Categorization of Business Partner Roles (SAP Library - SSR

Categorization of Business Partner Roles

Use

You use the partner role technical category to categorize each business partner object.

You categorize business partner roles to:

Establish the rules by which a business partner object can be validated by the system
Determine whether the system creates a new entry in the relevant partner master record when you create a partner role assignment
Determine links from partner roles entries in the business location master record to dialog transactions for the relevant partner objects

Features

The partner role technical category is a two-character code that is used to fully categorize the business partner object. The technical category record contains a control flag that determines whether or not reporting is active for any partner role types assigned to the technical category, and thus for partner role assignments made with reference to the partner role type.

Each technical category allows the definition of up to three process-determining technical characteristics:

The name of the database table containing the business partner. When you define a partner role technical category, you can choose one of the following tables:

KNA1 for customers
LFA1 for vendors
USR02 for system users. This can be used, for example, for contact persons who are neither customers nor vendors

The account group. The customer and vendor account groups are used to determine the processing associated with customer and vendor objects respectively within the system.

Customer business partners. This is the SD partner function. In cases where the customer account group alone is not sufficient to identify the functions of a business partner, it is necessary to define the self-referencing partner function that a partner must carry in order to meet the requirements of the partner role technical category.

When you call the partner role assignment detail screen to assign a partner role, the technical category of the partner role type sets the screen for input of either a customer, vendor or user ID.

After the partner ID is entered, the account group of the partner record is checked against the expected account group specified in the partner role technical category. The account groups must match. If they do not match, a message that highlights the difference is displayed.

Reporting is only possible against customer ship-to parties. The reasons for this are explained in Location Reporting via Links to Business Partners. Consequently, if the technical category of the partner role determines that transactions that take place with the specified business partner are to be used to report on the business location, an additional step takes place. This step confirms that the correct partner function is carried by the business partner.

Activities

In Customizing for the Industry Solution Oil & Gas (Downstream) you:

Define partner roles by choosing SSR ® Business location master data ® Business Location Attributes ® Business partner roles ® Define partner role.

Define technical categories for partner roles by choosing SSR ® Business location master data ® Business Location Attributes ® Business partner roles ® Define partner role - technical category

Define the permissible range of dialog transactions to which links to a partner role technical category are supported by choosing SSR ® Business Location Master Data ® Business Partner Roles ® Define link dialogs for technical category

Assign technical categories to partner roles by choosing SSR ® Business location master data ® Business Location Attributes ® Business partner roles ® Assign technical categories to partner roles

For more information about defining partner roles, refer to the Business partner roles section of the Implementation Guide (IMG) for the Industry Solution Oil & Gas (Downstream). To do this, choose SSR ® Business location master data ® Business Location Attributes ® Business partner roles.