Assigning and Inheriting Partners and Addresses 

Use

Assigning Partners

You can assign one or more partners with different partner functions to each installed base or each installed base component. A partner can be one of the following:

·        Sold-to party

·        Ship-to party

·        Contact person

·        Employee responsible

·        Service employee or service team

Assigning Addresses

You can assign an individual address to each installed base or installed base component. An address can be, for example, the delivery address, location or customer address.

The functions for assigning partners and addresses are available for the SAP GUI, the People-Centric UI and Mobile Client.

Inheriting Partners and Addresses

Partner and address data from the installed base is inherited logically by the components if this is set up in Customizing. The inheritance and the number of hierarchy levels is defined in Customizing.

The inheritance function is available for the SAP GUI and for the People-Centric UI.

Irrespective of the component that you assign to the business partner, by selecting the Main checkbox for a business partner on the Mobile Client, this business partner can be inherited by the entire installed base and its components.

Integration

Partner assignment or address assignment is used during the search for components to take partner and address inheritance into account.

This means that in the Interaction Center or service processes for example, all components can be found using the business partner.

Requirements

You have made the necessary system settings in the Implementation Guide (IMG) by choosing Customer Relationship Management ® Master Data ® Installed Base ® Installed Base Category ® Activate Partner and Address Inheritance, Change in the Past.

Features

Special Features for the SAP GUI:

When creating or changing an installed base, select the installed base or the relevant components in the structure and choose Goto ® Address, or Goto ® Partner.

When you enter address data, ensure that additional address fields are available and that you can extend the dialog box to display these fields.

·         The inherited addresses and partners are not displayed if you select a component and choose Goto ® Address or Goto ® Partner. Only directly assigned addresses or partners are displayed here.

·         Similarly, only addresses and partners are identified in the structure display of the installed base in the Address Available and Partner Available columns if they were assigned directly to the component. The prerequisite for the flag is that it was set in Customizing.

Depending on the Customizing settings, the address data may be used to calculate the geographical coordinates for an installed base or an installed base component. This data is important for resource planning for calculating the optimum route.

Special Features for the People-Centric UI

The partner and address functions are available on the tab pages Partners and Addresses.

Special Features for the Mobile Client

The partner and address functions are available by choosing: Installed Base ® Business Partners/Address.