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SAP customer and vendor Master Data Maintenance

Former Member
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Hi Friend,  Just want to ask your opinion on how to find a best solution for SEARCH TERM field in SAP.  I want to change the existing value under search term field in SAP by replacing to a unique value as example as shown below:  Deutsche Derustit GmbH                       DEUTSCHE Deutsche Telekom AG                       DEUTSCHE Deutsche Hutchinson GmbH                       DEUTSCHE Deutsche Leasing AG                                         DEUTSCHE Deutsche Exide GmbH                       DEUTSCHE Deutsche Telekom AG                       DEUTSCHE Deutsche Telekom AG Hannover      DEUTSCHE Deutsche Telekom AG Niederl. Koblen     DEUTSCHE Deutsche Metrohm GmbH                       DEUTSCHE Deutsche Bahn AG DB Cargo                       DEUTSCHE Deutsche Bahn AG                                         DEUTSCHE Deutsche Telekom AG                        DEUTSCHE Deutsche Bank Stuttgart                        DEUTSCHE Deutsche Telekom AG                        DEUTSCHE Deutsche Bank, S.A.E.                        DEUTSCHE Deutsche Transport-Compagnie                       DEUTSCHE Deutsche Telekom AG                        DEUTSCHE Deutsche Bahn DB Cargo AG                       DEUTSCHE Deutsche Grundbesitz- Investment-      DEUTSCHE  How to get the unique word to put as search term where TELECOM is the Original Name of the company. Here it would be better to have “TELECOM” as the search text.    Make some suggestions in an excel file how to correct the situation.  Thank you in advance.  Best Regards,

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

Former Member
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I dont think you can automate this process, as their will be many cases where the customer name is same but with a different address.

Search term is only used by the end users which acts as a filter criteria. The best approach would be to have a logical name like first 10 chars of the name.

Rgds,

Prasad.

Former Member
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Hi Prasad,

Thank you for your reply on my query.  However, on this changes, the client wants to have a unique search term value under this field so as not to confuse the users itself.  By means of putting up the main word under search term field they would know already that this value will correspond to a specific customer.

I agree with you on the best approach to use first 10 characters as I used many times in my previous SAP roll out. 

Hope to hear you again.

Thank you,

Roland

Former Member
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Hi Roland,

As suggested earlier I feel that it would not seem logical to maintain search term as unique. Imagine a situation wherin the master data user (end user) needs to search for a customer with filter criteria as "search term", then if you maintain unique values in the search term the user would need to remember each of the customer search term to find the required customer. Also it is highly unlikely that their wont be two customers with the same name. Now consider you would like to maintain a code for each of the customer(since you want to maintain unique values), in that case as well the user would find it very difficult to remember all the codes( say you have 2000 customers).

By maintaining the first ten characters of the customer name or some logical name for similar customers, you are making like a little easier for the end user, since he would know the customer name, and on searching the result will display say 10-15 customers, and he would need to select the correct customer from the filtered list.

compare this with having a unique search term for each customer and the end user would need to remember all the search terms if he intends to search for a customer with the search term.

*And if you want to automate this process, then MDM would not be able to do so, as comparision is not carried out across records.

I would advice you to have a word with your client and provide an apt soultion.

Regards,

Prasad.

Former Member
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Hi Roland,

I agree with the above post on this.Although it sounds good that search term can be used to uniquely identify one record but in reality it is not always so.

Imagine a scenario with a Vendor having multiple different addresses and in such scenarios a data set would result,so it is important to select Vendor with the correct address that matches the address on your invoice when doing an online payment request.

In most cases a search term logic alone can only find a set of data for that Vendor and not a single record.

Coming to setting up of search term logic,yes this too can be done but would require customization and can be achieved through a code.But any logic would mostly be based on Name of Vendor and address data, so it could lead back to the start of the problem itself.I would recommend to reconsider the requirement itself.

Thanks,

Ravi

Former Member
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Hi Prasad & Ravi,

I appreciate your prompt reply nor opinion on this actual scenario. 

With reference to Ravi's email to setting up search term logically, can you please elaborate a bit in terms of "customizing and can be achieved through a code"? 

When you say code, how does it works under search term field?  Or does this mean that we're grouping all customers or vendors with the same address and assign a code to be filled up on search term field?

Your reply is much highly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Roland

Former Member
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Hi Roland,

It would be very difficult to setup a unique search term for every customer which would be user friendly as well. As suggested in above posts, you should keep search term as first 10 characters of customer name only for the various reasons mentioned above.

But you can also form some calculation/logic like Search term should contain first 6 characters of customer name and next 4 characters could be house number of that customer. In this way you will at least rule out the problem where first 6 characters of the name are same but house number is different for various customers located in same region or city and it would solve your problem to some extent.

And you would need to share this logic with end users as well so that while searching a customer in system they can enter the Search term like this and get desired output.

Generally it is the case that users are more comfortable in using the credentials of customers(like name, address telephone etc and they generally have all the details with them) than using some technical term like customer number and find difficult to remember these technical details etc, so it is advisable to to form such logic which would be user-friendly.

I have just provided an example and you can built your logic as per your requirement.

Just one information i want from you, when you say you want to change Search term in SAP, do you mean SAP ECC or SAP MDM tool? please clarify so that we could provide more refined answers as per the situation.

Thanks and Regards,

Ankush Bhardwaj

Former Member
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Hi Ankush,

Thank you for your detailed explanation on my query.

Per your question, this changes will be done in SAP ECC as we already have a tool to update in the system.

Hope to hear you again.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Regards,

Roland

Former Member
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Hi Roland,

To do mass changes in ECC directly, you can use T-code XD99.

You can write formulas in ABAP editor as well by selecting the toolbar option i.e. Enter Formulas/FORM routines.

But easier way would be to do the changes in some master data management tool and then send the data into ECC through Idocs to update the new Search Term value because in XD99 you would need to update Search term value manually for each record if some formula does not work out.

Or another way would be to extract data in Excel files and do the changes and correct all the search terms using Excel capabilities. Then you need to ask your ABAP team to create custom program which would take this Excel file as input and update search terms for given customer numbers.

Or you can use LSMW to update search term values. You can choose the option whichever you like and find easier for updation of Search terms. Thank you.

Regards,

Ankush Bhardwaj

Former Member
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Hi Roland,

There are 2 aspects of your question I see -

->To decide the logic of Search tern

->Mode of updating the records

With regard to mode of updating there can be many ways like LSMW upload after mass change on the field or upload tool you spoke of,etc.

When I spoke of code,I assumed data creation is happening form a thin client and such a logic is not very difficult to built in that.

Coming to more important part of deciding on logic for this I think one can analyze the data set based on a search term logic comprising of -

-> Vendor Name - Fix a number of characters for Vendor Name.Normal Practice is to pick first ten characters and all in capital letters.

-> House Number

-> House Number supplement

-> Street

-> Pin code

-> Country - This may or may not be included in such a logic.

The above fields can be considered in building the logic.One can also include parameters like sequence,priority apart from the above fields to come at a consistent and strong logic.

It would be worthwhile to say that by analyzing data based on logic decided,I mean to run test confirming data quality one has.If required enriching current data ,specially in context of fields considered,should lead to better results.Once logic is fixed test the Search Term generated by -

->Checking it is unique

->Tweak the above fields manually and check for consistency

Once logic is fixed mass changes can be done in any of the above discussed ways and template or method can be fixed for single such operation.

Pro of such method -

Searching should be easy.

Time saving.

Con-

Scalability and consistency can be under threat in case of different units/companies using different logic.

Extra Development.

Thanks,

Ravi

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