Status Profile

Concept
Different user defined statuses can be assigned to a sales order at the header or at the line item level.
These statuses are assigned using a status profile. This concept is present in SAP CRM as well. What is
more important to understand is the different business scenarios that demand statuses for the sales
document.

For example, in typical office situations, quotations beyond a certain sum need to be approved by the
sales manager. Let's take a simple IDES example of a ZQT status profile. This status profile has 3
statuses - Quotation Approved, Quotation Declined, Quotation Not Approved. If the quotation is not
approved, we should configure the system in such a way that an order cannot be created from the
quotation. Which means, each status can influence the way the sales order's subsequent steps are
performed. We will also look at a more complicated example that has 6 statuses and the sequence in
which the user changes the statuses is also controlled via configuration.

Configuration

The configuration menu path for Status Profile is as shown in the picture below [ SPRO -> IMG ->
Sales & Distribution -> Sales -> Sales Documents -> Define and Assign Status Profile ]

As already mentioned, status profile can be created for both header and line item level. The procedure
is very similar for both of them. So the steps required for creating a status profile at the header level are
• Define Status Profile [BS02]
• Assign Order Types to Status Profile [VOV8]
Let's go through the process of creating the status profile first. Based on the example that we have
discussed, select the status profile ZQT which contains the statuses that we have discussed above for
the quotation scenario. As you can see from the picture below, there are 3 statuses assigned to status
profile ZQT. They are
• NAPP - Not Approved
• APP - Approved
• REJE - Rejected
Each of these statuses have a long description and a short description. Just in case you need to maintain
a long description, you can select the button highlighted below to create a long description for the
status. Also there is a check box called "Init. St." . Each document which has a status profile assigned
to it, starts with an initial status. The one check marked here will be the initial status. Meaning, if you
create a quotation of type QT ( that is assigned to a status profile ZQT ), the user status initially during
the creation will be NAPP .

The next thing would be to identify all the allowed business transactions possible for a particular status.
You can double click on the status or select the magnifying glass to view the allowed business
transactions.
As you can see from the picture above, if the quotation is in status NAPP, then the transactions "Create
Billing Document" , "Create Delivery", Create Goods Issue" etc are not possible. The only transaction
that is possible is "Complete" which means you can just save the quotation. It makes sense right..?
What is the point in doing anything with a quotation that is not approved.

This time let's take a more complicated example ( Based on the first picture shown in the concept
section ). The business scenario is the installation of a complex equipment ( Say an MRI Scanner ) that
the customer has brought from us. After placing the order, there are 6 steps that are involved before
invoicing the customer.
• The customer has Placed the oder, but the installation procedure was not Instantiated yet.
• The customer needs to register with us over the web with the order number and that start the
installation process.
• Our Service Representative will visit the Customer location and validate if the site is suitable
for the installation of the product.
• After the site is found suitable physically, the technician will visit the site and make sure that
there is proper ventilation, power and cooling available.
• Only after this final validation will the product be shipped to the customer location.
In order to accomplish this, let's create a new status profile ZORD_INS and assign this to the order type
OR.
Maintain different statuses ( as discussed above ) for the status profile ZORD_INS. Each of these
statuses will have a number ( to the far left below ). And as discussed above, the first status ZNOT will
be the initial status. The highest and lowest numbers are a little bit complicated and will be easy to
understand in the demo. Nevertheless, the reason why the exist is that not all statuses can be attained
before certain statuses are passed. Meaning, you cannot go to status ZINS ( Installation Confirmation )
directly from ZNOT ( Not Initiated ) without going through the other statuses like Initial registration,
Site Verification etc. So when the lowest and highest numbers are 10 and 20 against status ZNOT, that
means that from status ZNOT, the user cannot place the order in another status beyond 20 - Meaning
the only way for changing the status of an order in ZNOT status is to first go through status ZREG.
This is just a complicated way of saying the statuses need to go lock and step in a particular sequence.
This depends on the business scenario and is not always the case.

The next step would be to define all the object types that are effected because of the status. For a
standard sales order you can just select "Sales Order Header" and be done with it. For more
complicated scenarios like service orders, equipment masters etc, you would have to select the
appropriate object type.

Each of these transaction types are associated with a number of business transactions. You would have
to select the new button to import all the business transactions associated with the object type.
After importing the business transactions, you can view them here. Now, you would have to choose and
set the "influence" that the status has on each of the transactions.

Since the order is in its initial stage, we should configure the status to only allow completion ( save )
and forbid any other transactions on the order ( Like billing the order, delivering the order, PGIng the
order etc ). Because, until the site is ready, the service engineer has checked the site, there is no point in
delivering the transaction or billing the transaction.

Similar to the ZNOT example, go ahead and configure the rest of the statuses and set the influence on
the transactions.

The next job is to assign the status profile ZORD_INS to the order type OR. That is being shown in the
following 2 pictures. That will finish the basic configuration. Let's follow through with a demo and see
the effect of our configuration.

Status Profile Demo

Let's start by creating a sales order and see the effect of the status profile on the different transactions
that we perform.
Goto Header -> Status to see the effect of the Status
Status to view Status Profile" src="http://images.magnatraining.com/sap-tutorials/sap-sd/status-
profile/goto-header-status.gif" />
In the status tab, you will see the current status ZNOT ( because this is the initial status after creating
the sales order ). If you want to explore the statuses further, click on the Object Status button.
User Statuses are shown here. If there are more than 5 statuses here, you can click on the button
highlighted in red below to scroll down and view more.

If you change the status now to 50, you will get an error message as shown below. This is because we
have defined the highest step of ZNOT to be 20. That means the only upper status that the status NO.
10 - ZNOT can go to is 20. If the user tries to set the status of the sales document to something higher,
the system will give an error message.

Similarly, if you try to deliver this order while the status of the sales order is ZNOT, the delivery
transaction VL01N will throw up an error message as shown below. This is a way to control the
different business transactions that an order can subsequently perform under a given status.
FOR FURTHER REFERENCE ABOUT STATUS PROFILE GO TO URL

http://www.slideshare.net/magnatraining/status-profile