I have recently gotten more involved in the logistics side of my employer’s activities and we use SAP for a large part of our CMS work (specifically, SAP by Design).
We have hundreds of Sales Orders (SOs) in the system and they are spread out to 2016.
I am now trying to find a way to track each order over its lifetime without having to baby-sit each one.
For example, say a customer order is planned for delivery/installation around the week of May 16, 2014.
I would like to configure reminders or alerts so that each step along the way does not get forgotten:
July 9, 2012: Customer contract has been signed, so enter SO into SAP. Do not yet submit it for further processing. January 15, 2014: Contact customer to do a site survey. Require all options to be configured, as well as additional accessories that may be desired. February 1, 2014: Submit SO in SAP so that it progresses to order processing. Hardware needs to be prepared, as well as all the options, and software for the customer’s unique configuration needs to be prepared and installed. May 1, 2014: Items for SO need to be prepared for shipping to customer site. May 1, 2014: Confirm that customer AND installer will be on-site within a couple days of shipment delivery so that installation can proceed. May 2, 2014: Products for SO to be shipped to customer site. Allow two days for FedEx delivery within US. May 9, 2014: When delivery at customer site is confirmed, follow up with customer and installer to confirm that installation will proceed as scheduled. Remove shipped items from inventory in SAP. May 16, 2014: Installation at store; ensure both installer and store manager are on site so that installation can be completed.
I would like to enter all these steps on a calendar so that as each date rolls around, I am reminded to take the next step in SAP.
SAP does have a built-in calendar--for viewing only--but so far I have not found a way to create alerts to myself to trigger a new action on a SO. I could add entries to Google Calendar or BaseCamp to send me alerts, but I’d rather have everything within one software.
So . . . after all that, my question is,
Does SAP offer the capability to track an order by setting up alerts to trigger actions at certain dates?
If so, how? (I haven’t been able to find anything along these lines.)