Can I use one Business Partner repository for Vendor and Customer?

[Former Member]

Can I use one Business Partner repository for Vendor and Customer? or do we have to use Vendor and Customer Repository separately. How can we do that? What are the pros and cons? can any one provide some examples:

[Former Member]

Hi Deepak

The key purpose of SAP "enabling" the facility of multiple main tables in a repository is to primarily "manage" those master data objects that are related to each other. Typical examples will be a) Customer - Material, b) Supplier - Material, etc.

While, it is pretty easy to add multiple main tables in a repository, it is also important to understand the purpose of doing so based on the business requirements.

Besides, you got to be aware that in case you are "fixing" any issues with one main table (master data object) for which you have to unload the repository, the users will not be able to use the repository that has a main table defined for other master data object. Hence, there are pros and cons of using this capability of multiple main tables.

So, it is really important to understand the "W's" - What, Why, When, Where, Who of Data modeling before actually working on the "H" - How to in the SAP MDM tool.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Neelesh

[former_member182007]

Heyy

More like the same if I am customising any repository and creating atleast 3-4 main table (as per my business wants). Is this a right practice ??

Please suggest.

Thx

Deep

[Former Member]

Hi RajaSR

My understanding is that the Business Partner and Product repositories (also called as - cross system repositories) are designed considering the SAP ECC, SAP SRM and SAP CRM systems, whereas Material, Customer and Vendor repositories are designed based on SAP ECC (ERP) system only.

Additionally, the terms Material and Product - sound the same but in business terminology they mean quite different things. For e.g.; Product is like "finished" item whereas Material could be "non-finished" item.

In case of "Business Partner" - this term used in the SRM and CRM systems where Customer & Suppliers (Vendors) are the "partners" with whom you do business. In case of SAP ERP they are distinct master data objects.

Hence, if you see the repository structures of standard business content for Product and Material, there will be distinct differences in terms of number of fields of information in the repository, actuals fields, look up tables, etc.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Neelesh

[Former Member]

HI ,

This is all depend upon on business need that whether you create separate repositories.

You can check what are the pros and cons and also how to migrate from two repositories to one with multi maintables

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/index?rid=/library/uuid/80765a21-78f3-2b10-74a2-dc2ab57a1bd2

If you need more help then get back to us.

Thanks,

Sudhanshu