SAP Retail Interview Questions and Answers

Fluency with SAP Industry Solutions products is essential for a successful career as a SAP applications professional, however, a user-friendly and thorough resource can be difficult to locate. From helping you to assess your current skill level to preparing for an interview, this will  guide you the details of what you really need to know. Suitable for programmers of all levels of SAP fluency, this question and answers will set you apart from other candidates and show that you have what it takes to land the job. More than just a rehash of the basics, more than just documentation and sales presentations, each section is based on project knowledge and experience gained on successful high-profile implementations so you can set yourself apart from other candidates.

1.What versions of SAP IS Retail have you worked with?

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SAP IS Retail has many different versions active in market 4.0, 4.7 and currently more common new implementations are being done in ECC 5.0 and ECC 6.0.

2.What is MAP?

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MAP stands for Merchandise and Assortment Planning

3.How do you do price execution in retail?

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Normal Pricing in SAP IS Retail are maintained using VK11 using different condition types. Change pointers can be configured in the SAP system that will be triggered when any price change or price addition happens and these change pointers are transferred 

down to the POS systems using POSDM or other custom solutions. The changes can be transferred to other channels like websites and mobile devices using the same strategy.

4.How do you maintain promotions in SAP IS Retail?

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Promotions are maintained via a transaction called WAK1, the pricing conditions are created and transferred down to POS or other systems.

5.What is a stock transfer order?

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A stock transfer order is a PO that triggers the transfer of stocks between sites/stores within the same company

6.What is a listing in retail?

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Listing is a process which controls what stores get what articles. Articles which are listed to a particular store or DC will not be able to process them. The Master data related with those articles will not be available in the stores where that article is not listed.

7.Can we generate return deliveries from stock transfer orders in SAP MM?

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Yes, we can generate return deliveries to the sending store in the STO

8.How is the physical goods issue posted when the merchandise is returned in SAP MM?

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Physical goods issue is posted as negative goods receipt when merchandise is returned

9.Can you have multiple vendors associated with a single PO in SAP MM in SAP IS Retail solution?

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No, a single vendor can always be associated with the PO

10.What is a source list?

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Source list is a list which determines from where a particular article can be procured from. Source list contains the vendor info, validity dates etc. A vendor could also be a store.

11.What do you understand by space management in SAP IS Retail?

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Space management deals with optimizing the positioning of an article on a shelf. key figures are defined that determine how the space will be managed, which is usually done based on sales data, revenue data or the gross margin.

12.What is a change pointer?

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Change pointers is a concept in SAP which allows the system to manage the changes happening to Master data, pricing or in general anything data change. Different change pointers are created and they are used to transfer the changes down to other systems like BW, POS, e Business, Manugistics etc.

13.What are the drawbacks of using change pointers?

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One of the biggest drawbacks of using change pointers in a retail environment is the volume of change pointers that may get created and the ability of the system to handle those changes. Performance of batch jobs is severely affected when we have many change pointers. Proper care should be taken to create only those change pointers, which will be consumed by the system.

14.Where else can you use the space management data in Retail?

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We can use the space management data in requirements planning and replenishment.

15.What is a generic article?

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Generic article example – T-shirt is a generic article and the different variants of this article are Yellow, Red, Blue T shirts.

16.What is a Pricing profile of an article?

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Pricing profile controls whether the variant sales prices are the same or different to the sales price of the generic article

17.What Are Some Of The Features Of Markdown Tools In Sap Is Retail?

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Plan markdown items, quantities, and prices Assign stores Use markdown rules and schedules to control which items are active at what prices during each phases low-Seller Management tool automates markdown schedule based on inventory and timing Pre-season or in-season planning and execution Visibility to costs and key figures Flexible ‘what-if’ simulations to achieve desired goals and margins Mass 

maintenance – many items, multiple levels, concurrent users can work the same markdown plan Analytics – create tailored reports to track KPIs, sell-through, and make adjustments, as needed Integration to regular retail price management.

18.Why Do You Usually Choose To Implement Sap?

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There are a number of technical reasons numbers of companies are planning to implement SAP. It’s highly configurable, highly secure data handling, min data redundancy, max data consistency, you can capitalize on economics of sales like purchasing, tight integration-cross function.

19.What is a Markdown and what does SAP IS Retail provide in this regard?

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Markdown has phased down the reduction in prices, which may due to seasonal pricing, vendor-sponsored price changes, effort to reduce inventory etc. Basically, markdowns provide a strategy to reduce the price of a particular article in a phased down manner, equal or varying % of price being reduced at regular intervals. SAP IS Retail provides tools to manage this. It provides tools to plan a markdown, activate and send the data down to the stores. It also provides various reports to see how the different markdowns are doing.

20.Can you configure the system to handle multiple currencies?

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Yes

21.What Is Sap R/3?

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A third generation set of highly integrated software modules that performs common business function based on multinational leading practice. Takes care of any enterprise however diverse in operation, spread over the world. In the R/3 system all the three servers like presentation; application server and database server are located at different systems.

22.How do you create an article in SAP IS Retail?

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Using MM41 transaction

23.Is it possible to solve the following scenario through SAP- Retail: If you buy two books, you will get the cheaper one free?

