Standardization

Standardization normalizes and enriches data.

Matching

Matching checks data from various source systems and the active data for duplicates. Part of the matching is the match review to check possible duplicates.

Best Record Calculation

Best record calculation, results in a record containing the cumulated, most valuable data for each match group that is identified by the matching. This calculation follows a well defined process based on certain rules.

Validation

Validation checks whether the quality of a record is sufficient to meet the requirements defined in the back-end system. If the quality requirements are met data can be saved, if not corrections and data enrichment might be required.

Activation

As the final step of the consolidation the activation moves the consolidated master data from the process data to the active data. Depending on the type and state of a master data record, activation can be done directly, can be done using change requests, if you use SAP MDG, central governance, in parallel, or can be prohibited.

Filter and remove

The process step filter and remove enables you to remove a selection of records from the current consolidation process. According to your settings this selection of records then is moved to a new consolidation process or – in case of records with errors out of a validation process – further options can be applied. The process step filter and remove runs in the background without user interaction and can be used as successor of the following process steps:

Upper threshold

Within the process step matching you use the match review to rate possible matches. The upper threshold feature enables you to specify a value as of which two records are rated automatically as a match without having to be checked in the match review process.

Using BRFplus rules in process steps

You can make use of BRFplus rules to adapt your data on table and field level within the following process steps:

Best record calculation review

The Review Best Records screen gives you an overview on the results of the best record calculation. It shows you in detail how the best records were calculated. In addition you can manually edit the best record.

System messages

System Messages such as Errors and Exceptions are displayed for individual process steps. If errors or exceptions occurred this is visualized by the color of the process step icon:

Adapt configuration within process

Within a consolidation process, most customizing settings, that are specified in the process template can be adapted to the specific needs of a current consolidation process.

These adjustments are only valid for the consolidation process you are working with and do not persistently change the Customizing settings.

Retention time

You can specify a period of time in which the KPIs and processed data persist to be displayed. In this case the deletion of all relevant data at the end of the process step activation is postponed:

You can configure the retention time in the Customizing and you can adapt it in the UI.

Replace values and clear fields

Certain process steps of the consolidation process allow you to manually replace values of fields or to clear the fields' content completely. This function is not offered for the process steps best record calculation, matching, and activation.

Audit trail

The audit trail lists all events that take place within a process, such as starting and finishing a process step or changing process parameters. It displays an abstract for each event in a time line. The abstracts contain information such as user name, timestamp, short description of the event. The audit trail pane can be displayed or hidden.

Remove records from process

This feature enables you to split a consolidation process so that a certain set of records can be transferred to a follow up process while the main process can be finalized with the remaining set of records:

Key mapping and value mapping

Additional adapters for the process step standardization support key and value mapping. If you run the process step standardization with the adapters for key mapping or value mapping, all relevant fields are read and replaced by the retrieved values.

Action control supporting the four-eyes principle

This feature enables you to restrict the amount of processors for a certain process steps: You can specify a selection of users that may continue with the next process step:

Display data changes in details UI

This feature enables you in certain process steps to compare data before and after the process step. Changed values are highlighted with a link that opens a box showing both, the new and the old value of the field.

Run MDG, central governance checks

This feature enables you to run checks for the process steps validation and activation based on rules you have specified in MDG, central governance. The feature is only offered if you have activated the business functions for MDG, central governance.