Simplification Item: Material Field Length Extension

With the TOP Simplification List Items approach we want to start a S/4HANA SCN Blog series to provide more information about dedicated simplification items. Simplification items where we assume that any customer project has to deal with. The following S/4HANA SCN Blog is collecting these TOP Simplification Items with the links to the dedicated S/4HANA blogs.

The TOP Simplification List Items

Within this blog we want to provide additional information regarding the Simplification Item: Material Field Length Extension

Simplification List Item Description

• With SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511, the maximum field length of the material number is extended from 18 to 40 characters.

• The appropriate related SAP development entities (domains, structures, table types, and transparent tables, external and internal interfaces, user interfaces, and so on) have been adapted accordingly. Where required, automated logic is in place and executed automatically in case a customer converts his current SAP Business Suite system into SAP S/4HANA 1511.
• The default setting, both after the move to SAP S/4HANA and for new installations, is that the extended material number functionality is NOT activated. To use a material number with 40 characters, the customer needs to activate this functionality

Business Impact

• In case the customer continues to use to 18 characters long material number functionality, there is no business impact. Depending from the details there might be an impact on existing custom code.
• In case the customer does activate the extended material number functionality the impact within the multi-system landscape need to be considered where not all related systems are able to deal with a 40 character material number.

Required and Recommended Action(s)

• Execute the related conversion pre-checks and custom code migration worklist to get detailed information about the potentially required custom code adaption effort.

More Details:

• For more details see the PPT attached to the following SAP Note 2267140: http://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/2267140
• Additional Code Inspector Check provided to identify custom code impact more precisely. See SAP Note 2272014  https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/0002272014