SAP Commissions Tips and Tricks for Documentation & Processing Units

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This is great post of SAP commission best practice about Processing Units. I copy from Canidium site  for reference.

As software users are all too aware, fast-paced updates and complex technology make it increasingly difficult to know everything about the solutions they use. This is also true of SAP Commissions. Fortunately, accessing and using SAP’s documentation feature will make a big difference for SAP Commissions users and the performance of their solution.

Help Documentation in SAP Commissions has become a hugely beneficial tool for users. Read this blog to learn tips-and-tricks for using SAP Commissions Documentation, including tips on how to stay alert to updates that make a difference in how the system is used.

You will also learn the pro and cons of processing units, why SAP users need them, and how they can enable them.

The Help Documentation has greatly improved over the last year or two.

With a little practice in searching the Help Portal, users can find the answers they need to learn how functions work, what parameters are needed in which functions, and caveats of working with some features of SAP Commissions.

Questions?

Here is a step-by-step guide to searching in the SAP’s Documentation feature:

After logging in to SAP Commissions, click on the ? Help Icon to open the Help Portal. 

To open the Help Portal, click on the “?” Question Mark, in the upper right hand corner of the UI.

Commissions 1

The latest Release Notes are available on the landing page, or you search for detailed help.

Commissions 2

It’s important to read the Release notes when updates and additions come out. For example, when the new Relationships workspace came out many users were lost about how to use it because it was radically different from the prior release. Constantly changing technology and processes is one reason why reading Release notes is important to the health of an SAP solution.

While these notes are incredibly helpful and the best first step to knowing what’s happening with SAP Commissions or another solution, they do not always tell the full story.

While the Help documentation is much better than in days past, it’s still not perfect.
  • Sometimes it can be vague
  • Updates can change functionality, review the Release Notes!
  • Not everything is in the Release Notes, when you find a helpful tip or trick, write it down, or better yet, share it to the SAP internal mailing list!
  • Quick reference for things like Date Functions…

Because of these reasons, it is important for users to keep a list of personal Tips and Tricks with information about updates. As users compile their own experience and the experience of other contributors, the full picture of how to best run an SAP solution begins to come to light.

Here are a few Tips and Tricks about Date Functions and Processing Units in SAP Commissions:

Questions?

Date Functions

Date Functions and finding the End of Quarter.

A simple and favorite way to check for Quarter End:

          Fiscal Period End Date (Period End Date, (leaf level), 0) =FiscalPeriod End Date (Period End Date, quarter, 0)

When using a Date Function, all dates must be within the same calendar. 

    1. Start dates that are nul are set to 12/31/1996
    2. End dated that are null are set to 1/1/2200
    3. Error messages (Warnings?) are  generated in the logs when a null date is encountered.
    4. For date comparison functions, null date processing does not apply.
    5. When using Convert String to Date function, the date must be formatted appropriately for the current locale, and must be in quotes. (i.e. “05/03/2017”)
      1. Null input returns End of Time (1/1/2200).
  • Measuring periods between dates counts the number of periods away the dates are from each other, not how many whole periods.
    1. Commissions Will return a zero (0) if either of the supplied dates are null.
    2. Returns a Qty return type
Processing Units and Business Units:
  1. A Processing Unit (PU) is a processing feature that allows processing of subsets of SAP Commissions data when they are partitioned logically.
  2. You can run the calculation for different organizations at the same time if each organization has its own Processing Unit.
    1. Reference data can be shared between Processing Units with the exception of Positions, Transactions, Orders and Results data.
  3. A Business Unit (BU) is a Security feature that allows limiting of access to reference and results data to an appropriate subset of users.
    1. Business Units define the Processing Unit, a Business Unit can only have one Processing Unit, but each PU can have multiple BUs.

Questions?

This is the SAP Commissions diagram of Processing Units and Business Units from the Help Documentation:

Commissions 4

Benefits of Processing Units:
  • SAP recommended Best Practice is to create at least one Processing Unit on each Implementation.
  • With multiple PUs, given enough resources, you can run Parallel or Concurrent pipelines, reducing run times
  • A Processing Unit is Required in reporting queries.
  • A Processing Unit will speed back-end queries on multi-tenant servers.
Drawbacks of Multiple Processing Units:
  • All Transactions are segregated to their Business Unit’s Processing Unit. To process the same transaction in Multiple PUs you must enter the transaction multiple times.
  • The correct BU must be assigned at the time of creation of each Position.  You cannot update the Position to include the BU and/or PU.
  • Positions can only relate to other Positions within the same Processing Unit.  This will define how many PUs you may need on an implementation. If you have one head of all Sales, that everyone rolls up to, everyone must be in the same PU.
  • If you are using Position Groups, they do not inherit the Processing Unit.  But if you assign a Position to a Position Group for another Processing Unit, the Position will not calculate by Position Group, but WILL get Finalized during a Finalize by Position Group pipeline.
  • You cannot Finalize the entire Period, it must be done by Position Group, and will not show in the Pipeline workspace as Finalized.

Questions?

Here’s How to Enable Processing Units:

Under Settings > System Preferences > Calculation

  • Check box is “Hidden” on the bottom right side
  • Click to Enable
    • Once this has been turned on, it is NOT recommended to turn it off

Commissions 5

  • Once PUs have been enabled, the Processing Units option will appear on the Security menu
  • Now you can create a PU
    • PU cannot be deleted, only renamed.
  • Always create the PU first, before any BUs

Commissions 6

 

By Using Documentation, Date Functions, and Processing Units, You Can Get More out of SAP Commissions

Whether you are using SAP Commissions or another software, we have covered a wide variety of topics in this blog that are important to the health of an SAP solution. Help Documentation has been greatly improved in recent years and it is important users take advantage of it’s benefits. By reading every Release Documentation from SAP, users will have a better understanding of updates and changes to their solution. This can make a huge impact to the health of the software.

Release Documentation is very helpful, but users should also consider taking their own, “Tips and Tricks,” as notes. This makes it easier to pull up information that have been found useful, have the notes in their own words, and share knowledge between co-workers and peers.

Some tips and tricks users should consider using include Date Functions and the benefits of Processing Units, although using multiple processing units does impose limitations. If and when you have questions, remember to read the Help Documentation and use the internal SAP Commissions mailing list, so users can learn together!

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