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Function documentationCreating Reference Characteristics

 

A reference characteristic is a characteristic that you create with a reference to a table field. A table field is an attribute of an object in SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM). The main data, such as format or length, is taken from the referenced table field.

In product modeling, reference characteristics are used above all to transfer movement/transaction data and master data from SAP CRM to the product configuration.

Prerequisites

You have created a product model.

Features

A predefined list of defined table fields is available in product modeling. Instead of technical names of the table fields or structure fields, this list contains alias names.

For more information about the available table fields, see the documentation for product configuration: Reference Characteristics in SAP CRM.

Activities

As you edit the parameters of a characteristic, select a value in the Reference Characteristic field.

Recommendation Recommendation

We recommend defining reference characteristics as hidden and defining dependencies with other characteristics as dependencies. This way, unexpected interactions between the reference characteristics and user entries can be avoided.

End of the recommendation.

Example

During configuration, you want the characteristic Country of Sold-To Party to be filled automatically, depending on the sold-to party: If sold-to party XY company's headquarters are in Germany, the value in characteristic Country of Sold-To Party should be Germany.

To do so, you create a reference characteristic Country of Sold-To Party with reference to ITEM_SOLD_TO_COUNTRY.

You can then use the reference characteristic when editing dependencies, for example, to assign various supply voltages (such as 220 V for Germany, 110 V for US) to various supplying countries in the configuration of a personal computer.

The result of modeling is as follows:

If you create an order for a personal computer for company XY in the SAP CRM system, and call the configuration from the order, the reference characteristic Country of Sold-To Party is filled with the value Germany. This value cannot be changed. Dependencies are used to assign the supply voltage used in Germany to the personal computer.