System Landscape

SAP Business Network for Logistics is SAP's collaborative cloud network that empowers logistics businesses to work together. There are two submodules within BN4L:

SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration improves supply chain efficiency by connecting business partners on a collaborative network that supports jointly managing transactions, exchanging documents, and sharing insights across the value chain. For instance, upon invitation from a shipper, a carrier can onboard onto the network and collaborate with shippers on freight tendering, subcontracting, freight settlement and dock appointment scheduling.

The aim of SAP Business Network Global Track and Trace is to capture, process and store tracking information about tracked business processes. Then, it allows business users to get transparency of the execution of those processes. They can query any tracked process and display its retrieved data from end to end.

Following image provides a simplified view of the system landscape:

Process Flow

The functionality of this setup will be explained by the following process steps:

Transportation Planning

During Transportation Planning, Freight Orders (Road and Rail) or Freight Bookings (Air and Ocean) are created. These transportation orders are the starting point for integration to BN4L and communication with carriers. There are multiple ways how these transportation orders are created:

1. Manual Planning in the Transportation Cockpit.
2. Manual creation from the Freight Unit or Container Unit.
3. Shortcut planning where a Freight Order is created directly from delivery.
4. Automated planning.

Tendering

When a Freight Order is not assigned to a carrier as a call-off order, then users can decide to execute a spot tender. SAP TM supports peer-to-peer tendering, broadcast tendering or a combination of the two.

Peer-to-Peer Tendering initiates the tendering process with one or more carriers sequentially. This means that the system will wait for a (negative) response from the first carrier before contacting the second (or third and so on) carrier.

Broadcast Tendering is executed in which several carriers are contacted simultaneously. With a 'best offer' mechanism the carrier is selected that quoted the best price within a pre-defined timeframe. With a 'first acceptable offer' mechanism the carrier is selected that has the fastest response with a quote below a specific price limit (price limits can be communicated or can be hidden from carrier).

With a combination of the two tendering approaches, the most likely process is that first a peer-to-peer tendering step is completed. If these carriers are not accepting the orders, then a broadcast tender can be performed to a selected group of carriers.

The tendering approach is defined in a Tendering Profile. This tendering profile can be selected by the user in the Freight Order, or it can be automatically selected by the system.

Example of Tendering Profile:

Monitoring tendering status with response of carriers in Freight Order:

Example of Request for Quotation that is send to carrier for response:

Dock Appointment Scheduling

The dock appointment scheduling functionality is integrated with the freight orders from SAP TM. A freight order is created in the BN4L system for the carrier. With relevant settings have been maintained, when the carrier confirms the freight order, the system creates an appointment request for this freight order.

In the app Self Book Dock Appointments, the carrier can see the list of orders that require appointment scheduling. The system displays available time slots based on the dock’s scheduling and current availability. Carriers can choose an available time slot that fits the schedule. The platform typically allows carriers to select and confirm a time slot directly within the interface. 

Carriers can manage, modify, or cancel appointments through the same BN4L platform. Changes will be updated in real time and visible to relevant parties. 

Key features:

• Enable collaboration on dock appointments and gate-in and gate-out processes
  Starting from planning and scheduling of dock appointments to check-in and check-out at the gates as
  well as loading and unloading.
  
  
• Share responsibilities between shipper and (external) warehouse / yard operators
  Share master data as well as operational data instantly across the involved parties.
  
  
• Integrate into logistics backend systems for seamless processes
  Open APIs available for integration into SAP Logistics suite and 3rd party systems. Standard integration
  available for SAP Yard Logistics.
  
  
• Manage dock appointments centrally
  Configure master data and share with business partners e.g. on appointment creation, define docking
  locations and loading points.
  Leverage calendar view and color coding to keep track of dock appointment status.
  
  
• Manage gate processing centrally
  Maintain gate master data related to docking locations and docking points.
  View dock appointments and access worklists to assign gates, perform check-in, add notes and
  attachments.

Transportation Execution

Transportation execution comprises all activities involved with handling and documenting shipments in transit. It is more than just tracking a vehicle on the road, and includes recording any changes to the planned transport and handovers to other business partners or entities.

With the SAP Business Network Global Track and Trace solution, you can seize each moment by connecting the physical movement of orders and goods with the flow of information. Capturing key process events among which; arrival dates, departure dates, delays and POD events. Including relevant attachment documents.

