Tab Page: Compounding (SAP Library - Administrator Workbench)

Tab Page: Compounding

Use

In this tab page, you determine whether you want to compound the characteristic to other InfoObjects. You sometimes need to compound InfoObjects in order to map the data model. Some InfoObjects cannot be defined uniquely without compounding.

Example

For example, you can only evaluate the characteristic ‘storage location’ in connection with ‘plant’, if storage location A for plant B is not the same as storage location A for plant C. In this case, define a compounding characteristic ‘storage location’ to ‘plant’, so it is clear what the characteristic is.

One exception in compounding, is the option of compounding characteristics to the source system ID. You can do this by setting the Master data is valid locally for the source system indicator. You may need to do this if there are identical characteristic values for the same characteristic in different source systems, but these values indicate different objects.

Recommendation

The extensive use of compounded InfoObjects, particularly if you add a lot of InfoObjects to a compounding, can influence performance. Do not try to display hierarchical links through compounding. Use hierarchies instead.

Note

A maximum of 13 characteristics can be compounded for an InfoObject. Note that characteristic values can also have a maximum of 60 characters. Included in that is the concatenated value, meaning the total characteristic length in the compounding plus the length of the characteristic itself.

Reference InfoObjects

If an InfoObject has a reference InfoObject, it has its technical properties.

For characteristics these are the data type and length as well as the master data (attributes, texts and hierarchies). The characteristic itself also has the business semantics.

For key figures these are the key figure type, data type and the definition of the currency and unit of measure. The referencing key figure can have another aggregation.

These characteristics can only be maintained with the reference InfoObject.

Several InfoObjects can use the same reference InfoObject. Such InfoObjects automatically have the same technical properties and master data.

The business semantics, that is the properties, such as description, display, text selection, relevance to authorization, person responsible, constant, and exclusively attribute, are also maintained with characteristics that are based on one reference characteristic.

Example

The characteristic sold-to party is based on the reference characteristic customer and therefore has the same values, attributes, and texts.

More than one characteristic can have the same reference characteristic: The characteristics sending cost center and receiving cost center both have the reference characteristic cost center.

Characteristic Constants

A fixed value is assigned to a characteristic when you assign a constant. This means that the characteristic is available on the database (for verifications, for example) but is no longer relevant to reporting (no aggregation / drilldown is possible for this characteristic).

You must enter the internal value of the characteristic, which can be determined using the value help.

Assigning a constant is most useful with compounded characteristics.

Example
The storage location characteristic is compounded with the plant characteristic. If only one plant is ever run within the application, a constant can be assigned to the plant. The verification for the storage-location master table runs correctly with this value for the plant. In the report, however, only the storage location appears as a characteristic.

Note

Special case:
If you want to assign the SPACE constant (type CHAR) or 00..0 (type NUMC) to the characteristic, type # in the first position.