Deletion indicator for Delivery

[Former Member]

Hi,

I have a scenario where the Business team is Deleting all the Items in the delivery and they are adding new items. When the line items are deleted, these line items are removed from LIPS table.

Is there any way to see / identify delivery items with a deletion indicator to keep a track. Since it is removed from the table, how do we pull a report from table with the list of delivery items been deleted.

I cannot use the table CDHDR and CDPOS, since i cannot use this logic in a report which consumes huge time. Is there any other options other than these two tables CDHDR /CDPOS.

Appreciate your responses.

Thanks

Bala

[MichaelSargent]

Please use VL22N to find changes carried out to delivery. This is also available via the delivery itself -> Environment -> Changes.

[former_member205178]

Hi,

Neeraj has given the right inputs and that should be good enough to query and get the deleted items data.

I agree with many of the contributors to this post, there should be very extreme reasons for people to delete deliveries. Whatever the Business reasons, the process seems to be incorrect.

They should not have delete authorizations first of all. There could be other ways to get to what business needs. You can have a clear discussion with them to figure out why they are deleting and adding items at delivery level. That can be done at Order Level itself. Don't you guys have picking process ? That should also lead to not having a need to delete delivery items.

Many a times because of process issues, people handling delivery may just take a easy way out by deleting the delivery than correcting this in the preceding step. 

Just my two cents.

Thanks.

[former_member223981]

Hi Bala,

What information do you need about the deleted items (that is not in CDHDR /CDPOS or tx AUT10)?

[neeraj_lal]

Hi Bala,

Looks very strange that business is directly deleting data from table and being a functional consultant you are not able to stop them.

Why they can not block or reject line rather than deleting value from standard sap table. It is not recommended as per SAP. In case of any issue SAP will not support such business activity.

Regards

[Former Member]

Hi Neeraj,

The Business is not deleting from Table. If they delete at transaction level then the values will get deleted at table level automatically

Thanks

[neeraj_lal]

Bala,

Then in my knowledge you have only these two table which you mentioned, where you can find change log easily CDHDR /CDPOS. Regarding performance issue you check with ABAPER which value he requires (Key field) to get detail fast.

Regards

[moazzam_ali]

Hi Neeraj

After reading your above posts I have one question in my mind that what will be the process of reversing a sales process. If we create a sale order > delivery and Invoice then due to some reason we need to reverse the process then how we'll proceed?

Thank$

[neeraj_lal]

Hi Moazzam,

While reversing sale process , If you delete delivery then system do not keep its detail in sales order document flow.

As per my understanding only you can find this delivery number in CDHDR table under object 'LIEFERUNG' or may be via Tcode VL22N

We can delete delivery after reversing PGI, if business really requires. As many of business process dependecy  also link with delivery number like  legal, transport , so its better to avoid deleting delivery completely . 

And  if  delivery deletion is  necessary, it should be done in discussion with business.

Now another thing which I mentioned deleting value from standard table, as  initial asked query  give feeling that business is going to delete entry from standard LIPS table.

Data from standard tables linked with many other tables so we should never promote such things. It can create inconsistency between tables,  system (for example I have seen such system inconsistency if  CRM is linked)

In my SAP experience, I faced  issue where smart  business did such, and when inconcistancy happened then every thing come to consultant head.

If we are using  Key field for example Client, Object class and Object value to search details in CDHDR and CDPOS, then I do not think there should be a big performance issue.

As all  these are a key field for CDPOS. And then every thing comes how abaper is writing code.

Regards

[moazzam_ali]

Hi Neeraj

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I was always curios to know that why didnt SAP allow to put mark for deletion in delivery document like we do in service order or notification etc. In my previous compnay it was a normal practice to reverse the whole sale process and in this we had to delete delivery and then put reason for rejection in sale order. Reversing invoice is ok because it creates a new document with new accounting document and it remain in document flow as well. Putting reason for rejection is also ok as it remains in document flow but i dont know why SAP didnt give us option to put reason for rejection or some kind of mark for deletion in delivery. If we delete delivery we lose track between sale order and invoice and delivery which I think is some kind of loop hole or I dont know wht to say this. May be someday I will raise this query to SAP too

Thank$

[jignesh_mehta3]

Hello Mozzam,

We have a option to insert Delivery Block in Delivery Doucment - Header Details - Administration Tab.