Key features:

• Track your order fulfilment progress and goods in-transit
  Monitor shipments standalone (Freight Orders and Freight Bookings) or as part of the end-to-end order fulfillment (Sales Orders and Purchase Orders) for maximum insight with milestone monitoring and exception management
• Understand the impact of deviations from the plan
  Conduct impact analysis and view the document flow. Benefit from event correlation between orders, deliveries, shipments and external identifiers
• Inform stakeholders of progress and exceptions
  Set up exception and information notifications, such as an email with tracking link upon order confirmation, and notify stakeholders when an exception occurs
• Ease transacting with your logistics service providers
  Receive milestone updates via API or EDI (ANSI X12)
• Flexible and extensible setup, supported by standard apps & templates
  Supports customer-defined fields, event types and event-to-action scripts. Or build custom scenarios from scratch
• Integrate with your ERP and logistics systems for seamless transparency
  Standard / extractor-based integration via Idocs. Provide insights to end users in their preferred working environment
• Direct reporting of events in online launchpad
  Report events directly in GTT launchpad using mobile ready apps

Dispute Management

A freight settlement dispute case is an individual business document that captures differences in logistics item quantities or charge amounts in a freight order or carrier invoice. As a requester of transportation services, such as a shipper, you own the information in the freight order. Your provider of transportation services, such as your carrier, checks the accuracy of the charge and logistics details in your freight order.

In the self-billing process, the service provider uses the SAP Business Network for Logistics to create a dispute case against a freight order.

In the invoice submission process, the process of settlement between you and your service provider is based on an invoice that your service provider submits to you for a freight order. Your service provider can use the SAP BN4L portal to submit such an invoice. For example, your service provider can submit an invoice that contains changes to logistics details such as gross weight or gross volume, or changes to charge details such as rate or an additional charge line for an unplanned charge (specified by the corresponding charge type that can be selected by the carrier). In these situations, the system captures the changes in a dispute case and links the dispute case to the invoice your service provider submits.

If the dispute case fails the tolerance limits you specify in Customising, you must manually review the dispute case on the Freight Settlement Dispute Cases app.

Self-Billing / Carrier Invoicing 

Standard invoicing process follows invoice verification through a standard Service PO, with standard VIM processing.SAP Business Network for Logistics adds two other options for carrier invoices; self-billing process or carrier invoicing through upload of freight order based invoices.

Self-Billing

Once the Freight Order is sent to the carrier, a new document is created within the "Invoice Freight Document" app, marked with the status "To Be Invoiced." Subsequently, the carrier user can generate an invoice for this document by utilizing the "Create Invoice" button within the app. This action triggers the creation of an invoice document in the "Manage Invoice" app, labelled with the status "Draft," concurrently adjusting the Freight Order status to "Invoicing in Progress." As the carrier submits the invoice, the document status transforms to "Submitted," while the Freight Order status evolves to "Awaiting Ordering Party Response."

At this juncture, the system initiates the transmission of the invoice to the Transportation Management (TM) system. Upon successful creation of the invoice in TM, the carrier invoicing status undergoes an update within the Freight Order, subsequently relayed to BN4L. This transition culminates in setting the Freight Order status to "Completely Invoiced," marking the successful completion of the invoicing process.

Carrier Invoicing

Carrier can create an invoice for freight orders using the Provider API for Invoicing. Additionally, users can view the freight order for invoicing in the Invoice Freight Documents app in SAP BN4L. If there is any mismatch in the charges, the system creates a dispute either in the ordering party’s SAP Business Network for Logistics ordering party tenant or the external transportation system depending on the settings.

Carrier On-Boarding to SAP Business Network for Logistics

The Invite Business Partners app is designed for managing all the business partners that you want to be part of your network. You can use this app to select and invite business partners to join your business network and check their participation status.

Carriers can choose to use BN4L from the launchpad (online), or they can set up integration using the following API's (EDI is also available):

• Provider and consumer API for Freight Tendering to accept or reject a freight request for quotation.
• Provider and consumer API for Freight Subcontracting to integrate freight order subcontracting.
• Provider and consumer API for Freight Booking to integrate freight booking subcontracting.
• Provider and consumer API for Order Events or Order Tracking to post events.
• Provider API to create an invoice

Project 44 Add-On

SAP provides SAP Business Network with project44 add-ons that provide visibility content.

These add-on services leverage the project44 multi-mode carrier network with its established B2B connectivity to carrier and logistics provider systems, electronic logging devices, and so on.
With the add-ons for project44 visibility services, SAP Business Network users can benefit from the availability of actual shipment execution insights, such as shipment location and event status for full truck loads, and milestone status for less than truck load shipments. This allows for a holistic view of both planned and actual shipment status, as well as automatic business event detection.

Project 44 visibility content is available to SAP Business Network users through supplementary, add-on licenses from SAP.