C4C Data Workbench - Relationship Between External Keys and Associated Objects

[bnienhaus]

Hello All,

I'm attempting to import "Attribute Assignment" and "Attribute Assignment Item" values via the C4C Data Workbench. I've followed other posts and was able to successfully complete the process, but I have questions regarding the external keys. See below for sample files and questions...

Sample File for BusinessAttributeAssignment

Sample File for BusinessAttributeAssignmentItem

Question Details

It appears that the External Key is saved in the C4C database and permanently associated with a specific Business Partner. For example, if I execute imports for the above samples and I were to re-execute the import for BusinessAttributeAssignment with the following change, the external keys appear to remain assigned to their original BusinessPartnerID, and the second upload has no impact.

To me, this means that after upload, the External Key cannot be reused except to refer to the original Business Partner object (ex: I cannot use CUS001 to refer to BusPartID3 in a subsequent upload), and this limitation means that I must keep track of all External Keys I have ever uploaded in C4C or use sequential External Keys (which would assign multiple keys to the same object).

Questions are as follows:

1. Can anyone confirm that my assumptions regarding the permanent assignment of an external key to the related object are correct?
2. Can anyone suggest the best way to view the relationship between the External Key and the related Business Partner object within C4C after executing the data import?
3. Is there any way to adjust the association of an External Key and assign it to a different related object after the first assignment has been made.

Best Regards,

Brian

[nidhi_chhabra2 · Accepted solution]

Hello Brian,

ExternalKey here can be any unique key and which be reused. It is required to be able to link the Item node.

to answer your queries:

Answer1) Yes that is correct the ExternalKey gets permanent assigned to the related object.
Answer2) The same is not visible in the frontend however you can refer to the imported template from Monitor view in Dataworkbench or you can refer to the excel template for the same.
Answer3) Once assignment is created between ExternalKey and respected imported Business Object , same can't be adjusted or modified later.

Thanks,

Nidhi

[former_member968288 · Accepted solution]

Hi Nidhi,

Many thanks for the answer. I've marked it as correct, but your comment also brings a follow-up question.

Because the relationship between External ID and Object is permanent, I must be able to extract this information from the system. Right now, there are two ways as you mentioned - via the Data Workbench Monitor or via template.

However, these solutions seem incomplete:

1. If the Monitor is used, one would have to check all imports of the same object time to compile a full list. As the list of imports grows over time (to perhaps hundreds of entries), this seems like a great deal of effort.
2. I tried to use the Export function of the Data Workbench to export a full list, but instead of the External IDs (text), the Object ID (GUID) is returned.

So, the problem remains that there is no "easy" way to extract these external IDs once imported. Did I misunderstand something in your reply? Are there any plans for SAP to make the export more full-featured and include a reference to the External ID in text format?

Best Regards,

Brian

[dykstrac · Accepted solution]

Dear Nidhi,

we have the same issue as Brian Nienhaus. How do we keep track of External Keys? Data Workbench templates get deleted after 3 month. Export of external keys is not possible as far as I know.

How are supposed to handle this?

Kind Regards

Christian

[r3n3]

Hi Nidhi,

we are faced with the same challenge. Importing accounts having an external key (the unique ID from the external data source) via workbench. The external key is a mandatory field. The import works fine, because we checked this with an export of accounts using the workbench. Here the external key is included in the export csv.

Learning: SAP C4C are using ExternalKey and ExternalID. Do not mix up. And our import was successful.

User Story: As Account Owner I want to see and search for the old Account ID from the former system in order to answer customer requests, if they use the old Account ID within their request.

But it isn´t possible to display the ExternalKey via UI to the Account Owner.

From our point of view a missing puzzle stone.

What do you recommend to do?

Best regards,

R3N3