Differentiation Type 

Use

The Business Data Toolset offers the possibility of classifying business partner data more accurately with the help of a differentiation type.

You can differentiate business partner roles, attributes and business partner relationships.

The differentiation type enables you to map specific business partner data according to your own requirements. It has been designed in a way that allows you to differentiate both according to fixed units (branches) and according to dynamically determinable values.

Structure

You can use the differentiation type for the following:

·         Differentiating business partner roles:

Business partners can appear as customers of a company. You can define organizational information for your own company in the differentiation type, for example. It can be useful to define your company’s branches or other information in the differentiation type, as the information that a business partner occupies the role of customer is not sufficient for some business processes.

·         Differentiating attributes:

Depending upon the differentiation type characteristic, it may be necessary to define different values for certain business partner attributes. One branch may wish to define a different rating for a customer than another, for example. However, you can differentiate other objects too. It may be necessary for staff to have their own areas in the business partner, in which they can enter information that is only relevant for them. This information may not be important for a different member of staff who is responsible for processing the same business partner.

·         Differentiating business partner relationships:

You can also differentiate business partner relationships. For example, a customer appears several times as a customer in different departments in your company, and is assigned a different processing manager for each customer that it represents.

Integration

You have defined the corresponding differentiation types and edited the structures for the differentiation type in Customizing.