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• The bonus buy functionality in IS-Retail can be used to solve this case. You can create a bonus buy via a retail promotion or via sales condition master data.
• If you first create a material grouping with all the articles in the combination, and then you create the bonus buy condition using that material grouping.

Check the bonus buy customizing in IMG —>Sales and distribution–>Basic functions —> Bonus.

24.What is EAN/UPC?

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EAN is a European Article number and UPC is Universal Product Code.Each article should have a unique number.

25.How many UPC’s will be present for an article with 3 units of measures?

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Each unit of measures will have it’s own UPC or EAN numbers.

26.Explain an ERP?

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• You can easily expect a technical interview to start with this question but generally so only for freshers. Freshers are tested for theory and concepts more than their experienced peers.
• ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning is a computer-based resource used to manage a company’s resources efficiently. It links various departments together and gathers their data in a consolidated way to help manage all workflow and coordination

27.Is there any other ERP in the market?

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Yes, of course, there are plenty of them. Microsoft Dynamics, People Soft, Siebel, JD Edwards, Baan are a few examples. Each of these ERPs has different advantages. Apart from these, there are various other lesser known ERPs and many SMEs tend to use them because of the cost factor.

28.Why did you choose a career in SAP?

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An ERP is the backbone of any large organisation. Without using an ERP, the functioning of these organisations is bound to suffer. I had always dreamt of working in an MNC and since SAP is at the top of the ERP market, it was a no-brainer to choose it. SAP is said to have 140,000+ installations and 25+ specific business solutions.

29.What are the different modules in SAP and which one have you chosen and why?

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• There are around 25 modules in SAP but the most popular ones are Financial Accounting, Controlling, Treasury, Human Resources, Sales & Distribution, Materials Management, Plant Maintenance, Business Warehousing, Production Planning, Quality Management and many more.
• Now, if you are answering SAP Basis interview questions or SAP Security interview questions, you need to talk about them. You need to inform the interviewer about your interest in the module. Be genuine here, there is no right and wrong answer.

30.Does SAP have its own database management tool?

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SAP is an application that uses databases provided by other servers like Oracle, or SQL Server. The software provided by SAP gives more power to the user.

31.In SAP, how many simultaneous sessions can you have?

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This is a very common SAP interview question. It helps the hiring manager determine 

the level of hands-on exposure a person has with SAP applications. The answer to this is that a user can have 6 simultaneous sessions at one time for one client.

32.What is a Net Weaver and what are its uses?

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• In order to run multiple products from mySAP suite, an integrated platform is used. This platform is called Net Weaver. It helps all these applications run on a single instance.
• A wonderful use of using Net Weaver is that you can access SAP data using the web, and in a rare, case you can also use it from mobile. This means saving costs on training clients.

33.Give a brief about Meta Data, Master Data and Transaction Data?

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Business information. This key business information includes customer information, employee materials etc. On the other hand, data which relates to day to day transactions is called transaction data.

34.What is the difference between OLAP and Data Mining?

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• OLAP which is the short name given to, Online Analytical Processing is a reporting tool. It is used to understand data schema, composition facts, and dimensions.
• Data Mining, on the other hand, is a process. It is used to analyse data for consistent patterns and even some systematic relationships between different variables.

35.What do you know about different variables in SAP? If yes, mention a few of them?

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In order to set the parameters of a query in SAP, variables are used. Variables do not work unless queries are entered in the workbook. There different types of variables, needless to say, that they all have different applications. Some commonly applied ones are text, hierarchies, hierarchy nodes, formulas, processing types, characteristics variable etc.  

36.Do you know AWB?

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• At this stage, the interview is going to get a bit complex. Whether it be SAP security interview questions or SAP basis interview questions, SAP interview questions do get harder as the interview gains momentum. Although true with all interviews, it is important that a candidate shows wit and composure when stress rises in the room.
• AWB is generally a name given to Administrator Workbench.  It is used for monitoring, maintaining and controlling the processes connected with data staging. Apart from this, it is also used for processing all business information warehousing.

37.Define BEX?

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BEX or Business Explorer allows end users to locate reports. BEX has the components BEX analyser, Bex Map and BEX Web. This allows them to view reports, analyse information and execute queries as well. These queries can be saved in the BEX browser.

38.What is the importance of ODS in BIW?

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• An ODS is an object that serves to store debugged and other consolidated transaction data on a document level. An ODS helps to define a consolidated dataset from single or multiple sources. Such datasets can be evaluated with the help of Infoset queries or even bex queries.
• ODS objects can be updated with a delta update to other ODS objects or Info Cubes, within the same system or even across systems. Data in ODS objects are stored in transparent flat database tables.

39.What is the primary difference between Domain and Data Element?

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Data Element is an intermediate object that is placed between domain and table type. Domain, on the other hand, defines the attributes like type, possible value range and length.

40.What are the different layers in the R/3 system?

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There are three main layers in R/3 system;

• Presentation Layer
• Database Layer
• Application Layer

41.What is an extended star schema?

