Role of a mySAP Functional Consultant

What are the differences between a functional and business consultant?

The difference between Functional consultant and Business consultant are as follows:
1) A funcitonal consultant is able to configure the system unlike business consultant.
2) Functional consultant know more about business process unlike Business consultant.
3) A business consultant will bring business process knowledge and provide it to
functional consultant who in turn used this knowledge to configure the system.
4) Functional consultant has more configuration knolwledge then Business
consultant.
*-- Rocky
The responsibilities of a support consultant are:
- Primarily responsible for Handling tickets and application support to the endusers
- When an issue comes diagnose, analyse and solve the issue
- Responsible for any enhancements
- Writing functional specs and interacting with Abapers to develop any user exits
- Training the end users and preparing end user training material
*-Sistla
For those who wished to know the role of a functional consultant. Below is one view:
A functional consultant evaluates the demands in talking with the customer's
representatives, transforms the essence into an abstract and algorithmic business model.
Hence, he identifies the use cases and transforms them into logical and technical views.
Then the main task starts: customizing the respective business area and making sure the
system reacts in the manner according to the constraints of the requested use case.
The consultant documents the settings and prepares proper guidelines that allow other
consultants to do further changes or repairs with due efforts.
The consultant takes care that proper training is given to the users and that the system is
usable, performing appropriately and the business flow is complete and correct.
During go live he assists the technical staff by testing the behavior of the system.
After go live he guarantees that the procedures remain usable and consistent in real live
situation and proposes enhancements.
The main duty of a consultant is to transfer external know-how to the client. It is not
manpower that counts but intelligence, understanding of processes, a feeling for defects
and general a common sense.
Role of a Functional Consultant in an End To End Implementation

When you talk about the role of a Functional consultant in an end to end implementation,
I think it won't be possible for me or anybody to define everything but I will try to
summarize it:
1. Functional consultant is expected to generate knowledge about the current business
process, design current business flows, study current business processes and its
complication, in all we can say getting through with current business setup. Flow
diagrams and DFD are prepared, most of the time in Vision format, all this forms the part
of AS IS document.
2. Everything configured has to be documented as per their categories in the form of
predefined templates, these have to be then approved by the team leads or who ever the
consultant is reporting to.
3. Mapping and GAP analysis is done for each module, I have seen people defining
integration after mapping, gap analysis and configuration is done, but as per my
experience in implementation, it is a simultaneous process.
4. Before starting configuring future business processes in SAP, the DFD/ERD are
prepared, this documentation is called TO BE, which can be also siad as the result of
mapping and gap analysis.
5. Sometimes Functional consultants are also expected to prepare test scripts for testing
the configured scenarios.
6. End user manual and user training is also expected from F.Consultants.
The project normally starts off with a Kick off meeting in which the team size, team
members, reporting system, responsibilities, duties, methodlogy, dates and schedules,
working hours which have been predicided are formally defined.
ASAP, it won't be possible for me to explain it here, but all I can tell you about it is that it
is SAP standard implementation methodology, which SAP prescribes but is not
mandatory for any company to follow, such as IBM follow some blue Methodlogy, some
companies follow typical SDLC steps, ASAP stands for Accerlated SAP, you can find all
the steps on SAP site, through google, reading it from there won't give you a great
knowledge about ASAP but will obviously get you to know the definitions of various
term.

Standard SAP SD Reports

Reports in Sales and Distribution modules (LIS-SIS):
Sales summary - VC/2
Display Customer Hierarchy - VDH2
Display Condition record report - V/I6
Pricing Report - V/LD
Create Net Price List - V_NL
List customer material info - VD59
List of sales order - VA05
List of Billing documents - VF05
Inquiries list - VA15
Quotation List - VA25
Incomplete Sales orders - V.02
Backorders - V.15
Outbound Delivery Monitor - VL06o
Incomplete delivery - V_UC
Customer Returns-Analysis - MC+A
Customer Analysis- Sales - MC+E
Customer Analysis- Cr. Memo - MC+I
Deliveries-Due list - VL04
Billing due list - VF04
Incomplete Billing documents - MCV9
Customer Analysis-Basic List - MCTA
Material Analysis(SIS) - MCTC
Sales org analysis - MCTE
Sales org analysis-Invoiced sales - MC+2
Material Analysis-Incoming orders - MC(E
General- List of Outbound deliveries - VL06f
Material Returns-Analysis - MC+M
Material Analysis- Invoiced Sales - MC+Q
Variant configuration Analysis - MC(B
Sales org analysis-Incoming orders - MC(I
Sales org analysis-Returns - MC+Y
Sales office Analysis- Invoiced Sales - MC-E
Sales office Analysis- Returns - MC-A
Shipping point Analysis - MC(U
Shipping point Analysis-Returns - MC-O
Blocked orders - V.14
Order Within time period - SD01
Duplicate Sales orders in period - SDD1
Display Delivery Changes - VL22

