Getting started with master data quality management for products using SAP Master Data Governance on SAP S/4HANA 1809

With the SAP S/4HANA 1809 release you can define data quality rules to evaluate your product master data, integrated with SAP Master Data Governance. You can quickly and easily get an overview of the master data quality, even without having central governance or consolidation of master data configured. As such, this is a perfect first step to analyze the quality of your product master data before implementing for example data stewardship. See https://blogs.sap.com/2018/10/15/master-data-quality-management-with-sap-master-data-governance-on-sap-s4hana-1809/ for functional details.

What do I need to get started?

Of course, you need to have SAP S/4HANA 1809 installed. In contrast to SAP Master Data Governance on ERP, where you need to install MDG as an add-on to the ECC component, SAP S/4HANA comes with all functionality of MDG aboard. Furthermore, you need to have a license for SAP Master Data Governance for product master data. There are several licensing options, please see https://www.sap.com/products/master-data-governance.html#pricing-packaging for more information.

There are a few basic configuration steps required. See the respective topic on our product assistance pages: https://help.sap.com/viewer/6d52de87aa0d4fb6a90924720a5b0549/1809.000/en-US/4e78a74ca25c48929d62adedeb55e176.html

To access the latest version of these pages, start with http://help.sap.com/s4hana, then navigate to Product Assistance => Cross Components => Master Data Governance => How to Get Master Data Governance Running => Configuration of MDG, Data Quality Management => Rule Management and Quality Evaluation.

How do I access the features?

Next to the place where you found the documentation of the configuration steps, there is also documentation on how to use the product, namely: Working with Master Data Governance => Working with MDG, Data Quality Management => Rule Management and Quality Evaluation.

After having the role Master Data Steward – Product Data (SAP_BR_PRODMASTER_STEWARD) assigned, users have 8 Fiori tiles to launch the respective apps to define, monitor, and improve master data quality.

How do I create a rule?

You use the app Manage Data Quality Rules for Products to create rules including detailed descriptions of their business aspects, responsibilities, status, and most important: their technical implementation with BRFplus. The documentation includes step-by-step instructions to create example rules.

How do I apply the rule to my data?

With the app Manage Data Quality Evaluation for Products you can create an evaluation process, which runs in the background, analyzes the data and provides the results for later analysis. Of course, you can also schedule such an evaluation, for example every week.

Where can I see the results?

Use the app Evaluation Results for Products to see the result of the data quality evaluation. You can use the filter bar to select the products of interest. Besides the filters offered in the standard variant, you can choose further filters from the product basic data view. The chart area allows you to quickly spot areas of interest by sorting, drilling-down using attributes of product master data or the data quality rule and using various chart types. The chart can also be used to further filter the list of the evaluation result. This list shows you the outcomes of all rules in detail. You can add further fields from the product basic data view to see further information about the affected product. Sorting, grouping and filtering of the list allows you to create selection of interest. The app variations Evaluation Results for Plant Data of Products and Evaluation Results for Sales Data of Products provide you with a view on the evaluation result at the respective organizational level.

How do I correct the erroneous data?

Directly from the app Evaluation Results for Products, after you have selected the results of your interest, you can use for example the Manage Product Master Data app, MDG’s mass processing, or MDG’s central governance processes to correct the data. Furthermore, you can share exactly how you came to your selection with other users, for example to assign the task to correct the respective data. You can do this directly from the Fiori Launchpad, for example via mail or using SAP CoPilot. By the way: of course, you can save all settings in the app as a variant, making it easy for you to retrieve them later and making them shareable by admins as defaults for other users.

Where can I define data quality scores (KPIs)?

To define how you measure your data quality in terms of data quality scores that are for example used as KPIs to monitor and manage your correction work, go to the app Configure Score Calculation for Products. Here you can define as many data quality categories and related data quality dimensions as you like. By assigning data quality rules to these dimensions you define how scores for dimensions and categories are calculated based on the score of each assigned rule. You can also set thresholds for target, warning, and critical levels of the score.

How do I get an overview on the data quality status?

The place to get started on a data quality overview is the app named accordingly: Data Quality Evaluation Overview for Products. At a glance, you get to know the latest scores, trending information, and cumulative information on recently detected errors. Customizable cards on this app, which follows the Fiori Overview Page floorplan, allow you not only to see this high-level view, but also to drill-down to the levels of dimensions, rules, and detailed evaluation results.

SAP Master Data Governance Community

I am convinced that we have delivered another piece of immense value as part of SAP Master Data Governance. As usual, please share your comments below this blog. For questions it is even better to use our community https://www.sap.com/community/topics/master-data-governance.html and follow the tag SAP Master Data Governance https://answers.sap.com/tags/67837800100800004488 for collaboration. Last, but not least: stay up-to-date by following SAP Master Data Governance on our blogspace! https://blogs.sap.com/tags/67837800100800004488/