Understanding Output Management in SAP Sales and Service Cloud: Main Templates, Form Templates and Rules
Introduction
Document output is an important part of many business processes in SAP Sales and Service Cloud. Business documents such as invoices, sales documents, service documents, and other forms may need to be generated as PDFs, printed, emailed, or sent to business partners.
SAP provides Output Management capabilities to control how these documents are generated and formatted.
In this blog, we will look at the key concepts involved in Output Management:
- Form Main Templates
- Form Templates
- Language Variants
- Form Template Rules
- Adobe LiveCycle Designer
-
How the system determines which template to use
Understanding the relationship between these components is important when implementing customer-specific document layouts.
1. What is Output Management?
Output Management comprises the activities required to generate and distribute business documents.
Form-based documents can be generated:
- On an ad hoc basis
- As part of a business process
- As PDF documents
- As email attachments
- For printing
- For faxing, where supported
The overall output process can be understood using three important components:
Main Template → Form Template → Form Template Rule
The Main Template provides common branding and organizational information.
The Form Template defines the actual document structure and content.
The Form Template Rule determines which form template should be used for a particular business document and under which conditions.
2. Form Main Templates
A Form Main Template is used to define common elements that can be reused across multiple form templates.
For example, a company may want the same:
- Company logo
- Header
- Sender address
- Footer
- Language-dependent footer
across Quotes , opp, and other business forms.
Instead of maintaining these elements separately in every form, you can maintain them centrally in a Main Template.
3. How Does the System Determine the Main Template?
When a business document is generated, the system follows a hierarchy to determine which Main Template should be used.
The basic logic is:
Business Document → Company/Org Unit → Parent Org Unit → Default Main Template
Step 1: Check the assigned organizational unit
The system first checks whether a Main Template is assigned to the company or organizational unit where the business document was created.
The system first searches for a Main Template assigned to Sales US West Coast.
Step 2: Search higher in the organizational structure
If no matching Main Template is found, the system searches upward through the organizational hierarchy.
Step 3: Use the default Main Template
If no matching Main Template is found anywhere in the organizational hierarchy, the system uses the default Main Template.
This allows organizations to have both global and company-specific branding.
4. Creating a Main Template
To create a Main Template, navigate to:
User Menu → System Settings → All Settings → Output Management → Maintain Main Template
Choose Create.
Enter:
-
Main Template Name
-
Organizational Unit, if applicable
You can also enable the Is Default option if the template should be used as the default.
Designing the Main Template
The Main Template provides options for defining the common header and footer information.
Header
You can:
- Upload a company logo
- Adjust logo size and alignment
- Enable a header divider
- Maintain the sender address
Supported logo formats include:
.gif.bmp.jpg.png.tif
The logo should be within the supported size limits. If the uploaded graphic exceeds the supported dimensions, the system automatically resizes it.
Footer
You can configure the number of footer columns and maintain footer information.
Up to four footer blocks can be maintained, with a maximum of 10 lines per footer.
The footer blocks are divided equally across the available space.
5. Form Templates
While the Main Template provides common branding elements, the Form Template defines the actual layout and content of a business document.
Form templates are used to generate print forms, which are generally produced as PDF documents.
These forms can then be:
- Printed
- Sent as email attachments
- Sent to business partners
- Used as part of business processes
The Main Template can then provide the common company logo, sender address, and footer.
6. SAP-Delivered vs Custom Form Templates
SAP provides predefined form templates for many business scenarios.
Although you can create new templates, SAP recommends using and adapting the templates provided by SAP or partners where possible.
A typical approach is:
SAP-Delivered Template → Copy Template → Customize → Publish → Use in Output Rules
This approach has an important advantage: existing output settings can be reused instead of configuring everything from scratch.
7. Why Should You Copy the SAP Template?
Suppose SAP provides a standard Customer Invoice template.
Instead of creating a completely new form, you can:
- Select the SAP-delivered template.
- Choose Copy Template.
