Brainstorming on master data management concepts

Mark63 · ‎09-29-2005

Dear MDM community,

In this thread, I'd like to collect your thoughts, feedback, and wishes regarding master data management today and in the future. Please communicate your feedback on MDM and ideas on MDM concepts regardless of whether you think in processes, focus on specific object hubs, or prioritize concrete features and functions.

Looking forward to your posts,

Markus Ganser

Former Member · ‎10-25-2006

A couple things...

1. Ability to add fields in workflow table. One of our clients wanted to attach documents to a workflow but currently we can't do that.

2. Ability to add/modify/delete value of a field based on validation of the same or a different field value. For example if I have fields F1 and F2, I might want to change the value of F2 based on true/false value returned by validation expression on F1.

-Y

Former Member · ‎01-04-2006

Couple of items for consideration...

1. Relationship tables should allow configuration of additional metadata about the relationship. Some business scenarios might include a customer-specific "Active Date" for a product transition.

2. Relationship data should be available for syndication

3. Syndicator should support language selection for maps like the Data Manager Export process does. Also, Syndicator should support export of images, pdfs, etc. into file format similar to the Data Manager.

4. Tool should be modified to support "overrides" for all text and image or attachment fields based on some configurable grouping (like "Masks" for Trade Partners) in the same way that language overrides are applied. For example, by clicking on an "Override" tab, the user could select a particular Mask entry and then input override values for any attribute or field or image. This would be different than a qualified table that requires a managed list of possible values -- these overrides would be applied to open text.

Former Member · ‎12-21-2005

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on MDM.

My company is most interested in MDM for the PCM scenario: print catalogs and populating web-based catalogs (specifically, SAP CRM Web Shop catalogs).

Two enhancements that would make it an easy decision to migrate to MDM PCM:

(1) integration with R/3 Material Master Classification system - we store all "extended" material attributes in the R/3 classification system, and we need this information available in our catalogs

(2) tighter integration between MDM and CRM Catalogs: I understand that it may be possible to export catalogs from MDM and import into CRM, but explicit integration between these two products for this scenario would be much appreciated.

Thank you,

-Matt

former_member181958 · ‎12-20-2005

Hi Mark,

I would put it in simple words - educate businesses on business front, not on technology front alone. There is no doubt MDM has got many powerful features and tecnological advancement and it is improving with each release. There is an imperative need to bring out and publicise the business benefits which MDM can offer. I am not talking about telling business how MDM help in giving technological edge to their business needs, what I am talking about is educating businesses how it can be useful to them from business stand point.

To be more specific - MDM can be made Industry specific. Just on the same lines as SAP has done for its age old and yet most successful product- R/3. Now R/3 is available in Industry specific Packaged solution. Bundled to cater specific business segments- Pharma, E&C, Power and many more.

This will also help business appreciate the powerful features of MDM and this will help making them decision to go for MDM.

Regards,

Pravin Bute

Former Member · ‎12-08-2005

Hi Markus,

No doubt that MDM is a Great product but still needs to improve in a lot of areas. Though am a newbie, while working with the syndicator I came across an area of improvement.

<b>Can we we have the "Automap" function in the "Item Mapping" section of the Syndicator. Looking at the scenarios we can come across, it looks like for a huge number of source items to be mapped to the destination can be a painful task.</b>

I would be talking about MDM in the days ahead thought!!!

Cheers!

Anand

Former Member · ‎12-05-2005

Our company finished an evaluation of MDM and so your thread is timely. Here are some of the opportunities for improvement we found at the time of the evaluation (SP2 at the time):

Although we've already addressed this with SAP, we find it odd, as do other companies we discussed this with, that MDM -- the backbone of the NetWeaver stack -- is not powered by NetWeaver. This does not mean we won't use it as there are good reasons to not replatform, but it does pose an interesting question as to why Product Management doesn't run this tool on their own application platform.

The MDM Product Suite is rather loosely coupled together. As another poster commented, I believe end-users would greatly benefit from a more coherent, tightly coupled user interface across the MDM Components (console, import manager, client, and syndicator).

The matching/import capability didn't appear as robust as we thought one might need when comparing 100s of thousands of records. Is the ability to do fuzzy comparisons and reports available in future releases?

I was glad to see that automation came about in SP3. This was a large GAP in SP2. We haven't had a chance to test it, but this is an absolutely must for large companies.

Will/does MDM provide the ability to have global vs. local attributes?

Hierarchical data management -- on multiple levels -- is a must as many R/3 Master Data maintenance screens currently allow this.

We would like to see the validations done in an open language environment -- not sure why MDM chose a proprietary language here, but why not open it to Java or something the ESA community already knows?

PCM does not have the ability to show which categories a product is assigned to (no one-to-many display). This could probably easily be fixed, and probably ought to be.

