Product Information
SAP Master Data Integration(MDI) Services: Set up FAQs 2
This is a follow up to my previous blog post. Here I’ll try to address a few more questions that are frequently asked w.r.t. Master Data Integration service set up.
Question 1: What is MDI service plan?
Answer: MDI service plan indicates consumption scenario in customer landscape. While creating MDI service instance, customer need to choose the service plan based on which application (cloud/ OP) is intended to be integrated
As I write this blog, two MDI service plans are available. There is one plan for SAP Cloud application and another for S/4 HANA OP.
Question 2: Where can I check available MDI service plan and pricing information?
Answer: MDI service plan and pricing information is available here
Question 3: Which runtime environment to choose while creating MDI instance?
Answer: SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) provides multiple runtime environments (for e.g. Cloud Foundry, Kubernetes etc.) which can be leveraged while creating a application/ service.
As I write this blog, MDI supports Cloud Foundry runtime environment only. So choose Cloud Foundry.
Question 4: Does MDI allows configurations? why?
Answer: Certain configurations are allowed specifically for master data objects which have SOAP interfaces enabled i.e. Business Partner and Product master. These configurations are as follows:
- Business System: Business system is a logical system, which functions as sender or receiver in SOAP interface. This is a prerequisite in case customers want to integrate applications via MDI SOAP. You can find more details here
- Partner Determination in MDI: Partner determination for business partner object(specifically customer and supplier) is an important customizing activity in SAP ERP systems. MDI provide configuration to upload the partner determination criteria from SAP ERP system. This criteria is used while replication business partner via MDI SOAP. You can find more details here.
Question 5: Why and when is partner determination logic required on MDI?
Answer: This capability is available to address the following gap:
Certain partner functions can be configured as mandatory for customer/ supplier data in SAP ERP. These partner function could be reflexive in nature i.e. a customer could be its own ordering party or a supplier could be its own goods recipient.
There could be other applications in the landscape which do not provide this information while replicating business partner (customer/ supplier) data to SAP ERP. In such scenarios the replication could fail.
By uploading the partner determination criteria on MDI, one can ensure that while replicating data to SAP ERP, MDI would determine the mandatory partner functions which are reflexive in nature and assign corresponding customer/ supplier.
So customers need to ascertain whether they have applications in their landscape which do not provide mandatory partner function information and if that is the case, they can make use of this feature.
Question 6: Does MDI supports deletion/ block of business partner data
Answer: Yes, MDI supports deletion/ block of business partner (BP) data in integration with S/4 HANA and SAP Data Retention Manager (DRM is a BTP Data Protection and Privacy solution offering). As I write this blog, BP blocking on MDI can only be triggered from connected S/4 HANA application. MDI, in turn, provides out of the box integration with DRM to check purpose with BTP solutions and subsequently block business partner in case business purpose does not exist. For more information, please refer to MDI help documentation security guide.
Question 7: How do I connect SAP S/4 HANA to MDI for business partner replication ?
Answer: MDI can be connected to S/4 HANA via SOAP web service configurations available on S/4 HANA.
Additionally, please refer to the following blogs for detailed steps:
Question 8: Is there any standard integration available with CX for business partner?
Answer: Please explore the CX (commerce cloud, marketing cloud, cloud for customer etc.) integration packages with MDI available on SAP API Business hub