4 Master Data Simplification

4.1 Material Master >> Number length Change

Changed from 18 to 40 characters. Why? It’s a client requirement.

 Intelligent number >> Brand-SubBrand-Category-KeyChar-KeyChar..-Serial no (Nomenclature – once user

sees the number, they understand what it is). With this approach, many customers went out of 18char
range. This number is great for reporting. Most of the reports contain material number unlike brand,
subbrand etc. Duplicate numbers won’t be created in the system, because once you compose the number,
you will see that it already exists. Drawback: Maintenance using catalogues (rules on how to create it),
another issue is if you make a mistake in the number >> it’s not possible to change it.
 Stupid numbers >> 1, 2, 3, 4… Then all Brand-SubBrand etc you can put into Material description. This can
be changed anytime.

Activation steps:

 FLETS – Activate 40 Char Mat Length. Why does the activation is required? It’s a sign-off. See below

Activation is a sign-off. The reason is because there’re some implications that are mentioned in SNote 2232396.

 OMSL – Here you specify how many char. under 40, you would like to use for your materials in the system.
It’s not a must to use 40 (if you have interfaces that are 35)! This configuration exists in ECC as well.
Business considerations:

1) External SAP/Non SAP interfaces: SAP is not the only system in the world. It may has integration with other
systems. E.g. we create materials with 32 chars. Now we take our material and pass it to the other system
that has 25 char. restriction. The interface will fail, so you will need to use smth inbetween to map the
materials in both systems.
2) Forms: Restricted space usually to put the material number. Same with barcodes, storage stickers etc.
3) BAPI/IDOC/RFC: Now in lots of BAPIs you have 18char field and 40char field. If you use 40char field, then
you must ensure that for the integration purpose you map 40char field.
4) Custom Reports & Custom code adaption (this is a standard process for conversion projects)

Can we use 40char in Green Field/ Brown Field / Both?? Technically we can use 40char in Both. However, for
Conversion, it will be applicable ONLY for new material created post conversion. You can’t change 18 to 40 char for
existing material! Therefore in most of cases conversion customers never use 40chars as it causes a big confusion in
the user community. Mainly, 40 chars makes sense for Green Field implementations.

Can 40 char be used for Internal vs External number ranges? Numeric vs. Alpha Numeric. Numeric/ Internal number
won’t work.

Mapping principles during Greenfield project (e.g. from non-SAP system to S4H):

1. Define what should remain and what should be re-created new: e.g. material number
2. Cleansing
3. Then after mapping is finished, you can push the new material numbers into the legacy system
4. During cutover activities, you can again take the materials from legacy system (both old and new number)
and move to S4H.
4.2 Sourcing Logic

Old Logic: At the time of the Purchasing Req creation through MRP, you can do it in 2 ways

(1) Without vendor and vendor can be assigned manually

(2) Generate through MRP with vendor

Sourcing logic comes into the picture when you want to automatically assign your source to the MRP-type
requisition.

>> MRP
What does MRP do? Makes sure that your material is available in the right quantity, at the right time in the right
place. It will check your

 Demand (sales orders, reservations, STOs)

 Supply (planned orders, purchase requisitions, purchase orders, STOs)
 Stocks

Based on this, it will identify the shortages. The MRP must identify the source of the the shortage supply.

In old ECC, MRP will check to identify the source:

 Material master (Procurement key E, X or F / Special Procurement key). After this check, the system will check
 Material master (Quota Arrangement in MRP2 view is set). If this flag is set, then MRP will check the Quota
Arrangement and identify the source.
o For “E” case , MRP will check production version (BOM + Routing +Work center as a part of the routing)
> the system will create a planned order
o For “F” case, after Quota Arrangement it will create a Purchase Req. If no quota arrangement exists,
then
 Outline Agreement: Either Contract or Scheduling Agreement. If no agreement exists, then
 Source List . MRP uses source lists to determine vendors, contracts etc.
o PIR . MRP will only select PIR as a source if a source list entry exists that
references the supplier of the info record.
 “X” > if Quota arrangement exists , it will identify what to use “E” path or “F” path. See above. If no quota
arrangement exists, then MRP will create a planned order. This planned order can later be converted either to
- Purchase requisition or
- Production order

Changes in S4H:

1. Field “Quote arrangement” in Material master (!) is not available. MRP considers quota arrangements
always disregarding this indicator.

