fine, right? Wrong. Three things are certain in companies: death, taxes and reorganization. Let's say, after you have used up all your numbers for the split intervals and went productive, there are created 10 new personnel areas, also 90% of the employees in PA1 go to PA 2. number interval for PA2 will overflow and on top you don't have any numbers for 10 new personnel areas resulting in chaos.

Now that I've explained hot to NOT do it, look at what happens when you have one generic number interval for all PAs:

You use all numbers in any case, this means roughly 10 billion numbers. So even if you have 500 Trips a day, you'd last 10.000.000/500/365 = ~54 years with this. I dare say you won't be using SAP Travel Management anymore in 50 years.

• What happens if an employee switches the PA? Nothing, doesn't matter, the number interval is the same for all.
• What happens when new PAs are created? Nothing.
• What happens when huge amounts of employees switch certain PAs? Nothing.

This should undergird my argument

Say in future after 10 years the number range gets finished then what is the option?

Okay, let's go bonkers and say you have 5000 trips a day, so after around 10 years, the numbers are used up. The only way then would be deleting (or maybe archiving them works out as well, I have no experience with archiving) old trips, reset the number range in DEV, Transport in to P and start over fro the interval. This would be very unclean and you'd have to monitor nothing goes haywire, but technically this would be an option.

Hope this helps you understanding the whole thing better

Cheers, Lukas

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

yes I would set up one intervall - the intervall is very huge so I guees it will not be an isse. But of course you can "archive" trip data or delet 😉 (mostlikely after 10 years)

[Lukas_Weigelt · Accepted solution]

I just googled for archiving 'cause I was curious.

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp60_sp/helpdata/en/b2/0ee3d7a88f11d189fe0000e8322d00/content.htm

So archiving sounds like a good approach then and practically deletes the trip from the PTRV-Tables and the cluster as well. You'd only have to re-set the actual count of the number object then.

[former_member131723 · Accepted solution]

Some really useful replies there Andy and just to re-iterate the advice given as there is a real danger that if you incurred a scenario whereby number ranges overlap that different accounting objects and trips could result in duplication.

For example

Personnel area "A001": if the users create the first travel, the number
will be 001000000.
Personnel area "A002": if the users create the first travel, the number
will be 001000000.

In the scenario above, you have to define a range so that each area is not overlapping as not only will you most likely get the error: "Number assignment: Last number has been assigned" at some point - but also it could result in inconsistency so you need to absolutely ensure they are not overlapping when you define a new number range and ensure to finish and close

There's a KBA about closing and ending number ranges (1581701) and also sligthly off topic but keep in mind buffering for the number ranges as per note 62077 as the numbers are not continuous anyway if buffering is activated (which is recommended) 

hope it helps

Sally