Requested delivery date of the document

Question

Dear Team,
Can you please clarify the role of requested delivery date on the sales order header.  It does not look as though the system takes this date into account on delivery creation.  Is there a way to make this relevant so deliveries cannot be created until the requested delivery date arrives?
.  I was attempting to see if there was any way to make sure the field is actually used properly - availability check should not allow items to be delivered before the requested delivery date.  These orders come in through EDI, so there is no human intervention once they are entered.

Answer 1

hello, friend.
there are 2 dates you must consider:
1.  confirmed schedule lines are the basis for creating the delivery document, not the requested delivery date.  the schedule lines are influenced by the schedule line category which, in turn, is influenced by item category and MRP type.  of course, availability check also plays a role in the confirmation of schedule lines.
2.  the requested delivery date (RDD) is the basis for the system to determine if requirements (i.e. sales order quantities) can be delivered on the RDD. 
the sequence/logic in sales order processing will be something like this:
Step 1.  you create the sales order, enter material and quantity.  RDD is either proposed by the order type or is manually entered.
Step 2.  the system then conducts an availability check (unless no availability check was configured).
Step 3.  during the availability check, the system determines if the order quantity can be available by the RDD.
     a.   if yes, the schedule lines are confirmed to be equal to the RDD.
     b.   if no, then the system proposes a later date when the stocks will be available (assuming RLT); then the schedule lines are also confirmed for a later date.
Step 4.  once schedule lines are confirmed, you create a delivery document with the delivery date not earlier than the confirmed schedule line date.
hope this helped.
regards.