2. Production version becomes mandatory to select your BOM. No Prod Version selection in MRP anymore
 3. Source list becomes optional for PIR. MRP selects purchasing info records if the “Auto Sourcing” indicator in
PIR (Purch Org Data1) is set. Still source lists could be used to check the blocked source of supplies/MRP not
relevant source of supplies (e.g. OA).

The reason for this change is that PPDS Sourcing Logic has been harmonized with MRP Sourcing Logic.

>> Demo Case

Material : MAT1 has 2 scheduling agreements 5500000005 (with vendor VEND1) and 5500000006 (with vendor
VEND2) and Info record 5300000001 (with say vendor VEND3)
PIR relevant for auto Quota arrangement in Source list in use Result
sourcing flagged use
No No No MRP chooses 5500000005. The default logic is
applied as mentioned in SAP Note 2268069 (i.e. ‘If
sourcing determines several valid sources of
supply for the same material, plant, quantity,
and date, but does not find any quota
arrangements, then it prefers production
versions over delivery schedules, delivery
schedules over purchasing contracts, and
 purchasing contracts over purchasing info
records’)
Yes No No MRP chooses 5500000005 (oldest scheduling
agreement)
Yes No Yes (Blocked MRP chooses 5500000006
5500000005)
Yes No Yes (Blocked both SA) MRP Creates Purchase Requisition with Vendor
determined from info record marked relevant for
automatic sourcing
No No Yes (Blocked both SA) MRP Creates Purchase Requisition with no source
i.e. Vendor is blank
Yes No Yes (Both SA made MRP Creates Purchase Requisition with Vendor
MRP not relevant) from Info record
Yes Yes (VEND1 Yes (Both SA made Creates schedule lines for vendor VEND1 i.e.
assigned 100% MRP relevant) 5500000005
quota)
Yes Yes (VEND2 Yes (Both SA made Creates schedule lines for vendor VEND2 i.e.
assigned 100% MRP relevant) 5500000006
quota)
Yes Yes (VEND2 Yes (Both agreement MRP creates PR with Vendor VEND2
assigned 100% blocked)
quota)
Yes Yes (made quota to Yes (Both agreement MRP creates PR with vendor VEND3 for which the
zero for both) blocked) info record is marked as relevant for automatic
sourcing
Yes Yes (made quota to Yes (Both unblocked MRP chooses 5500000005 (oldest scheduling
zero for both) and MRP relevant) agreement)
2 info records for No No No scheduling agreements!!
VEND1 and VEND3 MRP chooses the vendor with the oldest info
and both are marked record number i.e. VEND1 for PR creation.
with auto sourc flag

>> Fiori apps

Manage sources of Supply: There’s a “Relevance” (stars) field in this app. This shows how complete the source of
supply is in terms of data maintenance. Here you’ll see only sources of supply created in Fiori app
Also same app can be used to create all possible source of supplies:

Mass Changes to Purchasing Info Records. You can maintain “Auto Sourcing indicator” in mass.

It’s possible to implement HELP (hover over – similar to F1), but this is a task for Basis team.

>>Regular supplier in PIR

 This Regular supplier is not being used by
MRP SOS Auto assignment. This is only if
you create your Purchase Req. manually,
then this supplier will be suggested as
FIXED supplier. This is in General Data
view, so this will affect all
purch.organizations and plants!

Regular supplier functionality must be

activated per plant to make it work!!!
Without this activation, this tick will not
work. Config is in SPRO: MM > Purchasing
> Source Determination > Define Regular
Supplier.

