Why customer-material info record is mandatory?

[Kaitlin]

Hello.

After many years since my last work with this process I successfully configured the automatic creation of a sales order based on a purchase order between inter-company partners(to be crystal clear partners belong to different Sales/Purchasing organizations and company codes and are both hosted on the same SAP platform). In PO I used standard output NEU to trigger the iDoc.

As much as I know there are no developments and the process makes use of the standard SAP features.

The step the baffles (and following on troubles) me deeply is the fact I must create a customer-material info record (CMIR) for the material that will be passed on from PO into SO despite the fact the material is correctly maintained on both organizations.

In the absence of a CMIR the iDoc fails to create the sales order and displayed error message is

"The material number for item aaaaaa could not be identified" despite the fact segment E1EDP19 001 contains the material number known to both parties.

My problem is this: I would like to automate this process in a platform with more then 50 company codes where there are thousands of materials shared, the thought I would be forced to create millions of records is simply put scary and will be a strong argument against adopting this process (and this would be a pity IMO because following on I would like to also automate the purchasing invoice creation based on the RD04 output issued from the intercompany sales invoice...).

SAP platform is on ECC 6.x.

Question 1: Is there a standard way to avoid the need for CMIR creation or do we have to modify the standard conversion program?

Question 2: when I first studied this process many years ago I remember that variant-configuration materials could not be used for this process, only "normal" ones, was this part improved in the meanwhile?

Thank you.

[DominikTylczyn · Accepted solution]

Hello kaitlin

See the note 305309 - Mat.determination at receipt of ORDERS-IDOCs for 3 options of material determination in ORDERS message processing. As per the note:

• E1EDP19 001 -> material number is determined with CMIR.
• E1EDP19 002 -> material number is entered directly.

So all you need to do is to change the qualifier from 001 to 002. That can be done with e.g. IDoc conversion rules.

If you don't like this approach, see the note 61063 - Material determination by means of EAN number. It advises, using EXIT_SAPLVEDA_001 to determine material numbers with a custom logic. In your case, the logic will be very straightforward, i.e. get the material number from E1EDP19 001 and use it as material number, not as customer material number as it is used in standard.

As per note 1453002 - CU013 in IDOC or BAPI process - CFG_IS_INCONSISTENT_OR_INCOMPLETE variant configurations should be handled by ORDERS IDocs:

Resolution

Make sure that your IDOC/BAPI input data is filled out correctly. Refer to below SAP Notes for further information.

• SAP Note 900869 - Filling configuration for EDI/BAPI
• SAP Note 900380 - Configurable items in the SD process (idocs & bapis)
• SAP Note 549563 - BAPI: Filling configuration structures
• SAP Note 808902 - SD EDI: How? - question 6

Best regards

Dominik Tylczynski

[Kaitlin · Accepted solution]

Hello.

Thank you for the time taken to reply with such wealth of information.

It's worth mentioning the fact that once the conversion rule is on on it will be applied to all ORDERS type message - it seems obvious now after doing the testing and also discussing this topic and solution with a more experience colleague but no so much at the first glance. Therefore, ultimately if the solution I'm proposing to Business team is going to be accepted I will have to create a Z message to protect and insulate other processes based on the same ORDERS iDoc type.