Partner Role Assignments

Use

You assign partner roles to a business location to:

  • Identify the type of activity that an oil company business partner is involved in with respect to that location

  • Support direct links to

  • Customer master data

  • Vendor master data

  • SAP user data

  • Generate links that are used by the standard SAP system reporting tools.

  • Enable the maintenance of sales area data for customers in the business location master record. The system uses this data as default data for automatic billing of the customer.

When you assign a partner to a location, you define both a location partner role type and a start time. A partner role assignment is therefore the unique occurrence of a business partner undertaking a specific activity at a specific location, starting at a specific point in time.

For more information about business partner master data, see:

Prerequisites

In Customizing for the Industry Solution Oil & Gas (Downstream) you must:

  • Define partner roles by choosing Start of the navigation path SSR Next navigation step Business Location Master Data Next navigation step Business Partner Roles Next navigation step Define partner role. End of the navigation path

  • Define technical categories for partner roles by choosing Start of the navigation path SSR Next navigation step Business Location Master Data Next navigation step Business Partner Roles Next navigation step Define partner role - technical category End of the navigation path

  • Start of the navigation path Assigntechnicalcategories to partner roles by choosingSSR Next navigation step Business Location Master Data Next navigation step Business Partner Roles Next navigation step Assign technical categories to partner roles End of the navigation path

See also:

Categorization of Business Partner Roles

Features

Multiple Assignments

As one business partner may perform a number of different location partner roles at a specific business location or the same role at a number of different locations or a combination of these, you can:

  • Link one location to a number of business partners

  • Link one business partner to a number of locations:

Example Example

If a partner is the owner of several service stations, you can create a customer master record for a sold-to partner and within this record several ship-to partners. You can then link a different ship-to partner to each business location.

End of the example.
Partner Role Types

The location partner role type is used to classify the activity of a business partner with respect to the business location. It is a four-character code that is freely configurable.

In Customizing for the Industry Solution Oil & Gas (Downstream), you can adjust settings by choosing Start of the navigation path SSR Next navigation step Business Partner Roles Next navigation step Define partner role End of the navigation path . Before it is available for use, the location partner role must be assigned to at least one partner role technical category. This defines whether the partner role relates to a vendor, a customer or a user maintained in the Oil & Gas System.

For more information about the partner role technical category, see Categorization of Business Partner Roles .

Status Checks and User Exits for Partner Role Assignments

The system reads the master data of assigned partner roles and checks for their basic validity when you:

  • Display the Partner Role Listing screen for the first time from within any business location maintenance or display transaction

  • Enter partner role data on the to Create Partner Role screen

  • Change partner role data on the Change Partner Role screen

Once the check has been made, the appropriate status icon appears.

You can introduce additional checks for business partner objects by coding user exits and using the ABAP Workbench enhancement facility to activate these. If you wish to code additional checks for the object to which you are assigning the business location, you need to activate the relevant enhancement.

You can use the following enhancements:

  • OIFA0401 for checks of customer business partners

  • OIFA0402 for checks of vendor business partners

In both cases, the enhancement calls user processing during the initial load of the partner master data and during PAI (process after input) on the partner assignment input fields.

For more information about the use of enhancements, see Customer Exits .

Links to Dialog Transactions

In Customizing for the Industry Solution Oil & Gas (Downstream) you can define the permissible range of dialog transactions to which links to a partner role are supported. You do this by choosing Start of the navigation path Service Station Retailing (SSR ) Next navigation step Business Partner Roles Next navigation step Define link dialogs for technical category. End of the navigation path

Note Note

No check is made to determine the suitability of a dialog transaction for a particular object. For example, it is possible to specify the display cost center transaction for the customer navigation link.

End of the note.

If no Customizing entry is made for the dialog control of a particular link object, the system calls a default dialog. Normally, this is the display master data dialog transaction for that partner role link. If one control entry is made for a particular link object, the system calls the specified dialog transaction. If multiple entries are made for a link object, the system calls a dialog box.

Overlapping Validity Periods

By enabling overlapping validity periods for partner role assignments, you make it possible to assign more than one partner role of the same type to a location for a specific time.

In Customizing for the Industry Solution Oil & Gas (Downstream) , you can enable overlapping validity periods as follows:

  • At the client level by choosing Start of the navigation path SSR (Service Station Retailing) Next navigation step Business Location Master Data Next navigation step Business Partner Roles Next navigation step Set system control - partner roles End of the navigation path

  • For each business location type/ partner role combination by choosing Start of the navigation path SSR (Service Station Retailing) Next navigation step Business Location Master Data Next navigation step Business Partner Roles Next navigation step Assign partner roles to business location type. End of the navigation path You can only use the indicator for allowing overlapping validity periods at this level if it is not set at client level.

    Note Note

    Overlapping validity periods can not be enabled for business location type/ partner role combinations for which SD document creation is enabled.

    End of the note.

You can display overlapping partner role assignments. For more information, see Displaying Overlapping Validity Periods Listing .

See also:

Categorization of Business Partner Roles

Navigating to Partner-Specific Dialogs

Object Links