There can be only one Regular Supplier

per material! System will not allow you to
save the tick, if one regular vendor is
already maintained.

Standard QTY in PIR is used only for estimation/statistical purpose. Min and Max QTY, once exceeded, will through
warning message. All PIR data will be copied into your Purchase orders and Contracts.

Also we can create a deeper level and create a plant specific info record.

If we maintain forecast (planning requirement) in MD61 per material, then they will automatically generate our
Purch Requisitions.
Let’s run MRP using new transaction for live MRP run! It’s called MD01N

MRP generated 2 Preqs but without the vendors!

Now we can put “Auto sourcing” to one of our info records and then rerun the MRP. The new requisitions that will
be generated with the vendor assigned from the info record.
Please note: If you create your manual Purchase Req and you tick “Automatic Source Determination”, this will not
help you with auto assigning the vendor from the Info Record with “Auto Sourcing” tick. In the same way, “Regular
vendor” from info record won’t work for auto assigning vendor for requisitions created with the MRP run!

Let’s maintain now quota arrangement for the 2nd vendor: MEQ1.

Now the MRP will pick vendor from this quota arrangement.

4.3 Batch Management

Batch management with ECC
Mainly used for FMSG / Pharma. Whatever the lot you’re produced for material >> in one lot or one day or one
shift >> this product will be combined together and will be tracked and traced together. For batch has property of
the manufacturing date and therefore the date of expiry.

There are other characteristics that are common for all product of the same batch, e.g. (steel) grade, pH, density
etc.

In SAP you can activate the batch management both for raw materials and finished products with/without
classification.

How many different levels we can manage the batch: client level/ plant / material. This decision on which level
you’re going to maintain you batch, must be taken during implementation and this decision is not easy to reverse
afterwards!

Let’s discuss the difference between these levels:

CLIENT (MANDAT) LEVEL >> We received raw material X with batch 123 (with classification vendor manuf date
01/01/2010) to Plant A. E.g. Plant B in the same client receipted material X with the same batch. You won’t be able
to overwrite manuf. Date in this receipt because batch 123 has been already created with some certain properties
that cannot be overwritten.

Also, if you receive material Y with batch 123, you won’t be able to assign this batch 123 to material Y, because this
batch has already been used for material X in this client.

To sum up: Batch can be used only for one material and properties of the same batch in different plants remain the
same!
MATERIAL LEVEL >> Uniquness is Material + Batch (Preferred setting)

You can have Batch 123 for Material X and Material Y and for each combination you can store different batch chars.
However, if you would do the transfer of Mat X , batch 123 from Plant A to Plant B, then the chars in Plant B remains
the same.
PLANT LEVEL >> Uniquness is Material + Batch + Plant. Different materials can have the same batch number as in
Material Level. But in addition, once the batch 123 of Material X is moved to a different plant, by default the system
will allow you to assign a new batch with different characteristics. Plant B will have different inspection types
compared to Plant A (in different country).

Though you sill will have an option to adopt batch 123. However, neither classification characteristics no
specification from the original 123 batch will be adopted / copied. To enable the copy from Plant A to Plant B, you
must add the user exist to copy the chars from original batch. Otherwise, you can manually copy them.
SPRO > Logistics General > Batch Management >> That’s the spot to activate the batch management level

Other configuration related to the batch management is “Define Batch Status Management” > see below. If you
activate status management, all existing batches are assigned status 'unrestricted'. If you deactivate status
management, the system transfers all restricted batches to unrestricted stock within conversion. Restricted stock
only exists if status management is active.
 In the next config table, you will need to
specify for which plant you want to activate
it. Also you can define the restricted status
on the material type level (table “initial
status of a new batch).