The authorized person (who reverses the delivery doucment) can set the Delivery block & others cannot remove this block (which can be done by Basis teams by removing Release authorization).

Thanks,

Jignesh Mehta

[moazzam_ali]

Hi Jignesh

Thanks for sharing this but I was talking about reversing the whole process and making all documents complete. But if we assign delivery block after doing VL09 then this delivery will remain being process and it will be shown in open delivery reports VL06. For making its status complete we have to dele line item and with this the document flow get distrubed. What will you say about this?

Thank$

[Jelena]

MoazzaM, in the delivery it's not feasible to have the same thing like a rejection reason in the sales order. When delivery item is deleted, the status changes on the preceding sales order line and it becomes possible to change it, reject it or even delete the order line itself. Now imagine if the order line is rejected, but then delivery line was "un-rejected". It would be quite a mess. It'd be just way too difficult to keep track of the whole thing.

If there was a deletion indicator, it would have to be "unremovable". But such lines would just pollute the database and would serve no other purpose than some kind of historical analysis. Doesn't make a lot of sense. All the valuable information is in the preceding document (order), so what would be the point to keep the deleted delivery lines?

In my experience, when there is a good business process there is actually no need for changes in the deliveries. Requirements like in the original post occur when there is some funky business process, e.g. sales folks trying to post orders that don't really exist or shipping trying to "deliver" items prematurely to meet some targets. Delivery should be created when the goods are ready to be shipped and there should be no need to delete anything from the delivery at that point. The rest is usually either some "creative accounting" or a broken or incorrectly configured process. Granted, there could be some valid exceptions, but if items have to be deleted from deliveries on regular basis, I'd rather question such practice, not the SAP design.

[moazzam_ali]

Hi Jelina

I really appriciate your concern and explaination for delivery deletion. Yes you are right about the processes that we don't need to delete delivery if the business process and people are mature enough and there is proper mechanism to run business. But we should always take the evil side of process in mind when ever we are developing or configuring the system. We can't assume that people will always run the system smoothly and efficiently. There are always some black sheep in every business or company.

I am not asking to leave those people whi are trying to use SAP for negative purposes but what my opinion is that when we have control in all other process like PR > PR > GR > MIRO and in Notification process > service Order > accounting documents > ad many others we should have some mark for deletion or lock or any other functionality.

Once we reverse the invoice and put mark for deletion for delivery item then status of sale order can also be updated like it is being updated now.

Or the 2nd option is to create reversal document at the time of VL09 like in VF11.

There can be multiple options which we can use for this but again this is my personel opnion and in SAP there are many think tanks who know better then me this process and its logics behind this whole story.

Thank$

[Jelena]

Reversals are needed when there is a financial posting, that's why there is an invoice reversal and goods movement reversal (GM document also creates a financial posting). Delivery doesn't create any financial postings, that's why there is really no reason to hold on to it. As far as losing the link between invoice and order - in our system order # is carried over to VBRP table, so the link can be easily established back.

MoazzaM, I guess we might have to agree to disagree on this. I'm with SAP Explorer here that reversal/deletion just should not be a regular process. I worked in pretty messed up environments but even there any reversals did not happen casually. Actually I'm curious what business scenario would require constant delivery deletion? Can you provide a specific example?

Sorry for hijacking the thread, but it seems to be a good discussion.

[moazzam_ali]

Hi Ms Je

lena

Yes you are right about the discussion. This question was always in my mind and even my boss asked me twice to raise an OSS note to SAP that why user can delete delivery. There should be some mark for deletetion etc.

I agree with you that reversal is always when there is financial posting. When we create invoice with VF01 there are two documents (ignoring the COPA documents) created automatically i.e SD invoice and accounting document. Same is the case with delivery document. When we create delivery and do PGI in VL01N there are two documents. Delivery number and accounting document. But why there is difference on reversals and this is the logic in my mind because of which I always wanted system to create seperate reversal document in VL09.

