Upload and Download Catalogs

In Purchasing, you can also make use of Web-based catalogs via an OCI interface. You can not only upload purchasing data from the system into a catalog but also download catalog data into material items of purchasing documents (requisitions with ME51N and purchase orders with ME21N).

Send Purchasing Data to a Catalog

Using the transaction Send Purchasing Data to Catalog (transaction code MECCM), you can transfer data from the items of purchase contracts and purchasing info records to a linked SAP Catalog Content Management System (SAP CCM) via SAP NetWeaver XI . You can select the data to be transferred by material, vendor, purchasing organization, and receiving plant.

In addition to the selection criteria, you must enter a technical and language-independent name plus up to three language-dependent names for the catalog that is to be generated.

To generate multi-lingual catalogs, you can also enter several language keys. The system attempts to read the corresponding language-dependent long texts for the selected materials from the material master record.

A further input field is the price determination date. This field is prepopulated with the current date at the start of the transaction. By entering a different, future date, you cause the system to carry out a price determination process for the selected objects as at that date and then send the price thus calculated to the catalog system. In the event that conditions with scales exist, note that for contracts the standard release order quantity and for purchasing info records the standard purchase order quantity is used for price calculation purposes.

By setting the Test Run indicator, you can start the selection including price determination and check the result in a log without a transfer taking place.

The system transfers the following data:

MDM Catalog Connection

If you use an SAP MDM catalog, you can copy not only materials, but also service structures with hierarchies from the MDM catalog to purchase orders, purchase requisitions, and maintenance orders. This means that the MDM catalog for services with hierarchical structures is available as a central source of purchasing information in the service procurement process between SAP ERP and SAP SRM.

You can use service structures from an MDM catalog, which can consist of up to five item levels. If you select more than five levels, the system issues an error message. You can copy individual service items or whole service structures from the MDM catalog to purchasing documents. In addition, you can transfer purchasing data from SAP ERP to SAP SRM for the MDM catalog.

Upload and Download Catalogs

You make the technical settings for uploading and downloading catalog data in Customizing for Purchasing in the IMG activity Web Services: ID and Description. Here you can specify several catalogs. The catalog for which you set the default indicator is used in the transactions for purchase orders and requisitions.

Send Purchasing Data to a Catalog

To ensure correct processing of the data for Number of Purchasing Info Record and Purchasing Organization , it is necessary to add the following entries in SAP CCM:

Also ensure that the vendor from the ERP system has been defined as a business partner in SAP CCM.

Furthermore, you must make certain that the two new characteristics are present in the schemas of the main catalog and the purchasing catalog:

To enable the transfer of the data, the link to the ECC system must be entered in the connected XI system. The message interface used is CatalogueUpdateNotification_Out .