For the materails themselves, the batch management is activated in Material master. In the Materail master you can
either activated batch management on the material level > view Sales: General/Plant or plant level > view Plant
data1

Problem in the ECC Batch Management

 One and the same product in different plants can be batch-managed and with no batch activation . It could
be that some distribution centres are not ready for batch management and still with ECC the batch
management activation happens on the material level.
S4H since 1809 addresses this problem. In ECC a potential solution would be to create customer
enhancement with one “dummy batch” indicator. Once this indicator is ticked, the material is still batch-
managed, but the it gets always assigend to one and the same dummy batch number. This will only work for
plant-level batch management.
Batch management with S4H

This “Batch management(Plant) field is reposponsible for Batch management at plant PER MATERIAL.

Also there’s a new configuration that allows you to turn off batch management completely at PLANT LEVEL.

SPRO > Logistics General > Batch Management

If you activate this tick, it will

work for the materials, you’ll
create afterwards.
Then the check-box for “Batch management (Plant)” in material master record will be blank.

4.4 Business Partner

Reason fro BP introduction
Why has SAP adopted Business Partner approach??

 Harmonized approach for different business partners such as customer, vendor etc.
 Embedded System - EWM, TM
 Principle of one: SAP removed vendor approach
 Adoption to advanced modules like FSCM (you can’t use Financial SCM module w/o BP)
 SD – Credit management FSCM
 Time Dependent Data (you can make your vendor act as a customer for e.g. 6 months)
 Multiple addresses or even time-dependent addresses (to maintain the future address of the vendor)
 Single Object – Single Entity (employee, freight forwarder, vendor, contact person …)

BP Maintenance (=Vendor)
T code BP: Creates Person (=Contact Person or Responsible Employee), Organization (Vendor, Customer)

This is used only for FSCM module,

not in Purch and Procurement

BP will be created at 3 different levels:

 000000 Busieness Partner Role Address, Language etc. Generic Data

 FLVN00 Supplier (Fin Accounting) . maintained by Finance team on the Company Code
 FLVN01 Supplier . maintained by Purchasing Team on the Purch Org level
What’s important is that the Vendor did not disappear. Once you create a BP, SAP will extend it to Vendor (LFA1,
LFB1, LFM1). tables will be updated and your vendor will be created).

Configuration
Supplier configuration
1. SPRO > Financial Accounting > Accounts Receivables and Payable > vendor Accounts > Master data >
Preparations for Creating Vendor Master Data >

Partner function Config (this is only if you created a new Vendor Group)
2. If you create your own vendor account group, then you’ll need to assign partner schema to it (you can use
SUPL partner schema via config SPRO > Material Management > Purchasing > Partner Determination >
Partner Settings in Supplier Master Record >
3. Another config is in Partner Determination > Partner Roles:
Define permissible roles per
account group

VN Vendor

CP Contact person

OA Ordering address

PA Invoicing Party

4. The next step would be to assign number ranges to Vendor Account Groups
 As you see, SUPL group is
assigned to Number Range BP

5. Let’s check what number range this BP is. This is actually a key config, because we would like to assign the
same number both to BP and vendor, we create. This will only work is BP number range is the external
one!!!!

Let’s make a step back to check the BP number range:

Business Partner configuration
Now let’s move to Business Partner configuration!

SPRO > Cross-Application Components > Master Data Synchronization AND SAP Business Partner

6. SAP Business Partner > Business Partner > Business Settings > Number Ranges and Groupings > Define no
ranges

The number range for BP can

be both external and internal

7. Create the Business partner Group and assign the number range to this group. Same location > Define
Groupings and Assign Number Ranges

We’re using group BP02

Vendor range must be same or bigger than BP number range! Also you can create the number range and grouping
with the ID.

8. Now we must map Vendor with our Business Partner. Master Data Synchronization > Customer/Vendor
Integration > Business Partner Settings > Settings for Vendor Integration > Field Assignment for Vendor
Integration > Assign Keys > Define Number Assignment for Direction BP to Vendor
 Here we sync ID for BP and Vendor.
Flex.Grouping allows you to manually select the
vendor account group when creating your BP.
You can have EITHER same Nos. OR Flex Grp.
Once you create your BP, SAP will ask you what vendor group, you’d like to use in case of Flexible Grouping.

