Partner functions – What, How and Where…

Partner Function is a common term used in the system which describes the people and organization with whom the business is carried out and therefore are involved in any kind of business transaction. Partner functions are widely used in the ECC system which is a kind of relationship (There is no relationship concept available in the ECC instead of this we use the partner function concept) between two customers which define which partner perform what activities or operations for the attached customer.

One of the most common process which uses the Partner function is the Partner determination procedure which actually finds out which customer perform what kind of actions for another customer. For e.g. A is Bill to party (Bill to party is a partner function) for B means here every payment transaction for the customer B is performed by the customer A.

But in this document we will not discuss much about the partner determination procedure but we will concentrate on the replication of Relationship from CRM to ECC as Partner functions and vice versa.

Role of Partner function in ECC:

• Partner function relates one customer to another which does a particular action for the customer referred.
• Again this is used in Partner determination procedure to identify the related customer.
• Since there is no relationship context in ECC system except Contact person, Partner functions take centre stage.

Role of Partner function in CRM:

• Relationship’s usage in particular sales area is defined as Partner function.
• Relationships can also be defined independent of Sales areas in CRM system.
• Relationships which are relevant for sales areas, Partner function definition comes into picture.

Types of standard Partner functions available:

Broadly Sold to Party, Ship to Party, Bill to Party and Payer are often used standard ones in the system. Of course there are other standard partner functions which are available in the system.

Basic settings:

Before replicating partner functions, there are few basic settings that have to be carried out in the CRM and ECC systems. Carry out the same before actually replicating the partner functions.

1. Partner function Definition and association of the same to Partner function categories.
2. Assigning and mapping CRM partner functions to ECC partner functions.

Define Partner functions in following SPRO path:

==> CRM

==> Basic Functions

==> Partner Processing

==> Define Partner Functions

For Replication:

==> CRM

==> Basic Functions

==> Partner Processing

==> Data Transfer

==> Distribution of Partner functions from SAP ECC into CRM & Distribution of Partner functions from CRM into SAP ECC.

Common queries during replication of Partenr functions:

Q – Users created PF at ECC but it don’t reflect to CRM as the relationship.

A – First you must check whether the customization at the CRM system has been carried out properly or not for the PF data transfer from ECC to CRM.

     Customizing path will be:-  Customer Relationship Management->Basic Functions  Partner Processing  Data Transfer.

Q – Users have deleted the partner function in the ECC but relationship doesn’t get deleted at the CRM.

A – If you delete the partner function at the ECC side it will never delete the relationship at the CRM instead of this it will only delete the corresponding partner function assignment. This is because we are to bother only about the partner function usage in CRM system which is present in      CRMM_BUT_FRG_0080 and CRMM_BUT_FRG_0081 tables.

I hope this blog would have given a high level overview of partner function. You can check the following help portal page also which is used as reference.

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_crm40/helpdata/en/3c/92eceb484a11d5980800a0c9306667/content.htm

Regards,

Venkat