A trade promotion can have different date types assigned having a different meaning for the business process. The planned and actual date for the trade promotion are available as per standard design. All additional date ranges are to be defined in customizing. Depending on the business process there are the following date ranges available: buying periods, promotion dates, pre-dip or post-dip date ranges. The dates need to be entered in the dates assignment block.
Technical Background
The planned and actual date technically are considered as HEADER attributes, whereas all other date ranges belong to the DATES assignment. The BAdI CRM_MKTPL_OL_ASG can be used for modifying the dates design.
For the dates assignment block there is the following design. Whenever the trade promotion is in display mode, only maintained date ranges are displayed. Any date ranges that are not filled yet are not displayed unless the trade promotion, respective the dates assignment block is in edit mode.
Technically there are the following date relations processed, the TPMDateRel relation containing all dates ranges that are available in the trade promotion and the TPMDateMaintainedRel relation containing all dates that are maintained in the trade promotion. The date relations are retrieved from method CL_CRM_MKTGS_IB_DATE_NODE_VIEW=>LOAD_ITEMS.
Dates are stored as timestamp with reference to the creation time zone. There are however the following options to influence that design:
- Define Fixed Time Zone Conversion
Fixed Time Zone Conversion is used for conversion of date and time fields to and from time stamps stored in UTC time zone. This is usually done if dates are to be handled consistently across time zones and no time is to be considered at all. - BAdI CRM_MKTPL_OL_OBJ=>CHANGE_CONVERSION_TIMEZONE
Using BAdI CRM_MKTPL_OL_OBJ the interface method CHANGE_CONVERSION_TIMEZONE can be used to initially set the time zone of the trade promotion.
With implementing the BAdI the TIMEZONE_CREATED from the trade promotion can then be used as CONVERSION_TIMEZONE. With this approach user time zones are not considered, but the trade promotion is simulated to be processed in the same time zone.
A trade promotion is created in CET time zone and the dates are stored accordingly:
When now a user with any different user time zone access the trade promotion it may happen that the trade promotion has different validity dates since the time stamp is converted to the user time zone:
Therefore it is recommended to user the fixed time zone conversion customizing if the trade promotion is supposed to be accessed across different time zones.
Exceptional Dates
A trade promotion is planned for a certain period of time, any products or trade spends assigned to that trade promotions do not necessarily need to have the same execution dates.
Any different execution dates for products can be maintained as product exceptions. Any discounts are provided for the exception period only. The exceptional periods need to fall into the trade promotion period, otherwise an error will be raised.
The same design is available for products, product categories and trade spends.
Date Dependencies
There are some dependencies related to the trade spend dates.
The buying period is required for BW planning integration. It is the buying period that is synchronized with BPS planning.
All trade spend dates must be within the buying dates of the trade promotion.
Date Shift
Trade promotion dates my be shifted, that means the trade promotion period may be changed. When the trade promotion end date is set to any date prior the current date the trade promotion is considered as ended.
When a trade promotion is shifted the trade spend dates are shifted by the same amount.
After each date shift the discounts are adjusted.
If there are exceptions maintained for the trade spends or the products shifting the trade promotion date has the following design for exceptions:
- Trade Promotion Date Range does not equal Trade Spend Dates
The trade spend dates are shifted by the same amount as the trade promotion![graph date shift2.jpg]()
- Trade promotion is shortened
The trade spend exceptions are shortened as well![graph date shift4.jpg]()
Customizing
Fixed Time Zone Conversion
Whether to use or not to use fixed time zone conversion is set in the following customizing:
Customer Relationship Management
Marketing
Marketing Planning and Campaign Management
General Settings
Define Fixed Time Zone Conversion
This setting should be done once and should not be changed afterwards.
Additional Date Ranges
Additional Date Ranges are defined in the following customizing:
Customer Relationship Management
Marketing
Marketing Planning and Campaign Management
Basic Data
Define Additional Date Ranges
This customizing is available for different marketing plan objects, for trade promotions the customizing needs to be set in the 'Trade and Deal' maintenance dialog:
TP type specific date customizing
In the following customizing specific date ranges can be assigned to a trade promotion type explicitely:
Customer Relationship Management
Marketing
Marketing Planning and Campaign Management
Basic Data
Define Types/Objectives/Tactics
In the 'Date Ranges' dialog any additional date ranges can be maintained.
In case this is not maintained explicitly all additional date ranges available for trade promotions can be assigned.
Dates Design for Trade Promotion Templates
Trade promotion templates are designed to handle relative dates only. The standard configuration therefore shows the relative dates only but not the absolute dates.
When a trade promotion is generated from a template the trade promotion dates are calculated as per the templates date rules.
Trade promotion templates will fully work with relative dates only. There may be various issues when using absolute dates. Since for trade promotion templates the TPMDateMaintainedRel relation is filled with relative dates only in CL_CRM_MKTGS_IB_DATE_NODE_VIEW=>LOAD_ITEMS display issues may happen when using absolute dates. In display mode it may happen that trade promotion template dates are not visible due to that design.
Common Issues
There are some known errors related to dates in trade promotions. Those are solved with the following SAP notes:
2051196 Clearing the End Date and changing the number of Weeks ( duration ) results in a error
1968576 Wrong Defaulting/ Determination based on project Dates
1901919 Duration value changed while creating promotion template
1855835 Date range change don't propagate for Promotion Template
1785945 Defaulting of date ranges for trade spends is not performed
This document should provide an overview about dates in trade promotions. In case you feel anything is missing, or anything is unclear please let me know.