An Example Of Third Party Sales

Scenario:
2 companies are created in system - India & Singapore Customer places sales order
for particular material on Singapore. Singapore is not able to produce the same.
They pass on the order to India for processing. After processing India ships the
material directly to the customer along with necessary documentation. Invoice copy
is passed on to Singapore. Final Commercial Invoice will be raised by Singapore.
How can the above scenario handled?
By: Balaji
You can do this using third party sales.
The third party sales process is as under.
1) Singapore company creates an order for the singapore customer.
2) Because of the configuration settings of the sales document type, item category &
schedule line category, as soon as the order is saved a PR (purchase requisition) is
automatically generated. This is converted into PO (purchase order) and sent to the indan
company.
3) Indian company supplies the material directly to the singapore customer.
4) Indian company sends the invoice to the singapore company.
5) Singapore company does the invoice verification in MM using tcode MIRO.
6) Singapore company raises the invoice to the singapore customer.
In standard SAP, item category TAS is used for this. The schedule line category is CS.
Here you can see a field 'order type' with value 'NB'. This triggers the automatic creation
of the PR.
Plus in the material master also you need to do certain settings.
1) If you are always following a third party process for a material then you have to create
the material using item category group BANS. The procurement type should be marked
as external procurement (F) in MRP 2 view of the material master record.
2) If you are not always allowing third party order processing then you can create a
material master record with item category group as NORM and the procurement type
should be marked as (X) meaning both types of procurement (in house manufacturing
and external procurement).
In the item category the billing relevance should be 'F'.

How can we know whether the customer is one-time or regular?

One can maintain Account Group for One-time customers. By which we can identify onetime customers.
2. What happens when you do not enter a value for a manual and mandatory
condition type?
The pricing procedure will reject the conditions in the sales order
3. Do header condition type have an access sequence?
No
4. Org structure:
Relation between Company - Sales org
One-to-Many
Sales Org - Plants & company vs. Plants
Company - sales org - credit control area
What are sales area and its components?
Sales area consists of Sales Organisation, Distribution Channel and Division.
5. What are legacy systems?
The Existing system on which current system is working, from which the current system
will be migrated to SAP system
6. What is cut over strategy?
Cutover strategy depends upon how the organizations design their data load strategies.
Normally, you decide the sequence of Data loads for Configuration settings, Master data,
Transaction data which follows whom and then you make a copy of the system as a
Production system a day before and after checking the successful data loads, you go-live
100% or partial again depending upon organizational setup and policies.
Cutover planning is highly site specific. There's no thumb rule. The stock data as on the
date of going live should be correctly entered. But stock being a highly dynamic quantity,
the strategy for loading should be crystal clear. Then you have to load all the back dated
transaction on the stock. Some stock comes into your plant/storage location as return and
some stock is actually delivered to your customer through sales orders of various kinds.
7. What are Cumulative Condition Records?
There is a field:- "condition update" during configuration for a condition type (at v/06)...
has it anything to do with cumulative condn. Records?

8. IF you have 3 different access sequences for one condition record then in a
pricing procedure in what hierarchy will you maintain the three accesses?
In Condition Records (T Code VK11), you would be putting values to corresponding
Condition Types. Now one Condition Type can be assigned to one access sequence. In
Access Sequence, you can assign whichever tables and fields are required.
So in my opinion, you cannot have one condition record for 3 access sequences.
9. What happens in the access sequence when you put all the ticks in the exclusive
field?
When you put tick in exclusive field of all access sequences, in my opinion, it will try to
get available data from the first. Only in case, data is not available, will it move on to the
next one.
10. What is meant by delivery group?
Delivery Group is basically grouping all individual deliveries for Billing. It should have
the same Ship to Party, Shipping Point, etc.
SAP SD Tips by : Moyin
11. What triggers the automatic creation of PR or PO in case of third party sales?
In item category we can set "automatic PO" so that PO and PR will automatically
generate after saving the order.
You never change the item category configuration to "automatic PO". It is the schedule
line category type which triggers the automatic PR creation. - Evilboy
12. What are the steps that are required to include sales person as a partner
function in the partner determination?
Partner function sales represenative or person responsible these two we can add through
partner funtion in partner procedure.
13. What is z transaction?
We copied standard TC or object and rename it by Z its basically stnd name which will
start from Z (User defined)
14. Can you create sales order for 40 items if the quotation is sent for 30 items?
Yes.
15. What is the importance of requirment field in access sequence?
System will not go to asscess condition type system will reply through formula.

16. What makes the immediate delivery in cash sales?

Order type immediate delivery switch on.
SAP SD Tips by : Mahesh B. Maha