Problem with Material Variant Type Matching

[Former Member]

Hello all,

At my company we would like to have a configurable material that can have changes to the BOM/pricing depending on the sales order customer number.

I have defined a reference characteristic to store the customer number (VBAK-KUNNR) and attached to the class. The customer number is now automatically being copied into the value for this reference characteristic. Unfortunately, when the user completes the configuration the Material Variants are no longer found because the customer number characteristic is not matching.

Is there any way to make the Material Variant Type Matching to ignore my reference characteristic when searching for matches? The Material Variants we have are valid for all customers. Is it possible to supply a wildcard for the customer characteristic value? I tried to find some User Exit to modify how the Type Matching works but I cannot find anything that would allow me to block a characteristic from the selection criteria.

Any Ideas on how to make this work would be greatly appreciated.

Robert Bellas

SAP Analyst

ProMinent Fluid Controls

[daniel_b1 · Accepted solution]

Report RCU_EXCL_CHARACTERISTICS

Select the "Types" column for the characteristics to be excluded in variant matching.

Can be excluded per configurable material or at a characteristic level.

Table cabn_excl is where the values are stored

or SMOD exit CLSC0001

Function EXIT_SAPLCLSC_001

Manipulate the result of the selection or redo the variant match search with different criteria

Note: read the documentation in transaction SMOD for warnings on using this exit. Function called from 60+ (?) places.

[Former Member]

In the configuration profile,

in configuration initial screen tab page, in user interface tabpage,in seeting push button, in variant matching tabpage

you set the stg as partial config, I think now it is complete config...save and start the process...it will work.

[Former Member]

Thank you for the response Rajesha Vittal.

I have tried your solution but it does not solve the problem for me.

Here is what happens when I change the configuration profile setting to "partial config":

The search for a matching Material Variant is triggered immediately after each change to the characteristic values (instead of waiting until the user has supplied values for all the characteristics). The customer number is copied from the sales order to the reference characteristic immediately when starting the variant configuration, even before any values are supplied by the user, so no match is found. I discovered that if I manually erase the value for the customer number the material variant type matching does find a correct match, but as soon as I supply a value for the customer number the matching material variant is not found.

I only now realize that it does not make any sense to try and find a matching Material Variant with a blank customer number.

The reason is this: if the material variant is configured with a blank customer number then any customer dependent pricing conditions will NOT be assigned to the var_kondit (ref char: sdcom-vkond) characteristic. In other words: even if I found a match, the price would be incorrect.

It seems to me that I would need to create a unique material number / material variant for each customer. This is really would require too much effort for us.

So my question is this:

Do you know of a better way to have a customer dependant BOM and customer dependant pricing without loosing the ability to use Material Variant Type Matching?

Best Regards,

Robert Bellas

ProMinent Fluid Controls

[Former Member]

Hi,

Pls. set in config profile in variant matching tab page , Type matching on request & Partial Configuration ( as suggested by Mr. Rajesh) and save the settings and then try.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Tejas

[Former Member]

Hello Tejas,

Thank you for your suggestion, but this button does not help me.

When I change the setting for "Type Matching On Request" this is what happens:

A small button now appears on the application tool bar of the configurator screen. When I click the button (Type Matching) the material variant is NOT found. The reason is because the reference characteristic for customer number (VBAK-KUNNR) is populated as soon as the configurator screen opens. Since the Material Variant I am looking for has a blank value for this customer number characteristic, no match is found. If I manually erase the customer number value and then hit the type matching button, the matching material variant is found.

I think that If I could somehow prevent the reference characteristic value (VBAK-KUNNR) from being used in the Material Type Matching search the correct material number would be found.

I looked at the list of "Enhancements in Variant Configuration" but none seem like they would do the job. please see...

Link: [http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp2005/helpdata/en/92/58d455417011d189ec0000e81ddfac/frameset.htm]

The question I have now is this:

Is there any way (user exit, bapi, etc) that would allow me to block certain reference characteristics from being considered when the type matching function module runs?

Or

Does anyone know of a better way to make customer specific pricing and BOM's for KMAT's that do not break the Variant Type Matching.

Best Regards,

Robert Bellas

Sap Analyst

ProMinent Fluid Controls, Inc.