Editing Inheritance Templates (SAP Library

Editing Inheritance Templates

Use

This procedure describes how you create and change an inheritance template.

Prerequisites

In the IMG activity Specify Groups in Customizing for Product Safety, you have defined the groups that you require for inheritance templates. You have then assigned these groups to the group tree for inheritance templates in the IMG activity Specify Group Trees and Assign Groups.

You have change authorization for the group of inheritance templates in which you want to create the inheritance template or in which the inheritance template that you want to change is located.

Procedure

In the Product Safety menu, choose Specifications ® Edit specifications.

The Edit Specification: Initial Screen appears.

Choose Specification ® Inheritance ® Edit templates.

The Edit Inheritance Templates dialog box appears. The group overview of the inheritance templates is displayed.

Note

You can also call the group overview of the inheritance templates in the same way from the Edit Specification: Hit List, Edit Specification: Header, or Edit Specification: Property Tree screen.

Creating Inheritance Templates

Position the cursor on the group in which you want to create an inheritance template and choose This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

The Create Inheritance Templates dialog box appears.

On the Hdr and Desc. tab pages, enter data as required, choose This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

, and confirm the confirmation prompt by choosing Yes.

The inheritance template is added to the group as a group entry.

Choose the inheritance template by double-clicking the group entry.
If required, specify usages, identifiers, and value assignment types whose data, with the aid of the inheritance template, is to be used for inheritance. Note the following:

If data (identifiers and value assignments) is to be passed on regardless of its usage, in other words if the usage specified for the data in the source specification is not to be taken into account as a filter for the inheritance, set the All usages indicator. If you do not specify a usage and do not set the indicator, no data is passed on.

Note

In general, only active identifiers and value assignments are passed on, in other words only the identifiers for which the Active indicator is set. If you set the All usages indicator in the inheritance template, inactive identifiers and value assignments as well as identifiers and value assignments without a usage are passed on too.

If all the identifiers in the source specification are to be passed on, in other words if all existing identification categories and identification types are to be taken into account when identifiers are passed on, set the All identifiers indicator. If you do not specify any identifiers and do not set the indicator, no identifiers are passed on.
If value assignments of all the value assignment types in the source specification are to be passed on, set the All value assignment types indicator. If only the data for certain value assignment types is to be passed on, proceed as follows:

Choose .
In the property tree, use the function to select the required value assignment types and confirm the selection.

If you do not specify any value assignment types and do not set the All value assignment types indicator, no value assignments are passed on.

If you enter data in a row of the table under Usages or Identifiers and do not enter a value in one or more fields in the same row, all values for this field are taken into account for inheritance. In other words, this field does not restrict the data.

Example

Usages

Rating	Validity Area Category	Validity Area	Inheritance
PUBLIC	<empty>	<empty>	All data rated as PUBLIC, regardless of the validity period
<empty>	REGION	REG_EU	All data that applies to REG_EU, regardless of the rating

Identifiers

Language	Identification Category	Identification Type	Inheritance
<empty>	NUM	<empty>	All numbers
<empty>	NAM	PROD	Product names in all languages

The data that you specify in the inheritance template cannot overlap. The system checks whether there are any overlaps between validity areas, ratings, or identification types. Note that in the inheritance template, usages are linked by an AND logic operation (if, however, you specify several usages for identifiers and value assignments of a specification in specification management, these usages are generally linked by an OR logic operation). One exception to this rule is if you do not enter any data in the Rating field (this corresponds to the entry All ratings). In this case, the system checks whether the usages linked by OR overlap, provided that the validity area is not the same.

Example

Overlapping validity areas with the same rating

The validity areas are broken down according to countries and regions by the SAP System. The following entries are therefore not permitted:

PUBLIC/DE and PUBLIC/REG_WORLD
INTERNAL/DE and INTERNAL/DE_BW (DE_BW = region of DE)
PUBLIC/DE and PUBLIC/<empty> (<empty> corresponds to "All validity areas")

Overlapping ratings with the same validity area

Ratings only overlap if you combine a certain rating with the entry <empty> (All ratings). PUBLIC/DE and <empty>/DE, for example, is therefore not permitted.

Since the system checks whether the usages linked by OR and not by AND overlap when you enter<empty> (All ratings), you can, however, enter PUBLIC/DE and <empty>/REG_WORLD, for example.

Overlapping identification types with the same identification category

Identification types only overlap if you combine a certain identification type with the entry <empty> (All identification types). NUM/CAS and NUM/<empty>, for example, is therefore not permitted.

If required, set one or more indicators under Permitted change options. You use these indicators to specify whether the value assignments passed on using the inheritance template can be changed temporarily or permanently and whether the inheritance relationship can be deactivated:

If you set the Changes to target specifications indicator, the value assignments that have been passed on can be temporarily overwritten in the target specification.

If value assignments that you have overwritten in the target specification are then changed in the source specification, the corresponding value assignments in the target specification are also replaced again by the value assignments in the source specification.

If you set the Exclusion from inher. indicator, the value assignments that have been passed on can be permanently overwritten in the target specification.

As soon as the value assignments that have been passed on have been overwritten once, changes made to the corresponding value assignments in the source specification are no longer passed on to the target specification. The value assignments overwritten in the target specification can be passed on again.

If you set the Deactiv. inheritance relationship indicator, the inheritance relationship between the source or target specification can be deactivated and reactivated as required.

If the inheritance relationship has been deactivated and the data (identifiers and value assignments) in the source specification is changed, the corresponding data in the target specification is not updated. You can overwrite the data that has been passed on in the target specification.
If the connection is reactivated, the data in the target specification is updated again in accordance with the source specification.

Choose and then .

Changing Inheritance Templates

Double-click the inheritance template that you want to change.

Change usages, identifiers, and value assignment types as required whose data, with the aid of the inheritance template, is to be used for inheritance. Note that when you edit an inheritance template that has already been used in an inheritance relationship, you can only change it if data that has been passed on is not deleted. A corresponding warning is displayed if an inheritance template that you want to change is already being used. When you change an inheritance template, the system automatically prevents you from making changes to the inheritance template that are not permitted. In detail, this means that:

You can add new identification categories and types since this results in a larger number of identifiers being passed on. However, you cannot delete existing identification categories and types.
You can change usages if this does not restrict the data.

For example, instead of the validity area DE you can define all validity areas or a region of DE, such as DE_BW, since all data records that are valid for DE_BW are always valid for DE too because DE_BW is contained in DE.

You can delete individual usages. As a result of usages being linked by an AND logic operation in the inheritance template, the inheritance template is restricted less if you delete a usage.

For example, you can delete the usage INTERNAL/US from the usages PUBLIC/DE and INTERNAL/US.

You cannot replace an individual usage with another (for example, PUBLIC/DE with PUBLIC/FR).
You cannot reset the All usages, All identifiers, or All value assignment types indicators if they are set. However, you can set them if they have not yet been set.

When you enter data, also note the information given in the Creating Inheritance Templates section.

Caution

You can no longer undo changes that you make to an inheritance template already being used in an inheritance relationship after you have saved the data, since the background job may pass on the corresponding data immediately.

Choose and then .

Result

You can use the inheritance template in inheritance in order to create inheritance relationships between specifications.

If you have changed an inheritance template that is used in an active and consistent inheritance relationship, this inheritance relationship is assigned the status Ready to inherit. The system then starts the background job for the inheritance. This background job updates the data in the target specification in accordance with the changed inheritance template.