SAP SRM Interview Questions and Answers

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1.What is SRM and why should a company add this module to its SAP application? 

SRM means supplier relationship management. Just as a robust company puts in an effort to develop customer relationships, the company should strengthen its procurement processes by automation and efficiency. SRM can examine and forecast the company’s purchasing pattern, work with vendors in real time, and shorten procurement cycles.

2. What does SRM handle?   SRM handles analytics, supplier collaboration,

operational contracts, service purchasing, self-service procurement, catalog content, supplier qualification, strategic sourcing, and plan-driven procurement.

3. What are the SRM sub modules ? These would be  Supplier self-services (SUS) service agent The SUS  order processor The SUS invoicing party The SUS administrator supplier The one-client invoice verification clerk The survey reviewer The strategic purchaser The component planner The employee and the invoice verification clerk.

This is about one third of the sub modules in SRM.

4. How is SRM used?  SRM can be used two ways. First, employees can 

purchase materials and services they need to complete the company’s goals. This process is simplified by a Web-based GUI that simultaneously filters by corporate spending and purchasing compliance. The second way is by an automated system which procures materials as part of a company’s supply-chain workflow.

5. Do you have to re-create mappings each time?

  No, you can re-use mappings by exporting the mapping file and uploading it back for re-use. The next time you want to use it, use the QA System Import Manager, open the import file involved, and select the mapping file from Catalog Items Import Map.

6. What is a business partner? A partner function? 

Business partners cover all stakeholders in the company employees, vendors/suppliers, customers. A partner function is any function related to these partners, such as invoicing a customer, purchase order issuance, authorization procedures, and so on.

7. What is a company code for?  Many large corporations actually consist of

separate companies (plants) with separate functions and accounting. By assigning a code to each company, its financial and legal parameters and reports can remain separate.

8. Name a few of the tables available in SRM ?

SRM has many tables. Among them, the product table, product category table, Web survey questionnaire, business address services, communication usages, account assignment, PO item confirmation, business transaction item purchasing, value limits, tax, tolerances, transactions, partners, links, chopping cart, invoice and credit memo, and SRM confirmations.

9. What is the Import Status Tab for ?   When you are importing and customizing an

import scenario, this tab will give you information on the status of the import – how many fields from the source have been mapped to the destination,  what source is involved, and what the destination is. It also will tell you what table joins and field lookups are being used.

10. What is SRM? SRM stands for Supplier Relationship

Management. It is an extended form of ERP where data gets transferred between SAP R/3 and the SRM screen (vice versa) so that every Vendor’s coordination will be better and which will fully avoid the paper work and unwanted confusions. It is very effective for the companies which have large number of users who can directly purchase the material using the Shopping Cart in which the materials can be selected from the available Catalogs.

11. Discuss about the benefits that SAP SRM brings to a business ?

SAP SRM enables the organization to achieve the following business benefits: Sustainable cost savings- which enables the companies to achieve a closed loop from source-to-pay.

Contract compliance – provides visibility into enterprise expenditures and enables the procurement organization to effectively demonstrate according to corporate guidelines.

Competitive advantage –gives the tools to partner with key suppliers, define supplier management approach, and determine the key metrics.

 

12. Why do we configure number ranges in SRM?

Number ranges must be established for EBP shopping carts as well as any potential purchasing document so that unique numbers can be generated in the backend R/3 system from EBP. The EBP system needs a number range established that automatically takes the next available number and assigns it to the document which will be created in R/3.configuration must also be established in R/3 to correlate with the ranges in EBP so that conflict never arise when purchasing document.

 

13. How do we define ITS URL? Before the Internet Transaction Server (ITS) can

process EBP requests, entries in table must be maintained to initiate a connection to a physical URL, which controls the menu on the left hand side of the screen that shows all of the transactions users have access to. The URL varies depending on which the EBP client the configuration is performed in and it also consists of base address for the integrated ITS instance. To enable EBP purchasing for each client, this configuration needs to be performed once.

