Show TOC

Function documentationPartner Catalog Management

 

When a customer has one of your products in a shopping basket in the Collaborative Showroom, the system displays which channel partners have this product in stock and what the delivery time is.

To make this possible, you, as brand owner, provide your channel partners in the partner portal with a master catalog as the basis for the Collaborative Showroom. The channel partner selects those products that are in his or her product range. The system saves this product selection in the form of a partner-specific product catalog.

Prerequisites

To be able to provide a product catalog from CRM Enterprise as a master catalog in Partner Channel Management, you must ensure that the Permitted for Master Catalog/Channel Mgmt indicator is set in the header data for this product catalog in CRM Enterprise.

Make sure that you have assigned the sales area for sales transactions between end customer and partner to the master catalog. These are the sales organizations and the distribution channel for orders placed by end customers for partners (not for orders placed by partners for you as brand owner). You must also have set up suitable catalog pricing, for example by assigning the pricing procedure 15ISA2 or by defining a list price with a condition table that contains your recommended prices.

You must have replicated the data from the master catalog to the index server.

You can find more information about the product catalog in CRM Enterprise and in CRM E-Commerce under Product Catalog.

Features

Catalog Replication
Initial replication and delta replications

Once you have replicated your master catalog onto the index server, you have to carry out a data replication whenever you make changes to your master catalog, (for example, when you add new products). The delta replication updates all dependent partner catalogs with the changes in the master catalog. The partner can subscribe to products you have recently added, for example next time the partner calls his or her partner catalog.

If you only wish to replicate individual partner catalogs instead of all partner catalogs, use the COM_PCAT_CVIEW_ERR_ANALYSIS report.

Caution Caution

Always use a delta replication to replicate changes in your master catalog. You should never use a new initial replication for this, as this can lead to data inconsistency between the master catalog and the partner catalogs.

End of the caution.
New initial replication in specific situations

In specific situations (for example, in the case of a damaged index), it can be necessary to carry out a new initial replication of the master catalog. See SAP Note 660503 if you have to carry out a new initial replication of the master catalog.

Staging catalog contents

The time required by the replication depends on the size of your master catalog, and on the number of partner catalogs connected with it. The larger your master catalog, and the more partner catalogs that need to be replicated, the longer the replication takes. It is sometimes useful to work with Staging the Release of Catalog Contents.

Catalog status

If the channel partner creates a product catalog, the system processes the data in the background and replicates the data to the index server. A traffic light displays the status of the partner catalog:

  • Green traffic light: Data replication of the partner catalog was completed successfully, the partner catalog was saved in the CRM system.

  • Yellow traffic light: The data replication of the partner catalog is not yet complete.

  • Red traffic light: Errors occurred during the data replication. In this case, the system automatically sends an e-mail to the channel partner's e-mail address.

You can get an overview of the status of all partner catalogs and all error logs using the COM_PCAT_CVIEW_ERR_ANALYSIS report.

Delivery times and maximum quantity

The channel partner can specify a delivery time for a product. The system displays this delivery time for the customer in the Collaborative Showroom using symbols; in the standard delivery, the system uses traffic lights. You can define your own symbols for displaying delivery times in Customizing for Customer Relationship Management, by choosing Start of the navigation path Channel Management Next navigation step Channel Commerce Next navigation step Visualization of Delivery Time End of the navigation path.

If the channel partner specifies a delivery time for a product, he or she can also specify a maximum quantity for which this delivery time is guaranteed. If the customer exceeds the maximum quantity when placing the order, he or she can still order the product from this channel partner, however the delivery time is no longer guaranteed. You specify how the system should react in this case (whether, for example, a longer delivery time should be displayed automatically) in Customizing for Customer Relationship Management, by choosing Start of the navigation path Partner Management Next navigation step Channel Commerce Next navigation step Visualization of Delivery Time End of the navigation path.