Enterprise Resource Planning Blogs by Members
Gain new perspectives and knowledge about enterprise resource planning in blog posts from community members. Share your own comments and ERP insights today!
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
qaiser_rafique
Explorer
In this blog, i will discuss the changes in Material master data.

Material Master:


Structurally material master is same and the old transaction (mm01, mm02, mm03) still exists in S/4HANA world. However, there are some fields removed, new material type added and length of material has been changed but beyond that, there is not much changed from a functional perspective.

Material Master Field Length:


The first change is material master field length earlier it was 18 character in ECC now it has changed to 40 characters in S/4HANA. If you go to F1 help and click on technical data and double click on data element.



IN ECC the length of the material is 18 character.

 



In S/4 Hana the length of the material is 40 character

 



However, it is switched off by default. The length of the material is 40 character meaning technically material length take on to 40 characters but by default, it is not set to 40 characters.

You have to check the extended material field. The menu path to check the flag for extended material field is

SPRO --> IMG --> CROSS-APPLICATION FUNCTIONS --> GENERAL APPLICATION FUNCTIONS --> FIELD LENGTH EXTENSION --> ACTIVATE EXTENDED FIELDS

GO TO NEW ENTRIES AND CHECK THIS FLAG

 



 

Unless you check this on SAP will not use entire 40 characters in all external interface communication. You can very well create a material with 40 characters.

 



 

But when you use interface to communicate like sales order, purchase order using IDOC or any other mechanism. SAP is still using old 18-character material length. That is because BAPI and all the system that is built and place are basically with 18 characters. For a functional consultant, the definition of material is 40 character but when it comes to interface, the external system does not know what is the definition of material. So you have to check the Flag for the Extended material number so that SAP is starting to use the extended field for communication to external system when it comes to material master.

You can restrict the length of the material master. You can use transaction OMSL where you specify the format of material master.

Foreign Trade Data


The second change in material master the field Foreign trade data is no longer relevant in S/4 Hana. It is all part of GTS now.

New Material type (SERV)


The third change is the addition of new material type SERV. As the name suggests it intended to use for service and the views available for this material types are

  • Basic data

  • Sales view

  • Purchasing view

  • Accounting


If you like please give me your valuable feedback.

Thanks

 
7 Comments
Labels in this area