I have worked for 8 years in SAP Product Support, specializing in resolving incidents related to Production Planning, particularly those involving Material Requirements Planning (MRP). Throughout those years, I encountered various challenging issues, such as ABAP short dumps, inconsistencies, and ambiguous MRP results caused by BAdI or exit implementations. Checking all the MRP settings and all the possible causes of an issue may take a long time and sometimes it requires a deep analysis in debug.
To simplify the troubleshooting process for MRP issues, SAP delivered SAP note 3199068 - Support-Tool for MRP, which introduces the new report PP_MRP_SUPPORT. This note is valid for all S/4HANA releases and, in the latest releases, the report will be automatically created with the latest support package. If you want to have the report immediately and you can't wait for the support package, you can ask your system admin to manually implement it (Note: there manual steps to be performed before the note implementation and report NOTE_3199068 should be executed).
Report PP_MRP_SUPPORT provides you an overview of the MRP settings, allowing you to quickly check the most important settings to troubleshoot an MRP issue. Let's discuss in detail how you can use the report and all the report functionalities.
1 - Launching PP_MRP_SUPPORT
Once report PP_MRP_SUPPORT is implemented in the system, you need to use transaction SE38 to launch it, as there is no standard transaction available to run it. In the selection screen there are three different sections: Material Selection, Result Options and Tools. We will first go through the first two and later explore each tool in detail.
In the Material Selection section we will provide the Material, Plant and the MRP Area that will be used as input parameters. This information is required, because the report shows the MRP settings from the material master and it can also show possible sources of supply.
In the Result Options section, we can select whether the report should show implemented BAdIs and User-Exits, if it should look for sources of supply for external procurement and production versions, and if it should search for existing MRP Jobs.
If we are using the selection for BAdIs and User-Exits, we can restrict the selection for package MD03, which is the package containing most of the MRP related BAdIs. If we don not restrict the selection, report will show all the BAdIs active in the system and we will need to look for the MRP BAdIs. Note: MRP Live AMDP BAdIs are no selected by this report.
The MRP Batch Job Settings will show all the MRP background jobs executed with report PPH_MRP_START or RMMRP000, within the timeframe selected.
2 - PP_MRP_SUPPORT Results
Now that we have explored the main selection parameters of report PP_MRP_SUPPORT, we will take a look into the results screen. Figure 2 shows the results of report PP_MRP_SUPPORT, where we can see the different tabs:
Figure 3 shows details of the tab BAdIs, showing all the BAdIs implemented in packages MD*. Accessing all this information in a single place will speed up the resolution of problems in MRP and help consultants to easily find the root cause of issues.
3 - Tools
The first button is MRP Consistency Check, and perhaps it is the most important, as it search for possible inconsistencies that might cause problems or short dumps during the MRP run. It will check, for example, if there is any risk of overflow in the number ranges used by MRP, if there are planning elements outside the factory calendar validity or if there is any inconsistency in MRP Areas. If the report finds an issue, we will see a red traffic light, and we can also click the line to see a message with the details.
The second button DBA Cockpit will call transaction DBACOCKPIT, which allows you to analyze any issues related to the database. You will need specific authorization to this transaction and some technical database knowledge to use it.
The third button MRP Customizing is a call to transaction OPP1, which opens the specific MRP customizing in transaction SPRO, and it is useful to check if there is any incorrect or missing customizing setting that can be causing issues in the MRP run.
Button Custom Code Analysis calls transaction /SDF/CD_CCA, which allows you to run checks in the custom code implemented in your system. With this transaction you can find any modifications implemented in standard code, run a quality check in custom code or compare a program with the code implemented in another system.
Settings for MRP Live shows and also allows you to maintain the MRP Live Technical Settings, which can be used to improve the MRP Live performance, parallelization and memory consumption. SAP Note 2003405 provides details about each one of these settings and how they can be used for an MRP Live fine tuning.
Finally, button Details for Materials in MRP on HANA calls transaction MD_MRP_FORCE_CLASSIC, bringing a list of materials that were planned in MRP Live and the provides details about the planning run, like if there was any issue during the planning run, if the material was planned in HANA or ABAP and the date of the last planning run.
4 - Conclusion
This report brings all the information relevant to troubleshoot an MRP issue in a single place, and it can be used as starting point to analyze any issue with MRP. In a single report we can have an overview of the material master settings, customizing, jobs executed, enhancements implemented and so on.
Besides all this information, the MRP Consistency Check is a great tool, which implemented automated checks that we had to perform manually in the past, in order to avoid or resolve any issue. This consistency check can be used not only for troubleshooting issues, but it can also be part of the MRP housekeeping activities, helping companies to prevent issues with MRP before they happen.
Brought to you by the SAP S/4HANA RIG and Customer Care team.
