Lesson 1 of 6
Scenario setup
8 min
This course follows one connected story through three core processes. Contoso Motor Co. buys rotors from a supplier, uses them to build alternators in its Detroit plant, and sells the alternators to a fleet customer. Each process is often taught, configured and tested by a different team. Seeing them as one chain is what turns a collection of passing tests into confidence that the business works.
The structure mirrors SAP's own Executing Basic ERP Processes with SAP S/4HANA learning journey (procure to pay, plan to produce, order to cash) and the SAP Best Practices scope items behind it: J45 Procurement of Direct Materials, BJ5 Make-to-Stock Production for discrete manufacturing, and BD9 Sell from Stock. You can explore those process flows in SAP Signavio Process Navigator.
- Procure to payBuy 100 rotors CMC-RTR-200 from Lakeside Components
- Plan to producePlan and build 100 alternators CMC-ALT-100 in plant 1710
- Order to cashSell and ship 50 alternators to Great Lakes Fleet Services and collect payment
The organization
| Org unit | Contoso value | Role in the tour |
|---|---|---|
| Company code | 1710 (Contoso Motor Co., USD) | Every journal entry in the tour posts here |
| Plant | 1710 Detroit | Receives rotors, produces alternators, ships to the customer |
| Second plant | 1720 Chicago | Not used in this tour; a good variant for later tests |
| Purchasing organization | 1710 | Buys from the supplier |
| Sales area | Sales org 1710, distribution channel 10, division 00 | Sells to the customer |
| Storage location | The plant's standard storage location | Holds both rotors and finished alternators |
Contoso's organizational setup for the tour.
Master data that must exist before you start
An end-to-end tour fails in the first five minutes if the data is not ready. Check this list before anything else:
Who does what
Each step in the tour belongs to a role. In SAP S/4HANA these map to business roles in the Fiori launchpad, such as purchaser, warehouse clerk, accounts payable accountant, production planner, production operator, internal sales representative, shipping specialist, billing clerk and accounts receivable accountant. Running the tour with a single super-user ID proves the process works technically; running it with real role IDs proves that people can actually do their jobs. Plan for both.
How to use this tour
You can follow the tour in three ways. As a reader, use it to understand how your own team's step fits into the whole. As a key user, run it in a test or training client with the documents and checks described, and keep the document numbers as your evidence. As a test designer, use it as the backbone of an integration test: one happy path through all three legs, then variants that each change one thing.
- Plant variant: repeat the sell-from-stock leg from plant 1720 Chicago after a stock transfer from Detroit.
- Price variant: let the supplier invoice arrive at 42.00 USD instead of 40.00 USD and follow the price variance.
- Scrap variant: confirm two scrapped alternators and follow the production variance into settlement.
- Partial variant: ship 30 alternators now and 20 next week, and follow two deliveries and two invoices.
Everything in this tour applies to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition and on-premise. In Public Edition the same processes and documents exist, but you work only through Fiori apps and the SAP GUI transaction codes shown here are not available.
What would you do?
A Contoso key user wants to start the end-to-end tour this afternoon. The product team confirms the alternator and rotor exist, but nobody has checked the BOM, routing or production version. What should the key user do?
- The tour follows one chain: buy a component, build the product, sell it.
- It mirrors SAP's basic ERP processes journey and Best Practices scope items J45, BJ5 and BD9.
- Partners, products, production data, purchasing data, prices and finance settings must all exist first.
- Write expected values before you post anything.
- Run with role-based users, not only a super-user.
Check your understanding · not graded
Lesson check
1. Which SAP Best Practices scope item covers selling from stock?
2. Which master data is needed for the plan-to-produce leg in addition to the product?
3. Why run the tour with role-based user IDs?
4. What is the expected revenue for 50 alternators at 250.00 USD?