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A common question in SAP interviews, the star schema is an amalgam of fact tables and dimension tables. Separate tables are used to store master data and these tables have reference to characteristics in dimension tables. Exactly these separate tables are called extended star schema.

42.What are the different types of source systems in SAP?  

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The four main types of source systems in SAP are:

• SAP BW
• Flat Files
• SAP R/3 Source System
• External Systems

43.What is the most important benefit of reporting with BW?

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While comparing BW and R/3, it is clear that BW helps in better reporting. This is due to the fact that BW uses OLAP or data warehouse concepts for analysis and storage. On the other hand, R/3 is more useful in transaction processing. BW thus makes a similar form of analysis easier and this is the main benefit of reporting with BW.  

44.What is an Extractor?

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Extractors are data retrieval mechanisms. They lie in the SAP source system. It is used to fill the extract structure of a data source with data obtained from the source system datasets of SAP.

45.What are pooled tables?

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• Pooled tables is a simple concept, they are used to store and control data. When many pooled tables are united, they form a table pool. The difference between pooled tables and tabled pools is that table pool is a table on a database in which all the records of some specifically assigned pooled tables are stored. So pooled tables come within the purview of the table pool.
• It might seem like SAP interview questions at times are too easy to answer. But in reality, many people miss very obvious answers due to the pressure of the interview. In this article, we have tried to list the most frequent SAP interview questions in order to make you more comfortable for an interview.

46.Are aware of the three main stages of data mining?

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There are three main stages of data mining, which include, initial exploration, model building and finally deployment.

47.What is the way to create a table in a given data dictionary?

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It is done in three easy steps. First, you need to create domains that define data type, field length, and range. Then you move to create data elements which clarify the properties and type for a data field. Finally, you move on to creating tables.

48.What does a .sca file mean?

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SAP Component Archive or .sca file is used to deploy Java components, pathes or other java related developments. They are in the form of .sca, .sda, .war or .jar.

49.What are the most common transport errors that you can come across?

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There are numerous transport errors, but the most common ones in occurrence are:

• Return Code 4
• Return Code 8
• Return Code 12
• Return Code 18

50.What does an update type with reference to a match-code ID mean?

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Whenever the data in base tables of a match-code ID gets changed, it needs updating. In this instance, the update type tells us about the time when the match-code needs updating and also clarifies how to do it.  Another important function of the match-code is that it defines the method which is to be used for building match-codes.

51.What is stored in the table WLK1?

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Listing conditions are stored in the table WLK1. The important things apart from listing that WLK1 contains are validity dates and module numbers.

52.What other tables are updated when a listing is created?

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MARA, WLK2, MBEW, MAW1, MARC.

53.What does the reference site provide?

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Reference site provides certain logistics data when creating or changing article data.

54.IS-Retail Coupons

If we take a business scenario in which there are coupons published in newspapers and the customer takes the cutting to store to buy articles.

• At POS when he presents coupons, POS gets details of coupons from SAP in form of IDoc, based on this, customers can avail a discount of X% on Apparel and Footwear Merchandise Category (MC.. This percentage offer is not applicable for other MCs.
• Now where and how can we create these bonus buy promotions in SAP (i.e. How are these coupons created and how are they linked to promotions.?

Ans:

These coupons are created in IS-Retail using MM4i. Then you can use it in the bonus buy functionality as any other article. To limit the use of coupons to the Apparel and Footwear Merchandise Category you will have to create a material grouping including just these categories. The bonus buy condition will use the material grouping to grant the coupons.

55.Transaction MM43 in Industrial System

What is the equivalent Transaction of MM43 of the Retail-System in the Industrial System?

Ans:

The equivalent Transaction of MM43 of the Retail-System in the Industrial System is MMo3.

56.Q. IS-R HPR

What is the use of HPR (High Performance Retail.?

Ans:

HPR in Retail consists of programs specifically on the SAP to POS/BOS interface to improve the runtime of Master data (e.g. Article master/assortment list. IDoc generation. These programs are more efficient than the standard SAP programs. However, the end results are not exactly identical and certain enhancements are also not available in HPR.

57.Explain Cost of Bulk Breaking for the following:

If you are purchasing a Sugar Bag of 1 kg and in a warehouse, you are packing it in pieces of 1 Kg each. How can you account for the cost that has incurred in W/H (i.e. How can you account for the cost of Bulk Breaking in SAP-IS-Retail.?

Ans:

It can be done through a couple of workarounds. First, using a little bit of PP. You can set up a production order, which consumes the Sugar in bulk bags and produces Sugar in 1 Kg bags. You can do costing on this and settle it to the finished product to get accurate costs. This will handle both the stock movement and also cost calculation.

-Alternatively, you can have an additional surcharge condition type (e.g. packaging costs. that applies a fixed amount or % of cost to the specific products whenever the sell price (VKPo. is calculated. This is simpler and a one-off exercise that requires almost no maintenance on a day-to-day basis.

58.WM Replenishment

How SAP runs replenishment for the locations in a warehouse, which are used for sales and when the stock is lower in these locations, the stock from other locations are moved there?

Ans:

SAP WM perfectly manages this scenario. This will take several steps:

Define a fixed bin put away strategy for the warehouse/storage type (customizing for WM).