14. What purpose does the SRM org structure serve?

Organizational attributes serve many purposes in EBP system. The primary purpose is to set attributes that define the users` shopping experience. Examples of such attributes are company code, plant and cost centers that the user can order against, etc.

15. Why do we create the internal number range for local bid invitation?

An internal number range must be defined to build numerically local bid invitation for RFQ`s and Auction in the Bidding Engine and Live Auction application. These bids does not have a link to any R/3 purchasing document, they are completely local to the ERP system.

 

16. What is the difference between a business partner and a partner function?

Generally in SRM business, partner means the entire stake Holders. Example: suppliers, customers, vendors, employee, etc. The function of partner is to make the vendors as reference, and then there will be invoicing party, supplying party, etc.

Business partner means those who supply the raw material to the customer i.e. buyer.

 

17. Give a brief idea what supply management deals with ?

Supply management deals with the oversight and management of materials and services inputs, management of the suppliers, which provides vital inputs. The performance of supply management departments and professionals is measured in terms of amount of money saved for the organization. However, managing risk is one of the aspects of supply management; especially the risk of non-availability of quality goods and services important for an organization’s survival and growth.

18. What is the function of supply management in an organization?

The supply management function of an organization is responsible for various aspects such as managing supplier performance, implementing technologies, processes, policies, and procedures to support the purchasing process. Also provide supplier relationship management process for providing the structure for how relationships with suppliers will be developed and maintained.

 

19. What are the key business process in SAP SRM?

The key business process in SAP SRM includes: Procure to pay- we can integrate catalog based

requisition and gain the benefits of e-procurement. Catalog management- manages catalog data as

master data that is deeply integrated. Centralize sourcing- gain visibility into the

demand for goods and services. Centralized contract management- consolidates

contract information. Supplier collaboration- links supplier to our

purchasing processes through the supplier portal.

20. What is a Purchasing Organization? A Purchasing Organization is the organizational

unit within a business responsible for the procurement of goods and services for plants belonging to a particular region. It also negotiates terms and conditions of contracts and purchases from vendors and also assumes legal responsibility for those purchases for the Plants that PO is responsible for. Those Plants are dependant on its assignment.

21. What is a Spool request?Spool requests are generated during dialog or background processing and placed in the spool database with information about the printer and print format. The actual data is places in the Tem Se (Temporary Sequential objects).

22. What are the types of Update requests?An update request can be divided into one primary (V1) and several Secondary update components (V2). Time-critical operations are placed in V1 component and those whose timing is less critical are placed in V2 components. If a V1 update fails, V2 components will not be processed.

23. Explain how SAP GUI handles output screen for the user ?The SAP front-end s/w can either run on the same computer or on different computers provided for that purpose. User terminal input is accepted by the SAP terminal program  SAP GUI, converted to SAP proprietary format and sent to the SAP dispatcher. The dispatcher coordinates the information exchange between the SAP GUIs and the work processes. The dispatcher first places the processing request in request queues, which it then processes. The dispatcher dispatches the requests one after another, to the available work process. The actual processing takes place in the work process. When processing is complete, the result of a work process is returned via the dispatcher to the SAP GUI. The SAP GUI interprets the received data and generates the output screen for the user.

24. If we are replicating from the backend and something is stuck in the queue of R/3 then what can we do then?

We use transaction SMQ1 in this case. The first thing that should be checked when downloading customizing objects is a possible stuck queue. The R/3 system uses the outbound queue (SMQ1) which is less likely to get stuck initially.

25. Is there anything in particular that needs to be done to a user or a vendor to make them a valid part of SRM?

A user or supplier record cannot be assigned to an organizational unit it has a business partner recorded. This means, if Business Partner relationships are not established, users cannot be imported into the organizational structure from the User_Gen Transaction. Then the following error occurs: “Business partner of organizational unit does not exist”.

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