inbound EDI sales orders for Configurable Materials

[former_member300470]

Hello,

This is a general design question related to creation of inbound Sales Orders via EDI for Configurable materials.

Context

In our mill products scenario, we want to explore processing inbound EDI orders for SAP configurable materials however the inbound material on the idoc would be our customer material number not the SAP configurable material. Additionally, the inbound idoc would only contain the customer material number not any configuration /characteristic data. From our customer perspective, their customer material # represents a fully configured SKU which is why they do not specify and additional configuration data.

We understand that normally in inbound EDI sales orders, customer material numbers mapping to SAP material, are simply managed using Customer Material Info records. However in our case the specified customer material number is different than our configurable material and nowhere on the inbound idoc is there configuration/characteristic data provided (only customer material #). Let me explain via conceptual example.

Conceptual Example

• - SAP Configuration Material “A500”
• - Within the SAP Material Master, we have characteristic “C1” with a blank value. The “C1” characteristic is only populated at time of Sales Order creation
• - Now our customer will send us customer Material # “A500-10” when Characteristic “C1” = X and Material # “A500-20” when characteristic “C1” = Y.

Problem Statement

Conceptually we know that we could use a CMIR to map customer material “A500-10” to SAP material # “A500” but we don’t know of a way (standard way) to determine that when customer material # is A500-10, Characteristic C1 = X and when customer material # is A500-20, characteristic C1 = Y.

Preliminary Analysis

We have looked at the DIMP classification functionality in CMIR Customer Material Info records (http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp60_sp/helpdata/en/28/7e2e7d16a411d486190000e8200b4c/content.htm) however have not been able to make this work as it only allows a 1:1 mapping of customer material number to SAP material #. In our example above, we would want to map both customer material numbers "A500-10" and "A500-20" both to SAP material "A500" with the only difference being the configuration data for Characteristic C1.

Also, we understand within the basic iDoc type ORDERS02, there are available segments to manage the specifications of the configurable material  (http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp60_sp/helpdata/en/92/58ca49417011d189ec0000e81ddfac/content.htm), however in our case, customer only provides material # not configuration data.

Would appreciate any member insight on how companies have chosen to model inbound EDI sales orders for configurable materials in the above scenarios.

Thank you in advance for any assistance.

[paul_barney · Accepted solution]

Hi J Gill

I work for the Mill Products IBU within SAP, and was an SD consultant for several years as well.  In my experience you will need to utilize the enhancements in IDOC_INPUT_ORDERS.  There are several enhancements available to handle many customer specific scenarios with EDI inbound orders scenarios.  It is quite common for projects to utilize these enhancements, especially in the case of mapping codes like material masters.  These enhancements are all well documented in the system as to their specific usage.  In addition, you can See Note 753153 - FAQ: Customer-functions in IDOC_INPUT_ORDERS

Thank you,

Paul Barney

[former_member300470 · Accepted solution]

Thank you Paul. Will review. Take care