What are change documents

[Former Member]

What are change documents and what is the diff b/w change dopcumnets and change pointers

[Former Member]

A change document object definition contains the tables which represent a commercial object in the system. The definition can also specify whether the deletion of individual fields is to be documented. If a table contains fields whose values refer to units and currency fields, the associated table, containing the units and currencies, can also be specified.

It must be specified for each table, whether a commercial object contains only one (single case) or several (multiple case) records. For example, an order contains an order header and several order items. Normally one record for the order header and several records for the order items are passed to the change document creation when an order is changed.

The name under which a change document object is created is an object class.

Check this link for more details.

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw2004s/helpdata/en/2a/fa0175493111d182b70000e829fbfe/content.htm

Change Pointer (Master Data Distribution)

Purpose

If you want to distribute master data changes with the SMD tool (Shared Master Data), changes to the master data objects are flagged for distribution by change pointers ( ® Master Data Distribution).

The SMD tool is connected to the change document interface. If the master data changes are to be distributed, the application writes a change document. The contents of this are passed to the SMD tool. The tool writes change pointers, reads the application data and creates the master IDoc.

The master IDoc is then passed to the ALE layer, which sends it to all interested systems.

The change pointer tables (BDCP und BDCPS) should be as small as possible. Use as few change pointers as possible and delete change pointers which you no longer need.

You can increase the rate of processing by using the Analyze Change Pointer and Reorganize Change Pointer functions.

Check this link for more details.

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/12/83e03c19758e71e10000000a114084/content.htm

[Former Member]

Where can we see the change documents created?

[former_member554978]

Hi Kittu,

Check the below tables:

CDHDR and CDPOS.

Thanks.

Note:Reward Points if you find useful.

[Former Member]

Change documents hold the changes made to master or transction data ie material master , customer master , POs, sales orderss etc.

By using these docs, we can know what r the changes made to a PO after it is created.

This data will be stored in tables CDHDR and CDPOS

we can read this dat using 2 FMs

CHANGE_DOCUMENT_READ_HEADER

CHANGE_DOCUMENT_READ_ITEM.

Reward if useful

Narendra

[Former Member]

hi,

A change document consists of a document header (identification of the document, who changed what, when and how) and a document item (what was changed - old and new value) for every changed attribute of the application data.

Changes to the attributes are stored in the change documents in visual form, meaning formatted for printing. This means that the display of the changes, which is independent from the release, provides an ideal basis for proving who made which changes when