Product Category Hierarchy

[Former Member]

Hi All,

We are Implementing SRM 5.0 (Server 5.5)Need help in use of category Hierarchy. How do I use it....we intend to have four levels within the hierarchy. How do I use it in conjunction with the the material groups I intend to download for R/3, as there is no concept of material group Hierarchies in R/3.

For example if I have the following Structure

Level 1: Office Supplies/Furnitures

Level 1.1: Office Supplies

Level 1.1.1 Stationary

Level 1.1.1.1 Printing Paper

How do I manage this....Do I create all the levels as seperate Material Groups in R/3....and the how do i replicate them to represent an Hierarchy in SRM

Thanks

Abdul Kadir Rajbhoy

[Former Member]

Hi,

You can use Badi BBP_PRODCAT_HIER to create a product category hierarchy.

Basicly, when loading the product categories from the back-end into SRM, this Badi will determine the parent category. By maintaiing your hierarchy in a custom table, the badi can always determine its parent.

In a previous project I used this BADI to create a hierarchy with only 2 levels, I am not sure about 4 but I think it should be no problem.

Regards,

Koen Claes

[Former Member]

Koen,

Thanks for your mail. Just to clarify my understanding of your proposal, do I have to create the parent category manualy in SRM.

Also, do the product categories appear in an Hierarchical view in the front end e.g in the details of the shopping cart.

Wouls you know the SRM tables where the Product Categories are stored.

Thanks and Kind Regards,

Abdul

[Former Member]

Hi,

You can maintain the parent categories either in SRM or in the back-end. In my previous project, we chose to create the material groups in the back-end for reasons of simplicity. With only 1 back-end, this seems like the best option to me.

As for the front-end view: yes, the categories are displayed in a hierarchy because a new search help is used. The user can choose between the two views in the front-end.

Tables in SRM are COMM_CATEGORY & COMM_CATEGORYT.

T-code COMM_HIERARCHY works best since it also displays the hierarchy as a tree.

Regards,

Koen

[imthiaz_ahmed]

You requirement looks similar to classification concept of R/3. Take a look into that.

Regards, IA

[Former Member]

Hi. I am not sure if there is a better way, but I have only ever done this in the backend R/3 / ECC system by using separate material groups with a naming convention.

Using your example, you could define an 8 digit material group code, with 2 characters for each level.

You could say that 01 means Office Supplies/Furnitures, then 01 means Office Supplies then 01 means Stationary then 01 means Printing Paper. This would give you a material group of 01010101. Then you could say 02 is Fax Paper or something, so 01010102 is that material group. 02 at level 2 could be furniture or whatever, so 01020101 could be a desk, then 01020102 could be a chair and so on.

Something else you could look at is using UNSPSC code as your material groups. That way all the levels are done for you. It will also help if you ever want to punch out into a supplier catalog from SRM.

I hope this was of some help.

Regards,

Dave.