Customer Master and Vendor Master: Central Address Management 

Description

As of Release 4.5A, central address management (CAM) is used to manage address data in the customer master and vendor master. This merges and standardizes the maintenance of addresses in a single function and offers the following advantages:

• Setting up of new fields centrally (for example, Internet address, multiple telephone numbers) and automatic availability to all applications

• Link to a place name file

Place name files can be used, for example, to check whether:

• Zip code is valid

• Zip code is correct for place, street and house number

• Support of all communication types (for example, E-mail)

• Integration of time zones

The time zone can be determined from the country and region, making it possible to use information about the time zone in an application.

• Flexible provision of internationally required address attributes

Besides extending the length of some fields, new fields have also been introduced (for example, building, storey, and standard communication type). For more information, see Field selection in the section Change system parameters in Customizing below.

• Support of international address versions

When you display addresses in different languages such as English and Japanese, the numeric and key fields are identical in both logon languages, whereas the text fields such as name, street, and place can be maintained in the respective language.

• Simplified print formatting due to transfer of the address number to the SAPscript form

The switch to CAM affects the following areas of the customer master and vendor master:

• Distribution by Application Link Enabling (ALE)

For more information, see Change system parameters in Customizing below.

• Batch input processing / CATTs

For more information, see Effect on batch input below.

• Online maintenance

For more information, see Changes in procedure below.

Change system parameters in customizing

Field selection
The field selection for the new address data fields and communication data fields can be defined in the following activities in Customizing for Business Partners:

• Define account groups and field selection for customers

• Define account groups and field selection for vendors

Distribution by Application Link Enabling (ALE)
Addresses are assigned to separate message types so that address objects are distributed as separate objects. This requires:

• The address object and the master object (for example, customer master) to be sent to the same target system

This is achieved by defining a dependency between the method for the address object and the master object message type to ensure that distribution objects at master object level are also used for the address object.

• The address object to be processed before the master object in the respective target system

This is achieved by setting a serialization between the message types of the master objects and the message types of the address objects.

• That, for distributing the address object and master object, a proposal for the distribution model can be generated by a report

These settings can be maintained in Customizing for Distribution (ALE) in the activity Proposal for distribution model for customer master data and vendor master data.

Effect on batch input

Batch input processing / CATTs
The initial online maintenance screen includes the new Use central address management indicator. However, it is visible only in batch input mode and in CATT mode.

• Indicator not set

The old address screens are processed. This means that you can continue to use the following objects without modification:

• Existing sequential batch input files and thus existing batch input sessions

• Existing customer-specific batch input programs and CATTs

However, they should be adapted to the new technique in the long term.

• Indicator set

The indicator is set by standard batch input programs, in standard ALE inbound processing, and by standard CATTs so that the new CAM address screens are used.

When transferring new address fields that were not included on the old address screens, be sure to note the following:

• Since these new fields are not contained in the actual master tables (KNA1, LFA1, and KNVK), a separate transfer run is necessary to transfer the new address data. This transfer run is made via the ALE address interface and must take place before the transfer run for the customer master or the vendor master.

• Due to the separate transfer of address information and master data, it may be necessary, in the case of internal number assignment, to predetermine the number for the vendor, customer, or contact person when creating master data. The following BAPIs are available for predetermining these numbers:

• BAPI_VENDOR_GETINTNUMBER (vendor number)

• BAPI_CUSTOMER_GETINTNUMBER (customer number)

• BAPI_PARTNEREMPLOYEE_GETINTNUMBER (contact person number)

• When creating the customer master data or vendor master data to be imported, take care to ensure that the values of the address fields that have a CAM counterpart (for example, name, street, and telephone number) match the address information in the separate address transfer run. For this reason, you are recommended to transfer these address fields only in the separate transfer run, and to enter the NODATA character in the transfer run for the customer master data or vendor master data.

Note

When transferring debitor and/or creditor master data from source company codes to target company codes (RFBIDE10/20 for debitors, RFBIKR10/20 for creditors), be sure to note the following:

When transferring data to external company codes, you can use the special transfer type Write data to sequential file . Besides the company code data, general data is then also transferred. However, only those address fields that existed on the old address screens are transferred, that is, fields with a counterpart in master tables KNA1 and LFA1.

Changes in procedure

Online maintenance
The previous screen for the company address has been replaced by a new screen that includes the CAM subscreens for the company address.

The details screen for contact persons also includes CAM subscreens for contact person addresses.

Prior to Release 4.5A, the business and private addresses of contact persons were stored in table SADR. In Release 4.5A, they are switched to CAM addresses and managed as business addresses under the previous address number. However, new private addresses are managed as private addresses in CAM.

Dependent functions

The switch to CAM also indirectly affects the site master in retail since site addresses are copied to the relevant customer master or vendor master.

Planning

To make sure that only a small part of the conversion to CAM has to run as an XPRA (in the downtime during the upgrade), the actual conversion can be carried out in the following steps (collectively prestep) before the upgrade:

1. In the preparatory upgrade phase, an analysis report is run automatically that determines the number of addresses to be converted and estimates the conversion time. If the volume of data exceeds a certain value (for example, 100,000 lines), a recommendation is given in the log to start the conversion as a prestep.

2. Preparations for preliminary data conversion as per OSS Note 97032 (see below).

3. The conversion runs in the background and sets a corresponding indicator (DUEFL) in all the converted records in tables KNA1 and LFA1.

4. In the remaining time before the upgrade, new master records can be created (DUEFL = <blank>) and existing ones changed (DUEFL = A).

Note
When a converted record in KNA1 or LFA1 is subsequently changed, the value of field DUEFL is set to A only in the following and succeeding releases:

• 4.0A and above

• 3.1 I

• 3.1 H containing Hot Package 22

• 3.0F containing Hot Package 38

• 3.0D containing Hot Package 52

In the case of earlier releases, you have the following options:

• Making the minor source code changes as per OSS Note 97032 to allow preliminary data conversion

The data must otherwise be processed after the upgrade.

• Importing the relevant Hot Package

5. During the upgrade itself (downtime), an XPRA is run that processes only those records with the value <blank> or A in field DUEFL.

6. After the upgrade, the converted data can be used immediately.

7. Using a check tool, you can check the consistency of the converted data.

Further notes

More information on central address management is contained in the following release notes:

• Central Address Management in Release 4.5A

• Central Address Management in Release 4.0A