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9.7 Output Parameter Determination with Decision Tables
SAP S/4HANA Sales C_TS462
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1 Chapter 1: SAP S/4HANA Sales Overview and Enterprise Structure
1.1 SAP Business Suite, SAP S/4HANA Sales, Deployment Options, and User Interfaces 1.2 Sales Organization, Distribution Channel, Division, and Sales Area Architecture 1.3 Sales Office, Sales Group, Plant, Storage Location, and Shipping Point Assignments 1.4 Cross-Company and Multi-Plant Sales Enterprise Setup & SD-FI Integration
2 Chapter 2: The Order-to-Cash Process and Sales Master Data
2.1 The Order-to-Cash Process: Sales Order, Shipping, Billing, and Finance Integration 2.2 Business Partner (BP) Approach, Customer Roles, and Partner Functions 2.3 Material Master / Product Master Sales Views, Tax Classifications, and Unit of Measure 2.4 Customer-Material Information Records (CMIR), Item Proposals, and Cross-Selling
3 Chapter 3: Sales Documents, Copying Control, Presales, and Outline Agreements
3.1 Sales Document Header Architecture and Customizing Sales Document Types 3.2 Special Functions in Sales Documents: Business Data, Blocks, and Reasons for Rejection 3.3 Copying Control and Document Flow Between Sales Documents 3.4 Pre-Sales Processing: Inquiries, Quotations, and Document Validity 3.5 Outline Agreements: Scheduling Agreements, Quantity Contracts, and Release Orders 3.6 Value Contracts: Releases, Partner Authorization, Contract Data, and Billing 3.7 Special Business Processes: Consignment, Rush Orders, Cash Sales, and Free-of-Charge Deliveries
4 Chapter 4: Item Categories, Schedule Line Categories, and Sales BOMs
4.1 Item Category Customizing Controls and Item Category Determination Logic 4.2 Schedule Line Categories and Determination Mechanics 4.3 Bill of Materials (BOM) Explosion in Sales Orders
5 Chapter 5: Pricing and the Condition Technique
5.1 Condition Technique Architecture: Field Catalogs, Tables, and Access Sequences 5.2 Condition Types, Calculation Types, Scales, and Condition Classes 5.3 Pricing Procedure Determination and Calculation Schema Configuration 5.4 Working with Condition Records: Maintenance Tools, Price Lists, Pricing Reports, and Manage Prices 5.5 Special Pricing Functions: Condition Exclusion, Group Conditions, Header Conditions, Condition Update, and Supplements 5.6 Special Condition Types: Manual Net Pricing, Minimum Values, Customer Hierarchy, Pallet Discounts, and Rounding 5.7 Statistical Condition Types and Tax Determination 5.8 Condition Contract Management: Contracts, Business Volume, Accruals, and Settlement
6 Chapter 6: Availability Check (ATP) and Delivery Scheduling
6.1 Availability Check Fundamentals: Checking Groups, Checking Rules, and Scope of Check 6.2 Delivery Scheduling & Routing: Transit Time, Loading Time, and Pick/Pack Time Calculations 6.3 Advanced ATP (aATP), Backorder Processing (BOP), and Transfer of Requirements
7 Chapter 7: Delivery Processing and Embedded EWM
7.1 Delivery Documents and Organizational Units for Delivery Processing, Including EWM 7.2 Shipping Point Determination and Route Determination Mechanics 7.3 Outbound Delivery Creation, Delivery Document Types, and Delivery Item Categories 7.4 Warehouse Execution: Picking, Packing, and Post Goods Issue (PGI) 7.5 Picking and Goods Issue with Embedded EWM 7.6 Inbound Deliveries with EWM and Special Functions in Deliveries
8 Chapter 8: Billing and Integration with Financial Accounting
8.1 Billing Document Types, Categories, and Billing Due List Processing 8.2 Order-Related vs. Delivery-Related Billing, Invoice Splits, and Collective Invoicing 8.3 Credit and Debit Memos, Down Payments, and Invoice Cancellation Workflows 8.4 Special Types of Settlement: Invoice Lists, External Billing Document Requests, and Preliminary Billing Documents 8.5 Billing Plans, Down Payment Agreements, and Installment Payments 8.6 Revenue Account Determination and FI-SD General Ledger Integration 8.7 The Interface Between Sales and Financial Accounting, Billing Output, and Technical Options
9 Chapter 9: Basic Functions: Partners, Incompletion, Texts, Material Determination, and Output
9.1 Partner Determination Procedures and Account Group Linkage 9.2 Incompletion Procedures, Status Groups, and Log Configuration 9.3 Text Control I: Text Objects, Text Types, Text Determination Procedures, and Manual Text Entry 9.4 Text Control II: Automatic Text Transfer, Text Determination Analysis, and Special Features 9.5 Material Determination, Material Listing, and Material Exclusion 9.6 Output Management: Modern BRFplus Architecture and Migration from Classical NAST 9.7 Output Parameter Determination with Decision Tables