Will the Portal-enabled maintenace in MDM reduce the high memory requirements for end-users? In our scenario, a machine with 1/2 GB of memory and a 2x2 server produced really poor performance (only importing 2k records).

Thanks for the opportunity to have input on the product.

aaron_thomas · ‎12-05-2005

I would like to see better security features and user administration features. For example, our company security policy for R/3 requires users to change their passwords every 40 days. In MDM, administrator has to enter password and user has no ability through client to change their password. Administrators usually set a generic password initially and the system forces the user to change it on the first login. MDM requires the user to reveal their password to the administrator so that it can be entered in the console. This is not good security practice.

The password is also good indefinitely. Their is not a way to define a password policy to change the password after n number of days.

Their is no password confirmation when entering a password in the console to ensure the accuracy of the password entered. Thus the administrator could mis-type the password in the password field and not know it because their was no confirmation required. Only enter it once.

Former Member · ‎12-05-2005

Hi All,

It'll be very useful if internal formats such as map file format or structure of repository(a2a) will be more transparent or can be generated and exported from/to XML-file structures.

Because manual design or change of repository with more than 60 tables is not attractive in manual mode, but if it generated from XSD simular to XSD of import XML source it is much more comfortable and conforms to modern fluences in DBMS products.

Former Member · ‎12-01-2005

Hi Markus,

it would be very convenient to have the possibility to export validations from one repository to another (e.g. "transport" of new validations between DEV, QA and PRO-system).

Additionally being able to mass import maps would be a good thing (in order to avoid the need to import all check table maps one by one when you connect a new client).

Third and last point:

Especially in a Central Master Data Management scenario it is important that the users can keep track of changes for a certain master data record in MDM (asking the users to search in audit logs for that piece of information does not seem a good idea to me).

Looking forward to see MDM evolve further in the future.

Regards,

Lars

Former Member · ‎11-22-2005

Hi Markus,

In addition to suggested features I would add duplex data exchange for Import Manager and Syndicator:

- on the stage of Import some XML file with Import status is generated and placed to preconfigured directory to be processed by MDC.

- on the stage of Syndication XML file with Syndication status(e.g. status is generated on the base of IDOC processing logs from R/3) is placed to preconfigured directory by MDC to be processed (and displayed right after the syndication) by Syndicator or custom tool.

These features could add more flexibility in developing more "automated" scenarios and greatly facilitate errors tracking in MDM processes.

Thanks & Regards,

Andrey

Former Member · ‎11-13-2005

Marcus,

I am a new user in MDM community. Can you send me some useful weblogs / technical editorials which can help me starting with MDM. Are there any weblogs which tell about how to install MDM and start working with it.

Former Member · ‎11-11-2005

Hi,

On our eCommerce web site we provide our customers a personalized view of products which the user maintains online.

We are unable to implement a master/slave architecture because we require a single table within our slave repository to have read/write access. All of the remaining tables are read-only.

What would assist us in our scenerio is a property on the table level to allow for a table to be excluded from synchronization in master/slave mode.

Anup

Former Member · ‎11-10-2005

The following items where show stoppers for my customer regarding further use of MDM as a book database.

I see the need for following improvements:

1. GUI, my customer works with book data with around 160 fields per book. There is need to be able to group fields in the main table and based on this have tabs to select which group you are working with. This is possible using web interface, but the web is not good enough for their work.

2. It would be convenient to keep the AutoID, created date etc for one of the records when you merge records in the client.

3. I need calculated fields in look up tables.

4. When an import records it is possible to check out the record, the problem is that the check out is done after the import. Therefore I am not able to do QA in the client on imported records.

Former Member · ‎11-09-2005

Hi Mark,

When we play with Import Manager, for example in the Import Status if its says some of the field or field value not mapped properly[defective], then when we select the MAP FIELDS/VALUES <b>it should highlight the field which is defective.</b>

Will come up with few more soon.

thanks

Alexander

Former Member · ‎11-07-2005

Hi Markus & MDM community

SAP MDM is an awe-inspiring product. It’s a tremendous tool with features of revealing, cost-effective, flexible and easy-deployment.

Here are some remarkable key points about this intensifying Product…

1.Easy Configurations.

2.Comfortable Installations.

3.Various utility functionalities like cleanse, Merge, de-duplication…

4.Transfer object from one R/3 to other R/3 with minimal effort.

5.Step-by-step process visibility from MDC – Import Manager – Client – Syndicator and back to MDC.

6.Simple workflow mechanism.

Here I would strongly suggest the following enhancements / developments

1.Visibility to the XML files which has been loaded into Import manager at Import manager level.

2.Default status indicator for the object that has been already syndicated or not.

3.Undo Option in the MDM Client.

4.User Logon Information at MDM client level. ( Who are all currently logged in.)

MDM overall has a great potential to become an integration, storage, efficient and user friendly data hub.