Well, I can bet on this that you didnt work in as

messed up environments as I did. Users in my current company are very much matured and in last three months there is not a single 602 movement here but in my previous one there were like 3/4 movements on weekly basis. There were many reasons like

• User have entered wrong batch in delivery. They were entering batches manually in delivery in batch split screen by copy pasting
• Delivery was supposed to send to customer A but they created for B.
• Material A was supposed to be delivered but wrongly they entered material B.

I agree with that delivery deletion is not good practice and we should discourage it but again this is SAP, best ERP Solution and it should consider the evil side of this issue as well.

Thank$

[former_member205178]

Hi,

I am not trying to hijack this post, but anyways, looks like it is already done by me 🙂

As a caveat, I can say that I don't have any stake in this discussion.

One thing I can say for sure is that, you cannot have any system in the world which can address every possible scenario.

There are certain limitations which IT can take burden of for user mistakes. I come from a pure business background before going into SAP Consulting so I very well can understand both the worlds.

Have seen so many projects/clients where there are multiple systems integrated to SAP or having redundancy with SAP and as a big brother SAP has always to accommodate what other systems are limited to or cannot do.

Bottom line, SAP does have good best practices but they may not be enough if faulty business processes and user training take these back.

Anyways, I rest my case.

Thanks.

[jignesh_mehta3]

Hello MozzaM,

There is a SAP Standard report - VL_COMPLETE which you can use to mark open Delieries as complete from Background job.

There is a doucment that I published on this - http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-29596

Thanks,

Jignesh mehta

[moazzam_ali]

Hi Jignesh

Thanks for sharing this Tcode. This is really a new learning for me and this is the reason why I come here on SCN

Although there are some issues in this but still it is very helpful and we can complete dfelivery without deleting it. The issue is only with status update. When we complete delivery with this then system should update status as Delivery completed mannually but I saw that it was for goods movement and billing that document was completely process. How can we differentitate that this delivery has been completed with this Tcode if we want to see in bulk.

Thank you again for your entry and letting me know this new thing.

Thank$

[Jelena]

MoazzaM, thanks for a response. The pattern I see with all 3 scenarios is that those are trully user errors. It's possible to make data entry easier with using barcodes, providing different interfaces, etc., but as one of my favorite quotes goes - "you can't fix stupid".

In case of repeated user errors the best approach is to investigate why those errors occur (lack of training, confusing material IDs, etc.). But if certain employees are just incapable of doing simple data entry job, I'm sorry - they need to improve or they need to go.

Still - not sure I'm clear why in these cases you would need to retain the delivery data. E.g. if material was entered incorrectly, you'd see a change in the sales order. Also there could be a rather simple technical solution. Take away authorization for the delivery deletion and instead create a custom transaction to delete the deliveries. In that transaction you could capture, say, the reason for deletion and any basic delivery information that would have value in a Z table.

I'm usually the last person to play the SAP's advocate, but with these scenarios in mind I don't feel there would be a strong case for them to change how deliveries work - sorry!

[former_member205178]

Hi,

Cant resist joining in this discussion. I was hesitant to use "you can't fix stupid" thinking it is not PC being new to SCN[not SAP of course]. I do have company then 🙂

Calling what it is, is what makes people relook at things.

Thanks for your overall comments here.

I will now stop being inquisitive about this thread.

[moazzam_ali]

Hi Ms Jelena

I like the way you participated in this discussion and defended the SAP funtionality but you know what. A am also with SAP and we are on same side

Yes you are right and i like your quote that we cant fix stupid and exactly this is the reason in most companies the poor management take SAP as a normal software like Excel or Word etc and they think that we have paid a huge amount for implementing this then it should work efficiently by itself. Why'd we hire highly paid users. Why don't we go for cheap resources. This is only one example but they have also other logics. Anyways I agree with you completely and I think Jignesh's suggestion is good enough that we should give VL-COMPLETE Tcode to users and delete their authorization to delete the delivery.

But one question is still unanswered that what is the difference in invoice and delivery. Both have two documents both have impacts in financial then why new reversal document only for delivery. It will be a question mark for me.