10 Chapter 10: SAP Fiori, Sales Analytics, RISE with SAP, and Clean Core
10.1 SAP Fiori Sales Apps, Smart Business Monitoring, and Embedded Analytics 10.2 Working with the SAP Fiori Launchpad: My Home, Spaces and Pages, Help, Joule, Responsibilities, Situations, and Workflows 10.3 RISE with SAP Methodology: Standardized Framework, Transformation Preparation Service, Toolchain, Expert Guidance, and Dashboard 10.4 Clean Core: Definition, Benefits, the Five Principles, and Clean Core Levels
11 Chapter 11: Implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition
11.1 SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition: Characteristics, Transition Paths, and the Implementation Team 11.2 System Landscapes, System Provisioning, and Release Upgrades 11.3 Setting Up the Project in SAP Cloud ALM and Preparing a System Conversion 11.4 Identity and Access Management: Users, Business Roles, Catalogs, Spaces, and Pages 11.5 Fit-to-Standard Workshops, Design Workshops, and Business Process Configuration 11.6 Extensibility in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition: Key User, Developer, and Side-by-Side 11.7 Integration: ISA-M, SAP Integration Suite, Prepackaged Content, and Monitoring 11.8 Data Migration with the SAP S/4HANA Migration Cockpit and Testing in SAP Cloud ALM
9.7 Output Parameter Determination with Decision Tables
Key Takeaways Explain This Topic AI
SAP S/4HANA Output Management stores output parameters in decision tables, maintained in the Output Parameter Determination application in eight determination steps.
The eight steps are output type, recipient, channel, printer settings, email settings, email recipient, form template, and output relevance.
Rows are evaluated from top to bottom and conditions from left to right, so specific rows come first; an empty condition cell matches any value.
Within a row, condition columns are linked with AND; within one cell, include conditions are linked with OR and exclude conditions with OR, and include and exclude conditions with AND.
The output type, recipient, channel, and email recipient steps can return several hits; marking a row as exclusive in the recipient or channel step stops further hits.
Last updated: October 2026
Output Parameter Determination with Decision Tables
Section 9.6 introduced the framework of SAP S/4HANA Output Management: activation per application object type, output types, channels, and form templates. This section covers the heart of the S46055 course: how output parameters are determined with decision tables . In the course scenario, the sales department wants an order confirmation issued immediately when a customer order is saved, and the application consultant Jim sets up the decision tables to make that happen.
Output Parameters and Determination Steps
To issue output for a document, the document needs output parameters : which output type, to which partner, through which channel, in which language, at what time. They are determined automatically when the document is created. Without output parameters in the document, no output can be issued; with them, output can be issued immediately on save or later by a background job, and print output can be shown in a preview.
The different output parameters are maintained in separate decision tables . In the Output Parameter Determination application, each table corresponds to a determination step . There are eight determination steps , each with its own result columns:
Step Result Notes
1. Output type Which outputs the document gets (for example, order confirmation) and the dispatch time The first step; the output type then serves as a condition in the later steps
2. Recipient The business partner who receives the output An order confirmation typically goes to the sold-to party
- 3. Channel PRINT , EMAIL , or EDI EDI uses IDoc or SOA (XML) messages
- 4. Printer settings Printer and number of copies Only for the PRINT channel
- 5. Email settings Sender address, email template Only for the EMAIL channel
- 6. Email recipient Email addresses of the recipients Only for the EMAIL channel
7. Form template The form used to render the PDF Contains an OData service as data source and an Adobe LiveCycle layout
- 8. Output relevance Whether the output may be issued Not an output parameter itself
- Structure of a Decision Table
A decision table consists of condition columns (white) and one or more result columns (green). Rules are defined in the condition columns; if a row's conditions are met, its results are returned as output parameters. If necessary, you can add new condition columns in the table settings.