Thanks

Alexander

Former Member · ‎11-03-2005

Another missing feature is the ability to capture repository table schemas as an exported spreadsheet (or other format). This is needed to satisfy systems documentation requirements.

It would also be useful to be able to export import and syndication mappings.

Former Member · ‎10-31-2005

Hi Markus

The MDM product is – in my mind, amazing. But still needs enhancements in some areas, one of them being the consolidation area.

Many customers that I have met have commented on the issue of consolidation, matching and merging of data – Customers expect some kind of matching engine that helps to match between records from two or more sources. This matching engine should supply a probability of match between records based on the creation of matching rules, tokenizing, maybe even soundex and other clever matching techniques.

Charles

Mark63 · ‎09-30-2005

Thanks to all so far for your prompt and valuable input.

Let's keep the thread alive.

Thanks,

Markus

Former Member · ‎09-29-2005

I have a few more Markus-

Maintainence iviews that can extract validation expressions and run them before the manually entered record is saved.

A graceful way of logging exceptions generated during manualy entry either through data manager or ivews.

Import manager being able to enforce validation defined in data manager, unique constraints, and required fields defined in the console.

Import manager to be able to do partial imports and throw the ones that failed import into a log?

Thanks

Savi

Former Member · ‎09-29-2005

Hi Markus,

First of all, I should say its a simple and nice product which can do lot of things!!

But, I have the following things to say from myside,

1. Need a documentation ASAP for beginners to explore the tool easily.

2. Validation engine must be enhanced to handle complex validations.

3. Mapping should be more flexible. Any idea of having a robust mapping functionality like what we have in XI?

4. Program exits for better validations and mappings.

5. Enhanced syndication.

6. Communication between repositories: I can understand that this may be a performance issue. But, what happens to scenarios where my repositories want to share the common set of information?

7. Better & automated communication with EAI tools.

8. How about SSO for all client tools?

9. How about starting the client tools without specifying the repository and then log into a repository of my choice? This makes life easy as I need not start the client tools again and again.

10. Need enhanced log & Reports functionality.

I will come up with more and more later.

Regards,

Rajani Kumar

Former Member · ‎09-29-2005

MDM needs stronger Central Master Data Registration processes. Ability to generate identifiers based on business rules. Add Code exits to allow more complex validations and key generation.

Former Member · ‎09-29-2005

Hi Markus,

These are some of things that I observed while working with MDM, and that come to my mind right now

SAP's MDM tool has out of the box functionality (modularized) for configuration of the repository, manual data entry, and data viewing, ETL functions, data extractions, and a nice API functionality. Some key highlights, with caveats where applicable, include,

1. Ease of config

2. Role based secutiry definitions (constraitns not possible on fields used in qualified look ups)

3. Low deployment efforts

4. API has functions that let you capture meta data in the absence of out of box meta data.

5. Masks for test sets

6. Syndicator as search, and extract tool, particularly easy if the output data format is XML

7. Import manager excelled for loads if you have clean data sets.

8. Validation expressions with moderate functionality

9. Import Manager batch useful during conversions (currently cannot parameterize the repository information)

There is a lot of potential for improvement and development:

1. Transport mechanism (similar to SAP) for migration of objects from say DEV to PRD environment

2. MDM modules need upgrade together (old console with new client or vice versa does not work)

3. Qualified tables that are multi-level deep

4. Enhancments to validation and calculation engines for aggregate functions, date based calculations, etc.

5. Cross record business validation within a table or across tables

6. More than one main table so that Master data as well as exceptions captured during integration can be stored in the same repository

7. Iviews that help maintain the data so that data manager does not need to be rolled out to end users

8. Table joins for tables within a repository or across 2 repositories using iveiws?

9. Server instability problems

MDM overall has a great potential to become an integration, storage, efficient and user friendly data hub.

Thanks

Savi

Former Member · ‎09-29-2005

Mark,

First things first, its an excellent product. I love the speed at which the data is thrown back to the user even the no. of records is huge. This holds good, even if I am searching for data from EP as well.

Features of storing literature, documents, pictures for the products is too good.

I am sure this is the biggest thing that customers are looking for.

1. The users should be able add/modify/edit records from an EP front end rather than loggin on to the client.

2. I would expect most of the functionalities that the MDM client would give to be on the EP so that they do NOT have to log into multiple system for data synchronization.

3. The user management also should be integrated with the UME of the EP.

4. I can understand the way MDM has been designed especially around the repository structures as it comes from a catalog management background. The difference is here we are dealing data as individual tables rather than like the way SAP deals as an object without really bothering about the individual tables. This could be a good thing / bad thing depending on which background the user / data modeller is coming from.

5. Coming from a technical stand point, as the current architecture is not in line with the NetWeaver arch, do we have plans to change the architecture to align with the NetWeaver architecture.

I will post as things come out.

Regards,

Ravi

Brainstorming on master data management concepts

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