Exactly same config you must do to Customers and Business Partners.

Create BP
When we create BP, we can either start with generic role or FLVN00 or FLVN01.
In Generic Data we need to maintain Vendor Description, Address, Language
Company Code data:

Purch org data: Currency and GRIV flag.

Create BP in Fiori app
Fiori Tile “Manage business Partner”

You can create or copy BP and extend it to CC, Purch Org

Here I can also select CC and Purch Org. Now also

the Grouping is being copied as well.

Here you can also “copy” your Purch Org entry and extend it to other Purch Org.

Tax Jurisd. is in Address > Show more.

SAP tries to introduce a duplicate check > New vendor has been created 1000252.

Main feature of CREATE Vendor app is that the mandatory fields are shown in the popup upfront > 3 popups for 3
roles. E.g. for “create org” – main data

See below – This is already a modified screen (in the standard screen, you won’t see Org data, but only the role).
Still in this front screen you’ll be able to select only one role > so this screen below is not perfect because even
through you maintain it all here, both CC and Purch Org will be saved in one role which is not correct. You can first
create FLVN00 with reconsiliation account, adrress etc. And then extend to Purch org by creating a new role and
assigning Purch Org A000 in this role.

There’s also Fiori tile which is called “Maintain Business Partner”. This is Dynpro for BP

There’s another Fiori Tile which is called “Maintain business partner data”. This one contains all 3 selection options
as in BP where you can create Person / Organization / Group.

Export master data – Business partners

Export master data – Data Transfer
BUPA, create variant BUPA
Create a contact person
You can create a contact person using BP. After that you can build the relationship between your new contact
person 910040023 and vendor SGPA00005:

This is however not the complete way of linking them. You must enter your vendor, role FLVN01 (supplier) and
maintain it in the
Conversion to S4H for Business Partner
CVI_VEND_LINK > Assignment between Vendor and Business Partner

BUT000 >> Business Partner using GUID.

During Conversion, you must create BP for each of your existing vendors and customers and contact persons. Only
afterwards you must be able to transfer your existing master data to S4H. This is a basic pre-check. SAP provided 3
different programs to do these pre-checks. This must be done in ECC, not in S4H.

This concept is only applicable for conversion, not for Green field.

Number ranges is very important. We must define the BP Grouping that must be linked with your vendor account
group. In the same way, you must allign your BP group with the customer account group.

In ECC we have 2 different entities: customers and vendors. In some cases their number ranges could overlap. This
could be a challenge if customer and vendor have the same number, e.g. 14731, but they are not the same. What
BP number should we assign to them? We can assign a totally separate BP number e.g. BP0001 and BP0002. In the
procurement scenarios, we won’t see any difference because we’ll see only vendor no. Same in SD.

Why is it recommended to ue the same number for BP and vendor/customer? For Credit management (FSCN) we
will only see BP number, otherwise the user community will be confused. In case of green field it’s the correct
approach. If vendor no is the same as customer, then we’ll sacrifice the vendor number because we always give a
preference to the customer.

Configuration in ECC for Conversion

Same as what we saw in 4.4 Configuration (as listed above).

In addition to it, you must activate in synchronization control the direction of synchronization namely
Vendor/Customer to BP , see below
“Synchronization Objects”
Activate PPO requests for platform objects.. You must have here Customer and Vendor:

Next step is to check Customer/Vendor integration:

 These 2 BP roles will
trigger creation of
vendor as an MD object

Similarly here which vendor account

groups will trigger BP creation and with
which BP role

This is when we create our supplier , then

BP will be created automatically in ECC
with group BP02. The tick is for the case,
when we assign the same number for BP
as for the supplier
Synchronization Cockpit
This is to link your BP with Vendors based on the configuration. This is to run in ECC. T code MDS_LOAD_COCKPIT

Step1 CVI_MIGRATION_PRECHK
offers data cleansing program to check the master data quality. See below screenshot
The list of checks includes: Tax code, postal code, email , bank data, tax jurisdiction, industry, transportation zones,
address, number range

If you want to use pre-check, you need to implement the following notes:

Step 2 Setup (IMG): Config Customer/Vendor > BP

as described above.