The course example is a toy manufacturer selling through several sales organizations and distribution channels:
If sales organization Germany sells through the end-customer channel, the order confirmation is sent only by email .
If the same sales organization sells through the wholesale channel, the order confirmation is printed and mailed .
Arrangement of Rows
Each decision table is processed from left to right and from top to bottom . Rows should therefore start with the most specific combinations, followed by the more general ones. An empty condition cell means any value fulfills it. Example:
Row 1: sales organization 1010 and distribution channel 10 → EMAIL .
Row 2: sales organization 1020 (any channel) → PRINT .
Row 3: no conditions (any combination) → EDI .
The steps output type, recipient, channel, and email recipient can return multiple hits . In the example, an order of sales organization 1010 and channel 10 meets rows 1 and 3, so it would get email and EDI output. If that is not wanted, mark row 1 as exclusive in the recipient or channel determination step: then only the email output is created. Rows can be rearranged so the most specific conditions are checked first, and tables can be exported to and imported from Microsoft Excel for editing.
How Conditions Are Evaluated
The general rule: the conditions of the decision table are checked with the data of the sales document. If the first condition of the first row is fulfilled, the second condition of that row is checked, and so on, because the columns are linked with a logical AND . If all conditions of a row are fulfilled, the results of the row are transferred to the document. If the result is not exclusive, the next row is evaluated.
Include and Exclude Conditions
Include condition : the row is (further) evaluated only if the include condition is true . If all include conditions of a row are fulfilled, the results are returned.
Exclude condition : the row is (further) evaluated only if the exclude condition is false . If any exclude condition of a row is true, the row returns no result.
Conditions use comparison operators such as is equal to , is less than , or is not equal to . Within one condition cell :
Several include conditions are linked with OR : as soon as one is true, the row is evaluated further.
Several exclude conditions are also linked with OR : as soon as one is true, the row returns no result.
Include and exclude conditions are linked with AND : the include condition must be true and the exclude condition false.
The Course Example in Detail
For the output type step, the standard delivery offers the condition columns SD Document Category and Sales Document Type . A row contains:
In SD Document Category : include condition = C (order).
In Sales Document Type : include condition is not equal to BV , plus exclude conditions such as = SO01 .
Results: output type Order Confirmation and dispatch time 1 Immediately .
For a standard order ( OR ): category C fulfills the include condition; OR is not equal to BV (include true); OR does not equal SO01 (exclude false, so the other exclude condition linked by OR is not checked). The row returns the order confirmation with immediate dispatch. For a quotation (category B ), the first include condition fails, so no order confirmation is determined. For a cash sale ( BV ), the include condition in the second column fails.
Simulation
For each determination step, you can simulate the evaluation of the decision table in the Output Parameter Determination application. This is especially useful for complex conditions, because it is not always obvious which output parameters result in a given situation.
Defining Output Parameters for a Sales Order: The Full Chain
Output type : defined in the first determination step; it becomes a condition for all further steps.
Recipient : in the Receiver Determination step, for example the sold-to party for the order confirmation.
Channel : PRINT , EMAIL , or EDI , determined with the output type and other characteristics.
Printer settings : for PRINT , the printer and number of copies.
Form template : for print and email, the template that renders the PDF: the OData service reads the document data and merges it with the Adobe LiveCycle layout.
Output relevance : checked when the output is triggered. Examples from the course: issue output only for complete documents (incompleteness check) or issue no output if materials are not available (availability check). If the output is not relevant, the output item stays in preparation and cannot be issued.
Worked Example
Requirement: order confirmations for standard orders of sales organization 1010 are emailed immediately to the sold-to party when the order is complete; all other sales organizations print them.
Output type step: row with category C , document type not equal to BV → Order Confirmation , dispatch time Immediately .
Recipient step: output type Order Confirmation → partner function sold-to party.
Channel step: row 1 (exclusive) sales organization 1010 → EMAIL ; row 2 (empty cells) → PRINT .
Email settings and email recipient steps: sender address and template for 1010 ; recipient from the sold-to party's email address.
Output relevance step: relevant only if the document is complete.
Simulate each step for a test order, then create an incomplete order: the output item stays in preparation until the missing data is entered.