I have one reason that may be invoice is a leagul document thats why system don't delete this. Do you have some idea about this? After this we'll leave this discussion and let the OP find out something from this discussion regarding his thread

Thank$

[moazzam_ali]

SAP Explorer

Don't hesitate to be a part of any discussion. We are here for learning so we should share our thoughts and ideas. Reading SCN thread is also good but we should actively participate in these kind of discussions where we always learn something new like I did from here

Thank$

[former_member205178]

Hi MoazzaM,

Thanks for your advice.

It is not that I am hesitant or anything like that. It is just that being new to the SCN Forum [as mentioned earlier - not new to SAP] I am wading through and getting a feel of what and how the discussions take place here.

I was happy to note that during one of the threads of this post's discussion Jelena called something for what it was -> calling a spade a spade. Of course, some one can counter argue on that and say that it is a subjective interpretation of the situations. but at least, I know now that a straight forward statement is not considered as inappropriate. 

Coming to discussions on topics like this, I am always ready for those anytime, to share and learn from others.

Thanks for your note.

Have a good one.

Thanks.

[Jelena]

MoazzaM, deliveries don't have a financial impact actually. Goods issue (PGI) from a delivery triggers creation of a goods movement (GM) document and that document, in turn, creates an accounting document. You might be confused because usually the delivery # appears in the 'Reference' field on such accounting documents. But it is really just for reference, there is no direct link between delivery and the accounting document.

In the SD chain only GM documents (which are separate from the deliveries) and invoices create accounting documents and therefore only these have reversal process designed. If there is an entry in the GL, you can't just delete it. But delivery does not impact GL, just like the sales orders, so there is no reason for reversal.

Hope this explains it, otherwise let me know.

[moazzam_ali]

Hi Jelena

Yes I agree with you and have explained with a valid logic. I had in my mind the other reason which I had mention in my previous post may be that is also a reason but yours one is also correct and let me thank you for taking interest and defending SAP

I hope I will learn more from you and your posts have always quality content to study. Thanks again and have a nice time.

Thank$

[former_member182378]

Jelena,

Thank you for your posts!

Could you please comment on "broken or incorrectly configured process"?

The rest is usually either some "creative accounting" or a broken or incorrectly configured process.

Thank you All,

This thread is good learning!

[Jelena]

A "broken [business] process" to me would be, for example, exactly as in MoazzaM's examples (lack of training, unqualified users, etc.), lack of communication and agreement between Sales and Shipping (e.g. Shipping personnel sending the goods out too early just because they need to meet some kind of monthly performance number; differences in "on time delivery" measurements) and such.

"Incorrect configuration" I should've rather called "bad design" could easily be caused by a broken process too. "We did it like that in our old system and that's how we want to do it in SAP!!!" - most likely sounds familiar to anyone. One simple example - for some strange reason item category can be changed by the users and then they pick a wrong category, so the whole chain of documents after the order has to be rolled back. It's insane. Another example - order completion is not checked correctly and issues occur in the consequent document posting. Or the other way around - fields that shouldn't be required are made required. Or texts are not set to be copied correctly. There are 1001 possibilities, unfortunately.

[moazzam_ali]

Hi

Once you have deleted the line items then you can't find them in LIPS table. You have to compromise on performace and use tables which you have mentioned in your first post.

Thank$

[venkateswaran_k]

Dear Bala,

Did you have a look at VBFA table..  Most probably that table should maintain all the history as the document flow.

Regards,

Venkat

[Former Member]

Hi,

The entries are not available in either LIPS or VBFA table.

Thanks

Bala

[Former Member]

Hi Bala,

Please try putting the billing blcok at item level (Item --> "Financial Processing" Tab--> "Block" ) rather than deleting the item.

Regards

[Former Member]

Hi Raj,

Business doesnt want to block the delivery note items. they are interested only in the Deletion.

Thanks

Bala

[former_member184065]

Dear.

Try with " AUT10 " Transaction .

Thanks,

Naren

[Former Member]

I am looking at some table level details to provide input for technical team as some reports are built on this and getting hitted there badly

[former_member184065]

Dear,

see below screen shot and do as below to get the details .

Thanks,

Naren