Benefit from SAP Master Data Governance on SAP S/4HANA 2021

According to the product overview that introduces my past blog post about the MDG innovations in the SAP S/4HANA 2020 release, I’d like to give you an update on the 2021 innovations along the following key capabilities in SAP Master Data Governance on SAP S/4HANA:

MDG Innovations with SAP S/4HANA 2021

Central Governance

Central Governance comes with various enhancements in the MDG framework and across the individual master data domains. These include, for example:

• Continue improvements in usability and performance prioritized via SAP Customer Connection (for example, recall of change requests, enhanced search of change requests, improved error message for Material data, hierarchy download and enhanced features in hierarchy comparison and processing of Financial data)
• Adaptation to SAP S/4HANA innovations (for example, handling of multiple addresses for Customer data, attributes for Financial Services Business Partner, account type ‘Cash Accounts’, new fields for ‘Budget Control’ and ‘Open Item Mgmt by Ledger Group’ for Financial data). See also the blog post about GL account innovations in S/4 HANA 2021.
• Support of mass changes for long texts fields in mass processing

Fig.: Recalling change request

	Watch demo featuring improvements in the MDG Application Framework for central governance, incl.: Recall Change Request Personalize Default Display Option in Display Change Documents Readable Change Documents for Characteristics
	Watch demo featuring improvements MDG Application Framework for central governance, incl.: Search Change Request Using Texts Contained in Their Attachments Enable Duplicate Check in Edition Based Data Model Download Hierarchy as Hierarchical View to MS Excel
	Watch demo featuring improvements in the Materials area of Central Governance, incl.: Material Number Field Read-Only for Internal Number Ranges Improved Performance in SAP HANA-Based Search with Classification Fuzziness Threshold for Attributes in SAP HANA-Based Search Improved Error Messages for Change Material Type and Base Unit of Measure Change of Valuation Category

See also the What’s New in Central Governance  with SAP MDG on S/4HANA 2021 presentation.

Consolidation and Mass Processing

The extended scope in consolidation and mass processing of Business Partner and Product data includes, for example:

• Scheduling of individual process steps (that is, validation, matching, activation). For example, to prevent the execution of long running jobs with high system load during business time, or to allow the activation of changed/created master data at a given point of time.
• Support of non-lean classification for Product data
• Handling of multiple addresses for Customer data
• Handling of address-independent communication data
• Additional Financial Services data for Business Partner

Fig.: Scheduling process steps

See also the What’s New in Consolidation and Mass Processing with SAP MDG on S/4HANA 2021 presentation.

Data Quality Management

The extended scope in data quality management includes, for example:

• Complete audit trail for validation rules
• Support of additional BRFplus expression types for export and import of validation rules

Fig.: Displaying audit trail for validation rules

See also the What’s New in Data Quality Management with SAP MDG on S/4HANA 2021 presentation.

Process and change analytics in central governance

Process analytics on change requests allow you to monitor ongoing governance processes to fix potential process gaps. Enhancements include, for example:

• Enhanced process overview apps for Product, Business Partner, and Financials providing real-time insight into open change request work items and performance analysis of completed change request work items
• Change analytics enable master data specialists to get real time insight into master data changes in change requests by master data attributes and organizations. It helps to answer questions like “How often and where (e.g. organization) are the critical attributes being or has been changed?” 

See also the related blog post about Change Analytics for Master Data in Change Requests by Kefeng Wang.

Fig.: Enhanced process overview in Process Analytics

Fig.: Solution Architecture for Change Analytics

Fig.: Example SAC dashboard based on change analytics data source generated in SAP MDG on S/4HANA

See also the What’s New in Process Analytics with SAP MDG on S/4HANA 2021 presentation.

Summary

This list provides an overview of the innovations that come with S/4HANA 2021 in the area of master data governance. I hope they are beneficial for your business. For an additional view, you may also check the SAP Roadmap Explorer (filtered for SAP Master Data Governance on S/4HANA).

To stay up to date with what’s going on in the SAP Master Data Governance, simply follow the SAP Community Topic Page for SAP Master Data Governance and join the Q&A and discussion forum.

Best,

Markus