To simplify the troubleshooting process for MRP issues, SAP delivered SAP note 3199068 - Support-Tool for MRP, which introduces the new report PP_MRP_SUPPORT. This note is valid for all S/4HANA releases and, in the latest releases, the report will be automatically created with the latest support package. If you want to have the report immediately and you can't wait for the support package, you can ask your system admin to manually implement it (Note: there manual steps to be performed before the note implementation and report NOTE_3199068 should be executed).
Report PP_MRP_SUPPORT provides you an overview of the MRP settings, allowing you to quickly check the most important settings to troubleshoot an MRP issue. Let's discuss in detail how you can use the report and all the report functionalities.
1 - Launching PP_MRP_SUPPORT
Once report PP_MRP_SUPPORT is implemented in the system, you need to use transaction SE38 to launch it, as there is no standard transaction available to run it. In the selection screen there are three different sections: Material Selection, Result Options and Tools. We will first go through the first two and later explore each tool in detail.
Figure 1: PP_MRP_SUPPORT Selection Screen
In the Material Selection section we will provide the Material, Plant and the MRP Area that will be used as input parameters. This information is required, because the report shows the MRP settings from the material master and it can also show possible sources of supply.
In the Result Options section, we can select whether the report should show implemented BAdIs and User-Exits, if it should look for sources of supply for external procurement and production versions, and if it should search for existing MRP Jobs.
If we are using the selection for BAdIs and User-Exits, we can restrict the selection for package MD03, which is the package containing most of the MRP related BAdIs. If we don not restrict the selection, report will show all the BAdIs active in the system and we will need to look for the MRP BAdIs. Note: MRP Live AMDP BAdIs are no selected by this report.
The MRP Batch Job Settings will show all the MRP background jobs executed with report PPH_MRP_START or RMMRP000, within the timeframe selected.
2 - PP_MRP_SUPPORT Results
Now that we have explored the main selection parameters of report PP_MRP_SUPPORT, we will take a look into the results screen. Figure 2 shows the results of report PP_MRP_SUPPORT, where we can see the different tabs:
- MRP 1 + 2: A combined view of tabs Material Master tabs MRP 1 and MRP 2.
- MRP 3 + 4: A combined view of tabs Material Master tabs MRP 1 and MRP 2.
- BAdI: Shows a list of the BAdIs belonging to the selected package that are implemented
- User-exits: Shows a list of the user-exits belonging to the selected package that are implemented
- MRP Jobs: Shows a list of the MRP jobs executed within the selected interval.
- Sourcing: Provides a list of the sources of supply available for external procurement.
- Prod. Versions: Provides a list of Production Versions available for the selected material.
Figure 2: PP_MRP_SUPPORT Results
Figure 3 shows details of the tab BAdIs, showing all the BAdIs implemented in packages MD*. Accessing all this information in a single place will speed up the resolution of problems in MRP and help consultants to easily find the root cause of issues.
Figure 3: BAdIs implemented
3 - Tools
Figure 4: Tools
The first button is MRP Consistency Check, and perhaps it is the most important, as it search for possible inconsistencies that might cause problems or short dumps during the MRP run. It will check, for example, if there is any risk of overflow in the number ranges used by MRP, if there are planning elements outside the factory calendar validity or if there is any inconsistency in MRP Areas. If the report finds an issue, we will see a red traffic light, and we can also click the line to see a message with the details.
Figure 5: MRP Consistency Check
The second button DBA Cockpit will call transaction DBACOCKPIT, which allows you to analyze any issues related to the database. You will need specific authorization to this transaction and some technical database knowledge to use it.
The third button MRP Customizing is a call to transaction OPP1, which opens the specific MRP customizing in transaction SPRO, and it is useful to check if there is any incorrect or missing customizing setting that can be causing issues in the MRP run.
Button Custom Code Analysis calls transaction /SDF/CD_CCA, which allows you to run checks in the custom code implemented in your system. With this transaction you can find any modifications implemented in standard code, run a quality check in custom code or compare a program with the code implemented in another system.
Settings for MRP Live shows and also allows you to maintain the MRP Live Technical Settings, which can be used to improve the MRP Live performance, parallelization and memory consumption. SAP Note 2003405 provides details about each one of these settings and how they can be used for an MRP Live fine tuning.
Figure 6: MRP Technical Settings
Finally, button Details for Materials in MRP on HANA calls transaction MD_MRP_FORCE_CLASSIC, bringing a list of materials that were planned in MRP Live and the provides details about the planning run, like if there was any issue during the planning run, if the material was planned in HANA or ABAP and the date of the last planning run.
4 - Conclusion
This report brings all the information relevant to troubleshoot an MRP issue in a single place, and it can be used as starting point to analyze any issue with MRP. In a single report we can have an overview of the material master settings, customizing, jobs executed, enhancements implemented and so on.
Besides all this information, the MRP Consistency Check is a great tool, which implemented automated checks that we had to perform manually in the past, in order to avoid or resolve any issue. This consistency check can be used not only for troubleshooting issues, but it can also be part of the MRP housekeeping activities, helping companies to prevent issues with MRP before they happen.
Brought to you by the SAP S/4HANA RIG and Customer Care team.
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