SAP Output Control - automatic download of the output to a default folder

[christine_khberger]

Hello,

is ist possible to configure the output control (e.g. of purchase orders) in a way that the ouput is automatically saved into a default directory without the user having to navigate to the folder?

[JL23]

Why would you need to add such a few lines in the email? Wouldn't the long text in the PO (header or item level) be the right place for such kind of communication? It had the advantage that it stays in the PO itself and is visible at any time from anybody who has access to the PO. Beside of the effect that you could automate the output process.

[christine_khberger]

Yes, I understand your point of view. I will make the suggestions.

[christine_khberger]

Hello Jürgen,

thank you very much for your answer. I know we could send e-mails via standard output control to customers or vendors. The problem is here, that there is no possibilty to write a few lines to the vendor/customer or to reply to mails received and so on. It is only possible to send the standardized SAP mail and that is not what the users want.

In our case the users want to send PDF of purchase orders after editing the mail to the vendors. We already had a internal e-mail account where the standard mail is received and then can be forwarded to the vendor. Problem here is that if the vendor is used by several departments, the e-mail-adress is stored in the general data and cannot be defined by purchasing group or purchasing organization.

In the end it is just a question of convenience for the users and I am now quite sure there is no simple standard way for this requirement (although already several customers asked for exactly the same thing, there seems to be no simple solution). And we definitely don't want to start a big project just to save a few mouse clicks for the users.

Kind regards,

Christine

[JL23]

I know for sure that we are doing it in SD per sales organisation. I remember also that it was not possible with the standard customizing only when I analyzed this option about 5 or even more years ago. I made a proposal to look into the programs of archive routing which meets exact the same requirement for data archiving via SARA transaction. The project was then delayed and I changed departments and was not involved in the realization, so I don't know the details of the solution, but as always it is a joint project over some weeks stuffed with key users, functional consultants and ABAPer analyzing the options, discussing the solutions, realizing the decision.

The requirement is still a bit dusty as we do not know what your follow on process is. In general this archived output is primary touched when it comes to a dispute or a customer needs a copy after we already archived the data and can't generate a reprint via standard options.

I am not sure why you would need access to this content without SAP. The people who would need to send such copies work anyway all day with SAP, don't they? Further it is a data protection issue. Such documents may have data that must not be accessed by anybody, so it makes sense to use access it from SAP where the authorization is checked.

Emailing is normal output, we email all our invoices to the customers, this is not a follow on process after it has been stored in a folder, this goes at the same time, while we send the output by email a copy is stored in the archive.

[christine_khberger]

I think it is not clear what I mean, I will try to explain in more detail. It is clear that the archive documents are created automatically as soon as the storage mode is set appropriately. But all outputs are stored in one and the same place for e.g. all sales orders? And the user can only access them via SAP? If now the user wants to e.g. send the specific document via e-Mail to somebody, he needs to open sap, go to the sales order (for example) and get the pdf from there? Or are the PDF files relevant for this user stored somewhere where he can access them without opening sap?

For example, in SD the similar requirement could be: All pdf files regarding sales orders for one sales office should be stored in the same folder, so the people responsible for this particular sales office can see which files were created and process them further.

[christine_khberger]

Hello Jürgen,

I had a look at the links and the information about archivelink. I think this will not serve the user requirements. If you use archivelink you still have to open SAP, open the purchase order, navigate to the attachments and save the pdf manually into a folder. The requirement is to define a folder on the file system, where the PDF-Documents are stored automatically as soon as the purchase order is released. It should be possible to define different folders e.g. per purchasing organisation or purchasing group. As far as I can see, there is no such functionality?

Thank you and kind regards,

Christine

[JL23]

No, message are outputted in background, nobody needs to manually save that pdf .

We are doing it for many years already in SD for order acknowledgements and invoices, output customizing is not really different between SD and MM

[christine_khberger]

Hello,

Today we have set the transmission medium to "print output" and the output device is the PDF-printer.

Thank you for the link, will check this tomorrow in detail.

Kind regards,

Christine

[JL23]

How do you download a PO into a folder manually today?

I would use the storage mode in the message conditions to control it.

The customizing for that is common for SD and MM output, so you can use the SD documentation from help.sap.com:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_rc10/helpdata/en/d7/e21f59408e11d1896b0000e8322d00/content.htm?frameset=...

and the general docu https://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw74/helpdata/en/42/b545f7dfe44845b49577f79d9d0e95/content.htm