- Enter a custom name and description.
- Select the required language.
- Enable the Form Main Template option if required.
- Save and publish the template.
Your organization can then customize the copied template without directly modifying the SAP-delivered version.
This is particularly useful when SAP delivers a newer version of the standard template.
8. Editing Form Templates with Adobe LiveCycle Designer
For more advanced layout changes, SAP supports downloading the form template and modifying it using Adobe LiveCycle Designer.
The required environment includes Adobe LiveCycle Designer along with the relevant SAP support components.
Navigate to:
User Menu → System Settings → All Settings → Output Management → Maintain Form Template
Select the required template and choose Edit.
Depending on the scenario, you can download the template and modify the .xdp file using Adobe LiveCycle Designer.
9. What Can Be Changed in Adobe LiveCycle Designer?
Using Adobe LiveCycle Designer, you can make several layout and formatting changes.
For example:
Layout
You can:
- Change the position of fields
- Change the position of the title
- Change the position of the logo
- Change field alignment
- Change the sequence of fields
Formatting
You can:
- Change fonts
- Change font sizes
- Change line styles
- Add borders
- Change alignment
Fields and Columns
You can:
- Show or hide fields
- Change field labels
- Change column order
- Change column headers
- Show or hide columns
However, if a required field is not available in the form data structure, additional extensibility or SAP support may be required.
10. Language Variants
A business may operate across multiple countries and languages.
For example:
- English
- German
- French
- Spanish
SAP supports language variants of form templates.
A language variant is essentially a version of an existing form template maintained for another language.
To create one:
User Menu → System Settings → All Settings → Output Management → Maintain Form Template
Select the required template and choose:
Copy Variant
Then select the required language.
11. Downloading Form Template Variants
A form template variant can also be downloaded for offline editing or testing.
Navigate to:
User Menu → Settings → All Settings → Output Management → Maintain Form Template
Select the required template and choose Download.
The downloaded ZIP package can contain:
- XDP file
- XSD file
- Sample XML data, if available
The XDP contains the form template definition.
The XSD describes the XML data structure and is useful when editing the form offline.
Sample XML data can be used to preview the output.
If sample data is not available, XML data can also be obtained from the document’s output history where supported.
12. Form Template Rules
Now we come to one of the most important parts of Output Management:
Form Template Rules
Imagine you have two invoice templates:
Template A
-
Domestic Quote
Template B
-
International Quote
How does the system know which template to use?
This is where a Form Template Rule is required.
A Form Template Rule defines the conditions under which a particular form template should be selected.
13. Main Template + Form Template + Rule: Putting Everything Together
The complete flow can be visualized as:
Business Transaction
↓
Output Management
↓
Form Template Rule
↓
Select Form Template
↓
Apply Main Template
↓
Generate PDF
↓
Print / Email / Other Output Channel
14. Key Takeaways
Here are the key concepts to remember:
1. Main Template
Used for common branding such as:
Logo + Header + Sender Address + Footer
2. Form Template
Defines the actual business document layout and content.
3. Language Variant
Provides the same form in another language.
4. Form Template Rule
Determines which form template should be selected based on defined conditions.
5. Rule Sequence
Specific rules should generally be evaluated before generic rules.
6. SAP-Delivered Templates
Where possible, copy and adapt SAP-delivered templates rather than creating everything from scratch.
7. Adobe LiveCycle Designer
Can be used for advanced layout and form customization where supported.
Conclusion
SAP Output Management provides a structured way to manage business document output without having to maintain every document independently.
The most important relationship to understand is:
- Main Template → Common Branding
- Form Template → Document Layout and Content
- Form Template Rule → Template Selection Logic
Once these three concepts are understood, scenarios such as country-specific invoices, company-specific branding, multilingual forms, and different document layouts become easier to configure and manage.
For administrators and implementation teams, paying particular attention to template inheritance, language variants, rule conditions, and rule sequence can help avoid unexpected document output and simplify long-term form maintenance.
#abap