Procedure documentationEnhancing Existing Generic Articles with New Variants

 

You can use this function to select single articles that were imported via the GDS interface (PRICAT), and convert them into variants of an existing generic article.

Prerequisites

Ensure that the generic article in field Article Number Used by Vendor of the purchasing info record (field EINA-IDNLF) for the affected vendor has a grouping number. This field value is used to identify and group all variants that belong to the same generic article. If you are unsure, you can also choose the second option, to create a new generic article that automatically receives a newly generated grouping number.

Procedure

Selection of Catalog Items

  1. Use transaction W10T to call the special initial menu for the retailing system.

  2. Choose Start of the navigation path Logistics Next navigation step Retailing Next navigation step Master Data Next navigation step Article Data Next navigation step Price Catalog Inbound Processing Next navigation step Data Transfer Next navigation step Select and Edit Price Catalog End of the navigation path.

  3. In group box Restrictions, select a Profile.

  4. Select catalog items for processing from the worklist.

  5. To go to catalog editing, choose Start of the navigation path Selection Next navigation step Edit End of the navigation path or Link to Price Catalog Maintenance (Link to Price Catalog Maintenance).

Assignment of Characteristic Values to New Variants

  1. Select the work items to be converted.

  2. Choose Convert Single Article to Variant (Convert Single Article to Variant). Only the relevant working lines, which contain a new single article that is not blocked by the purchasing list, are transferred.

  3. Select the Generic Article radio button.

  4. Select a generic article.

    In screen area Assign Characteristic Values to New Variants, you see a column for the Characteristic Value and a column for the Characteristic Value Description, for each variant-creating characteristic that is assigned to the characteristics profile, or to the generic article via the merchandise category.

    The article short description for the generic article can no longer be changed (screen area Descriptions).

    To show details of the generic article, you can choose the pushbutton Article (Article). You go to integrated article maintenance (transaction MM43).

    In screen area Assign Characteristic Values to New Variants, in column Item Category, variants that were already created in the database Existing Variant (Existing Variant) are displayed, as well as the variants to be newly converted Working Line (Working Line).

  5. Enter the relevant characteristic values for the variants to be converted.

  6. To complete the conversion, choose Confirm (Confirm). You are taken back to price catalog maintenance.

  7. You can use pushbutton Save (Save) to save the executed conversion in the database, in the PRICAT tables. Alternatively, you can use pushbutton Create/Change Article - Immediately (Create/Change Article - Immediately) to directly trigger the creation of article master data for the converted variants; in this case, the converted data is also saved in the PRICAT tables first.

Result

  • Once you return to catalog maintenance, the affected single articles have been converted into corresponding variants.

  • The Article Category of the converted single articles has changed from 00 (Single Article) to 02 (Variant). The changed merchandise category and the characteristics profile were transferred (columns Merchandise Category and Class).

  • Since the generic article already exists, the existing grouping number is used as a unit for the new variants (column Generic Article Group).

  • In addition, the article number of the generic article is stored in the new variants (column Conf. Artl).

More Information

  • You can use the hotspot in column Text Changes (Text Changes) to view not only the texts for the variants, but also the newly created texts for the generic article (text ID = VS), and if necessary, change them again.

  • You can use the hotspot in column Characteristic Changes (Characteristic Changes) to view the characteristic values entered for the affected variants again. The displayed characteristic values should generally not be changed.

    Note Note

    A comprehensive consistency check is carried out only as part of the conversion of single articles into variants, to ensure that each variant of the corresponding generic article uses a different characteristic value combination. If the available characteristic values are subsequently changed (using hotspot processing), this consistency check is not carried out again. If the characteristic values are not changed in such a way that the uniqueness of the characteristic value combinations is ensured, a posting error will occur during the transfer of variants into real articles. The displayed characteristics should remain unchanged, or be changed in such a way that the uniqueness of the characteristic value combinations is ensured across all related variants of the generic article.

    End of the note.

  • If there are multiple PRICAT data records for a GTIN, and all of them were selected, the conversion takes place for all data records. If not all validities were selected, the selection criteria in transaction Select and Edit Price Catalog (W_SYNC) must be adjusted so that all data records of the relevant GTINs are selected for all validity periods. If the data records of older validity periods are no longer required, they can be deleted before the conversion.

Note Note

Dependencies on other toolbar functions: If the converted variants are not yet saved in the PRICAT database, and the user chooses pushbutton Change the Merchandise Category (Change the Merchandise Category) or pushbutton Variants -> Single Articles (Variants -> Single Articles), a message is issued in price catalog maintenance, since the execution of these functions is not permitted without saving first.

End of the note.