Custom PO workflow

[Former Member]

Hi All, Please confirm if it is required to configure the release strategy for custom PO workflow. Thanks.

[former_member183917 · Accepted solution]

Hi- Its purely based on the business, to go for PO approval with or without release strategy and both the cases are possible

If business needs WF to go with release strategy (based on release code...), then yes release strategy should be configured for custom PO WF

You can refer my answer (in 2nd page) in the below thread

Vinoth

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Vinoth,

Appreciate your reply. We decided to go without the release strategy. But now, the developer is asking us to configure a dummy release strategy and we are confused. I told the workflow person that we will not configure release strategy for the custom workflow and I got below reply.

Then please let us know how to release a PO without release strategy ?

Is there any standard transaction which allows to release a PO without release strategy ? we can try by using BDC recoding on that transaction if any.

Or any other BAPI/ FM which allows to release a PO without release strategy?

We are not looking for a release strategy which will have any functional significance but just a dummy release strategy which would be globally applicable to all the POs and which can be passed to the BAPI as input parameter.

Could you please suggest what should I tell them as I am not a workflow person and I am confused. Thanks.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

What is the purpose of your custom workflow? Is it some kind of approval/release workflow? If you need to release a PO, I would suppose that you then need to have the release strategy too. If I would be the developer, I would be probably asking the same question from you.

If you create a PO, what is the status of that? How are you supposed to set it somehow approved or released? What is the different between a new PO and released PO? For me it doesn't make so much sense to release a PO that is not even subjected to release by a release strategy.

I guess that Vinoth's answer is about how to programmatically change the release status of PO. This is probably something that the WD developer is interested about - but in any case I think that the question is relevant: how are you supposed to release a PO, if it doesn't even require the release.

Regards,

Karri

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Karri, Thanks for your reply. Obviously we want to release POs. I am under an impression that we have standard workflow to leverage the functioanity of release strategy in SAP MM. If we need to set up the release strategy itself, then why would we want the custom workflow? We thought custom workflow will take care of all criterias for routing POs for approval and get them approved. Again, I may be wrong here. Thanks.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

>If we need to set up the release strategy itself, then why would we want the custom workflow?

That's why I asked what is the purpose of your workflow. But now I take it as you need to release/approve the POs.

You need to separate these things: release strategy and workflow. Release strategy is about how/which POs should be subjected to release. Workflow is about to whom the PO should be sent for release (simplified version of the whole truth). Now your requirement might be that POs should be released in a custom workflow. This is why you might need both the release strategy and custom workflow.

Of course it might be that there are some possibilities to achieve the thing that you are looking for without the release strategy configuration, but I am not familiar with MM/POs in that deep level that I could say how. I have some experience with PR releasing stuff, but I assume that POs are pretty much the same. Maybe it really is that you just need some "dummy" release strategy in order to make your custom workflow work and be able to release your POs.

Kind regards,

Karri

[former_member183917 · Accepted solution]

Hi- We went live with release strategy and after some time client doesnt need release strategy, so functional team has made the release strategy as a dummy one

So by using FM, we set the release status and all things (as mentioned in the thread). As pr your requirement, if PO needs to under go release, then i think some dummy release strategy should be in place

Vinoth

[nabheetscn]

I think it is a good idea to have a release strategy at least make a dummy one. bcoz later you may need more than one approvals then you dont have to change workflow. Its only release startegy will handle the various levels.

Thanks

Nabehet