Hearing the customer’s voice…
In the keynote of this year’s DSAG Technologietage 2023 (annual technology congress of the German SAP user group) in Mannheim, Germany, SAP was reminded that for many SAP users, “cloud only” was still far ahead and that they’d be working with hybrid landscapes for a very long time.
There were also lively discussions and informal coffee corner talks among the MDG user community. It was about data domains, specific configurations and other aspects, and, obviously sparked off by the keynote speech, about the role of MDG in a hybrid world. One person stated their need to continue with on-premise, another person expressed that they’d go for a slim start with an easy to deploy approach in the public cloud, but struggle with finding the right solution, and a third user said they had a hybrid landscape and wished that SAP would also take hybrid landscapes into account from a master data management perspective.
Looking at the SAP Roadmap…
When looking at the SAP Roadmap for MDG we have good news for our customers. There are major developments planned across the entire MDG solution portfolio comprising on-premise, private cloud and public-cloud deployments that resonate well with our customers’ wishes. According to the specified timelines in the roadmap, I’d now like to focus on the most recent innovations, and these relate to MDG in the public cloud.
SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition
SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition is a SaaS application that governs core attributes of business partner data. It features master data consolidation, central governance (single and mass processing) as well as data quality management capabilities.
It complements SAP Master Data Governance on SAP S/4HANA by adding a deployment option for organizations that haven't implemented master data governance yet and plan to initiate a master data management initiative at low entry barriers with the intention of getting and keeping the quality of their business partner data (incl. supplier, customer) straight. While SAP Master Data Governance on SAP S/4HANA is based on SAP S/4 data models with broad attribute coverage, SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition is based on SAP One Domain Model and is deliberately focused on core business partner attributes to be put under central governance while leaving application-specific attributes in the realm of the de-central applications. Accordingly, SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition has state-of-the-art extensibility features that are typical for a SaaS solution. See also the comparison of SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition and SAP Master Data Governance on SAP S/4HAN....
What's coming with SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition 2305?
Companies that focus on the governance of core business partner data and companies that plan to initiate master data management activities for their business partner data with an easy-to-deploy software as a service solution in the public-cloud can highly benefit from the latest release of SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition.
For example, in this release we have enabled the de-central maintenance of business partner data with duplicate prevention.
Ideally, this process runs fully automated. Human intervention by a subject matter expert is rather an exception. This happens, for example, when the matching run in duplicate detection produces an open match group, where a data specialist must decide if it is really duplicate data or not. Another case of manual intervention is when the incoming record does not pass the validation step because it contains erroneous data and must be checked by a master data specialist.
For example, the creation (or change) of a supplier can be started in SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance (SLP) and follow-up governance happens in SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition with all relevant steps including matching and merging of duplicate data with subsequent validation:
The picture shows the case, where an open match group was produced. The match review screen in SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition shows the incoming record and a record that is already available. The master data specialist determines that it is duplicate data. Accordingly, the incoming record is matched and merged with the existing active record.
According to the process template, the record then passes the automated validation and gets activated. The activation of the record then triggers the replication to the connected de-central applications.
In the past, it was already possible to trigger the data creation or change centrally in SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition, but de-central maintenance with duplicate prevention is the use case that most customers want.
To be able to meet the customer demand for this use case, we use SOAP as additional integration technology, because many customers have used this technology for quite a while and would like to continue to use it. This way, organizations that do not yet use SAP Master Data Integration (MDI) as their integration technology can now also benefit from SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition as it generally provides SOAP and REST-based MDI as integration technologies.
In addition, we have enhanced the data provider integration in SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition. Generally, data provider integration increases automation in master data management by leveraging external reference data when creating or enriching business partner records. This release facilitates improved comparability between a business-partner record in process and the provided external source data.
The screenshot above shows how reference information can be retrieved directly from the data provider when creating a new business partner record. In this case, you see the creation of a business partner record. In the creation process, data from a reference record was already retrieved for the new record (using the “Look up and Create” button). In the following, I'd like to explain how to use stored references for a comparison with the Business Partner record in process:
- As of SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition 2305 the business partner also contains the new section “Identification Numbers – References” which informs about stored references and their origin. You can tell from the stored references that this business partner was created or changed with the help of the Look Up app and the data provider “Corporate Data Quality (DPI001)” aka CDQ.
- To compare the business partner record in process with the current data from CDQ, select the radio button for the data provider (1) and then the "Enrich" button (2).
- The latest data from the selected stored reference is retrieved. In this example, the system reveals in the “Show Delta” view that there are two differences (one in the address details and one related to the identification number).
- You decide which information to use, select the checkbox, and enrich the new record accordingly (3).
- (Using the “>” chevron, you can directly navigate from the BP to the reference record in the Look Up app).
Data provider integration reduces manual effort, speeds-up processing and ensures high data quality.
In a nutshell, SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition 2305 is particularly suited for companies that:
- Plan an MDG initiative for their business partner data and want to kick-start at low entry barriers.
- Have a need of central governance of core business partner data and are looking for a public-cloud SaaS solution.
- Focus on central governance of core attributes only and want to leave application-specific attributes in the realm of de-central systems (with future option to set up federated MDG with SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition as core data owner, as outlined in the SAP Roadmap Explorer. For an introduction to federated MDG, see the intro and concept videos with examples).
Getting a first impression of SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition
Those who haven't experienced or seen SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition can easily get an impression of the SaaS offering and see what it looks like: simply watch this getting started video. In addition, a self-paced demo lets you find out about its capabilities in a just few minutes. To get an understanding of the process flow, the features and the look & feel, you can navigate through three different scenarios and choose the starting point you like:
- Create a new business partner record and integrate high-quality source data from external data providers.
- Identify duplicate records and merge these in a master data consolidation run.
- Track the quality of your master data and remediate erroneous records.
To start the demo, just go to the SAP Master Data Governance product page on SAP.com
After this first impression of SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition you can easily go a step further and start a mission in the SAP Discovery Center and benefit from the free tier model as outlined in the SAP Community blogs by Christian Geiseler and Andreas Seifried.
Stay tuned for more news about planned developments and the future direction of the MDG solution portfolio.
In the meantime, you can stay up-to-date by following the SAP Community Topic Page for SAP Master Data Governance and joining the Questions & Answers forum and Blog space.
Best,
Markus
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