Article Master Overview 
Article Master Overview
Merchandise Category Transfer
The Merchandise Category in SAP Retail has no direct equivalent in AFS, but it is a required information while creating an Article in SAP Retail. In order to distribute AFS Materials towards Retail Articles, a mapping must be done using the AFS system to determine which Merchandise Category can be associated to a Material.
To facilitate the user’s customizing task, Merchandise Categories, Characteristics Profiles, Characteristics and their possible values can be sent from the SAP Retail system to the AFS system. With the use of these tables, the user can accurately map the data of the AFS system and then minimize handling errors, such as typing mistakes or misspelling, when specifying which SAP Retail data is to be associated to which AFS data.
The message type used to transfer Merchandise Categories and associated data is WMERCAT. The IDoc type is WMERCAT01.
Distribution of AFS Material Master into Retail Article Master
AFS Materials are transferred to the Retail system using the standard Article master IDoc. Standard ALE filters can be used to restrict which AFS Materials should be sent to the Retail system.
In
Purchase/Sales Order processing of the AFS Material/Retail Article, the mapping between those two will be done using their EAN/UPC codes. To achieve this, an AFS Material is converted to a Retail Generic Article and as many Retail Variants as there are Grid elements having EAN/UPC numbers. An AFS Material without a Grid or a Standard Material will be converted to a Retail Single Article.
AFS Material with Grid to Retail Generic Article
AFS Material without Grid to Retail Single Article
In order to transfer an Article IDoc automatically when an AFS Material is created or modified, Change Pointers for the ARTMAS message type can be activated on the AFS system.
The message type used to transfer Articles is ARTMAS. The IDoc type is ARTMAS01.