Step 3 CVI_UPGRADE_CHECK_RESOLVE
program will ensure that your config is properly done.
For the above mentioned reports, you must implement following notes:

Step 4 MDS_LOAD_COCKPIT
Synchronization Cockpit
Step 5 CVI_UPGRADE_CHECK_RESOLVE
This must run multiple times to ensure that the synchronization is completed in full.

Post Conversion: Config must be reversed after S4H conversion for BP > Customer/Vendor direction

Advanced Config
Define a combined BP Role
Mainly used for Customers (FLCU00 and FLCU01) when you use FSCM / EWM modules. In such cases you not only
need FLCU00 and FLCU01 BP roles, but some more roles. So you need to extend your customer for 5-6 different
roles. Using “Define BP Role Groupings” you can combine multiple roles and create them all in 1 step.

Example: 3 customer roles combined > FLCU00 and FLCU01, BPSITE

This is a new role which is a combination of 2 roles.

Define Field Groupings

Controls field visibility and required/optional

feature on the different levels (BP Role, BP type)

Let’s check the BP role level: e.g. for FLVN01

Also for Conversions from ECC to S4H there’s a special SNote that allows you to make these controls work based on
account group level (vendor level, not BP). Otherwise, you can use BP role level.

BP Views
T code BUSD: Check what views are avaliable for your BP role.

The BP View for the BP role you can find in Cross-Application Components > SAP Business Partner > Define BP roles

Now you can go to T code BUSD and find your BP view, then navigate to data sets
Each data set will have multiple fields assigned to it. E.g. we have Vendor: Purchasing Data set, but no Vendor:
Purchasing!

You can remove some BP Views that you don’t need. You can create a new BP role and modify the data sets/field
groupings for the new custom role.

Also you can see subheader for FLVN01:

 Allocation of multiple addresses to BP
Along with selection the suitable address during Order to Cash process.

It is not a big challenge to allocate multiple addresses (e.g. shipping adresses) to the BP (customer / vendor). This
was available since 1510v . The problem was that to assign the required address in the sales order (purchase order)
and then also along with the different address, a different shipping/receiving plant, unloading point etc. may be
required. Where can this logic about address-dependent parameters be assigned? Till 2021 it was not possible using
stadard SAP Config. You must have addded the different BPs, or one BP with addresses and then added the custom
enhancement to the point of creation transactional objects (orders, quotes ..)

Linkage happens based on the partner function to the main customer/vendor.

This logic can be used only using the Fiori app
“Manage Business Partner Master data”. In
2021 there were too many bug in this app and
you had to use the Snotes to eliminate all
errrors. The linkage between Customers and
BP is stored in MDG tables indirectly (not in
CUI_CUST_LINK). Also you want be able to see
this linkage in BP t code in ECC
In 2021 version it is possible to create one BP and
one Customer and link them through multiple
addresses assigned to multiple Partner function
roles. Also there’s a possibility to add address-
dependant parameters. When you create your
sales order, you see a popup where you can choose
the PF/address. Alternatively, you can select it in
the sales order item.
  Let’s create a BP with customer using app “Manage Business Partner master data” (as described in version 2)

 Let’s create Company code data. It’s enough to add a reconciliation account only

A new BP with the role FLCU00 was created:

 Let’s add a new address Ship-to address to our BP

Now we will create an additional customer for FLCU00 within the business partner >> click on Edit and navigate to
FLCU00. Go to Additional Customers and on Create button.

And we’ll need to maintain company code data for this customer

This is our additional customer

This one customer won’t be available in CVI_CUST_LINK. The linkage is only visible in MDG_MLT_ASSGNMT