Tab Page: Attributes (SAP Library - Administrator Workbench)

Tab Page: Attributes

Use

On this tab page, you determine whether or not the characteristic has attributes or navigation attributes, and if so, which properties they have.

Structure

Attributes are InfoObjects that exist already, and that are assigned logically to the new characteristic. There are the following ways to maintain attributes for a characteristic:

Choose attributes from the Attributes of the assigned DataSources list.
Use F4 Help for the fields that are ready for input in the Attributes of the characteristic list, to display all the InfoObjects. Choose the attributes that you need.
In the Attributes list, specify directly in the fields that are ready for input the name of an InfoObject that you want to use as an attribute. If the InfoObject that you want to use does not yet exist, you have the option of creating a new InfoObject at this point. Any new InfoObjects that you create are inactive. They are activated when the existing InfoObject is activated.

Properties

Choose Detail / Navigation Attribute to get to the detailed view. In the detail view, you set the following:

Time-Dependency

You can decide for each attribute individually, whether it is time-dependent or not. If only one attribute is time-dependent, the master data table is also time-dependent. However, there can still be attributes for this characteristic that are not time-dependent.

All the time-dependent attributes are in one table, meaning that they all have the same time-dependency. All the time-constant attributes are also in one table.

Example

Characteristic: Business process

Table PABCPROCESS - for time-constant attributes

Characteristic: Business process

Attribute: Cost center responsible

Characteristic value: 1010

Attribute value: Jones

Table QABCPROCESS - for time-dependent attributes

Business process

Valid from

Valid to

Company code

Characteristic value: 1010

01.01.2000

01.06.2000

Attribute value: A

02.06.2000

01.10.2000

Attribute value: B

A view, MABCPROCESS, connects these two tables:

Business process

Valid from

Valid to

Company code

Cost center responsible

1010

01.01.2000

01.06.2000

A

Jones

02.06.2000

01.10.2000

B

Jones

Note

In master data updates, you can either load time-dependent and time-constant data individually, or together.

Sequence of Attributes in Input Help

You can determine the sequence in which the attributes for a characteristic are displayed in the input help. There are the following values for this setting:

00: The attribute is not displayed in the input help

01: The attribute appears in the first position (far left) in the input help

02: The attribute appears in the second position in the input help.

03: ......

Navigation Attribute

You can switch navigation attributes on and off, and specify their descriptions and short texts. These texts for navigation attributes can also be supplied by the attribute. If the text of the characteristic changes, the texts for the navigation attribute are adjusted automatically. This process requires very little maintenance and translation resources..

Caution

When you are defining and executing queries, it is not possible to use the texts to distinguish between navigation attributes and characteristics.

As soon as a characteristic appears in duplicate (as a characteristic and as a navigation attribute) in an InfoProvider, you must give the navigation attribute a different name. For example, you could call the characteristic Cost Center, and call the navigation attribute Person Responsible for the Cost Center.

You use the Navigation Attributes InfoProvider function to maintain dual-level navigation attributes (navigation attributes for navigation attributes). This is possible only if the characteristic is an InfoProvider (meaning that it has master data and an InfoArea assigned to it).

Characteristic: Business process	Attribute: Cost center responsible
Characteristic value: 1010	Attribute value: Jones

Business process	Valid from	Valid to	Company code
Characteristic value: 1010	01.01.2000	01.06.2000	Attribute value: A
	02.06.2000	01.10.2000	Attribute value: B