In modelling, virtual models provide a new abstraction layer. This layer allows you to run different search models on identical TREX data.
You can use virtual modes to cover various use cases:
Virtual modes allow you to use meaningful human-readable names for standard models instead of cryptic technical names.
Users can now use virtual models, which offer different perspectives on a model, to search data.
A standard model allows each user to use the same search attributes and to receive the same search results as all other users, regardless of their role.
A standard model has one response structure. If you require a different response for the reasons listed above, you can use a virtual model to implement this requirement.
Virtual models provide additional entry points to a standard model. This allows the extraction model to be closely connected with the business object model.
For example, the bill of material (BOM) item exists as a standard model within the SAP Business Suite. Users can search for the BOM item. Virtual models allow you to model the BOM header and BOM item in a single model and users can still search for the BOM item separately. Previously, you needed two models to do this.
You can use virtual models to refine the generic object types. This makes sense if you want to address an instance of a generic object type that is distributed among more than one subobject type.