Material with different description

[ashish_andani]

Hello Everyone,

my client has one requirement that..

they have one material suppose X and dept one calls it ABC and dept two calls it PQR to the same material.

where i can discriminate this material description dept wise in material master..

It should be done from MM side not from SD.

thanks in advance

[eduardo_hinojosa]

Hi

I think that it's possible with enhancements and its problems. So, be sure that your customer understand the cost in future maintenance.

The idea is create your own customer field in tables. I prefer to create for SD because in my opinion you have more tools to enhance it (userexits, enhancements and BADI's, and VOFM in copy rules and so on). See Note 44410 - Integrating cust.-specific fields in matl master to understand how to do it. After, use the proper tools to update this description in documents (SO, deliveries and invoices in SD; PO, GRI and so on in MM).

Don't forget create a search help for this field and train the end-users to search the material for these descriptions.

I hope this helps you

Regards

Eduardo

[former_member42743]

I can only think of one way to do this. I agree with others that the business should decided on a single common name for their materials.

You can't really define a description on a department basis.

The only option I can think of is to maintain a language dependent description for your users.

Have basis config a language E2. You then define the one material description in language EN, the other description in language E2.

Have the users in department "A" log in with language EN, have users in department "B" logon with language E2.

They should see the descriptions set up for them. Usually in most systems, if a language dependant description is not provided, the EN description will be used, (or the primary language of the system). So make sure the most common description is used in the primary language.

This would not be module specific however. (SD vs. MM). An individual user will see the same description regardless of the transactions they use. So if an MM person runs an SD transaction for instance, they should see the description of their logon language.

FF

See this link for creating additional languages:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/en/ad/06dcf4c4be11d291c70000e8a5f6e6/content.htm

[Former Member]

Even though technically you can add as many texts as you want by defining your own language settings is possible, still that is not a viable solution. Its not even workable solution.

Your basic description will always remain one and in all std. reports. Secondary descriptions can be viewed but not in every transactions.

Also, you may have to define texts for each material (or may be for all masters) in each different language code.

Apart from that, its not advisable to even develop any exit or enhance fields for this particular requirement as again basic description that appears everywhere remains same its only material master display that will give you some other text.

Also, there is a chance of creating duplicates once this parellel system is implemented, and hence I believe you should convince them to arrive at common description.

The benifits of having different descriptions are limited to none and not worth the problems that may arise out of it.

Regards,

Dakshesh

[former_member42743]

Using a separate language will not solve all the issues. I would disagree that it is not a workable solution as otherwise SAP could never be used in other languages such as FR, ES and DE.

But I agree that this is a ridiciulous requirement. The name should be the same everywhere internally. If they want to use tradenames or substitue customer material descriptions wen material is sold/shipped, those issues can be totally handled by other functionality.

FF

[tejyadav]

Hi, Why don't you use 'Old material number' to maintain "PQR" & "ABC" to be maintained as Material description, In this way you can have 2 descriptions, you can inform your respective departments the search criteria.

[Former Member]

I agree.. material description is unique for that material and it's not logical to have multiple description. you can make use of "purchase text", "sales text", and etc to differentiate it.

[Former Member]

You should convince your customer to arrive at a common description. Same material should be known uniquely in an organisation.

Technically it is not possible.

Regards,

Dakshesh