Usage (SAP Library - Specification Management)

Usage

Use

For each identifier and value assignment you can specify one or more usages in which you specify the rating and the validity area of data.

You use the usage feature to ensure that only certain data that belongs to a particular rating (such as PUBLIC or INTERN) and a particular validity area (such as DE or US) is output on a report. When the SAP System generates reports, it compares the usage of the identifier or value assignment to be output with the usage of the report generation variant assigned to the report via Customizing (see Generation Variant).

Features

Usage consists of the following elements:

The rating specifies the users that can view an identifier or a value assignment.
A validity area is a group of countries or regions valid for the corresponding rating. Using the exclusion indicator (Excluding) you can exclude validity areas as subregions from a higher-level, larger validity area with the same rating.

Example

To define the validity area European Union without Italy, enter European Union and Italy as validity areas and set the exclusion indicator (Excluding) for Italy. For more information about the exclusion indicator, see the F1 help for the Excluding field.

Using the validity area category you can divide validity areas into organizational units. For example, you can also then define a particular plant or business area as a validity area. You specify validity areas and validity area categories in Customizing for Product Safety according to your requirements in the IMG activities Specify Validity Areas or Specify Validity Area Categories. Depending on the validity area category, you can set up a dynamic input help for the Validity area field and specify a function module that checks the entries in this field. For more information, see the documentation for these IMG activities.

The active indicator shows whether rating and validity area are active, and that the SAP System may include the corresponding identifier or value assignment on a report.

The relevancy indicator specifies whether a change is relevant to an existing identifier or value assignment for the rating and validity area. For this reason this indicator is particularly important when generating reports.

You can define usage profiles in the IMG activity Specify Usage Profiles in Customizing for Product Safety. In the IMG activity Specify Value Assignment Types you can then assign a usage profile to each value assignment type from which the rating and validity area are proposed automatically when you enter data for the value assignment type. In the SAP Product Safety component you can also choose a usage profile from which the rating and validity area are proposed when you enter identifiers or value assignments for which no usage profile has yet been specified in Customizing.

In the IMG activity Specify Value Assignment Types, you can also define whether the usage is to be set to active automatically for a value assignment type that is copied, created, or changed. Otherwise, you must reset the active indicator manually every time you edit the value assignment.

Activities

Editing Usages