Mapping Supplier catalog product category with SRM product category

[Former Member]

Hello all,

I am trying to setup SRM-Punchout catalog integration. The call structure is defined and I am able to select items from the catalog.

Now when I see the detailed view of the item in the catalog, there is no product category, however when this item is transferred to SC, the system automatically picks up some prod category (which I had replicated from ECC initialy). How does it pick up this prod categry when there is no mapping?? I wanted to know, how to map prod category in the catalog to SRM SC? (actually there is no category, so should I ask the vendor for any additional details)

I found an SPRO node: SRMu2014Master Datau2014Content Mangmntu2014Mapping for schemasu2014define assignments for imported schemas and define mapping filter rules for schemas...are they any good for mapping? Also I believe there is a BADI BBP_CATALOG_TRANSFER...could you shed some light on this too??

Regards,

Nikhil

[jason_boggans · Accepted solution]

Hi Nikhil,

The product category chosen in the shopping cart where none is transeffered from catalog, or if the one transferred is not valid, is selected from the user attributes in PPOMA. The logic insists that a valid category exists, so if one is not passed, it is offered from user attributes.

Regards.

Jason

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks Jason.

How do I come to know which category supplier is providing? How do I map Supplier catalog prod category with my categories in SRM? How about the node: SRMu2014Master Datau2014Content Mangmntu2014Mapping for schemasu2014define assignments for imported schemas and define mapping filter rules for schemas...are they any good for mapping?

Is it mandatory to implement BADI BBP_CATALOG_TRANSFER...could you shed some light on this too??

And will usually suppliers provide customised catalogs to organisations? I mean do suppliers give the same catalog call structure to 2 clients or do they alter the categories according to client's needs?

Regards,

Nikhil

[jason_boggans · Accepted solution]

How do I come to know which category supplier is providing? How do I map Supplier catalog prod category with my categories in SRM? How about the node: SRMu2014Master Datau2014Content Mangmntu2014Mapping for schemasu2014define assignments for imported schemas and define mapping filter rules for schemas...are they any good for mapping?

The Supplier should be providing the category you define unless they use specific predefined category schema like UNSPSC or similar standard. This can be found by viewing the OCI data passed from the catalog (see note 1577768 for some details on seeing this if required, or use a sniffer tool like HTTP WATCH)

Is it mandatory to implement BADI BBP_CATALOG_TRANSFER...could you shed some light on this too??

No - there is no requirement to implement any Badi if the categroy exists and is present in SRM, however, if the vendor passes unrecognised category data from the catalog to SRM and you wish to map this to SRM, then the best way is to use this Badi along with a Z Table containing the relevent mappings.

And will usually suppliers provide customised catalogs to organisations? I mean do suppliers give the same catalog call structure to 2 clients or do they alter the categories according to client's needs?

This question would have to be presented to the catalog vendor, in my experience, the same call structure is used, just a different user, as it is unlikely you will be searching for any different products than the next customer, i.e. from a staples catalog, you want pens, so does the next customer, no point in having two catalogs, but you can have two users, one with access to fancy pens, one with access to not so fancy pens etc

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Jason,

Thanks a ton for your detailed reply. What I meant to ask with my last query (And will usually suppliers provide customised catalogs to organisations? I mean do suppliers give the same catalog call structure to 2 clients or do they alter the categories according to client's needs?) I meant to ask the following

Say Dell has a product catalog and organisation 'A' tells Dell that they procure Laptops under category 'IT" and organisation 'B ' tells Dell that they procure Laptops under category 'Hardware'. So will Dell as a vendor map the same Laptop to 2 different categories for 2 organizations?

Regards,

Nikhil

[jason_boggans · Accepted solution]

Hi Nikhil,

I am not sure, really you would have to ask the catalog vendor this question, if I was pushed for a guess, I would say no, they use the same categories for each customer accessing their catalog as it would take too much maintenance to maintain multiple categories for the same products and exxentially the same categories. They would probably expect that in an example like yours, you push some logic through the BBP_CATALOG_TRANSFER Badi to map their category 'IT' to your internal category 'Hardware'

Regards,

Jason

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks Jason. So implementing the BADI is very likely because most of the times our categories in SRM will not match the categories of so many vendor catalogs. Can I conclude this?

Regards,

Nikhil

[jason_boggans · Accepted solution]

Hi Nikhil,

Yes, unless your suppliers use standardized categories like those in UNSPSC (www.unspsc.org/) whereby the customizing can be then configured in SPRO for the assignment for imported schemas. But this is unlikely, it is more likely they use internal category assignment, so the Badi is the best option.

Regards,

Jason