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Function documentationReplication of Bills of Material from SAP ERP to SAP CRM

 

You can use this function to replicate bills of material (BOMs) to SAP CRM from SAP ERP. You can replicate BOMs that are defined for the following types of master data in SAP ERP:

  • Material

  • Equipment

  • Functional location

A BOM is a list of materials that are constituent components of the above entities. These materials are, for example, included in the product proposal in service transactions, thereby providing your service employees with more accurate, transaction-specific information.

Note Note

You cannot change BOM data in SAP CRM.

End of the note.

Integration

The initial download is triggered in SAP CRM and is executed by middleware, using the adapter object BOM_ERP. Delta downloads take place automatically when BOM data is changed in SAP ERP.

Prerequisites

  • You are using the following releases, or higher:

    • SAP CRM 7.0 (with active middleware)

    • SAP enhancement package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0

  • You have ensured that the objects to which BOMs are assigned have been downloaded from SAP ERP.

    You can use transaction R3AM1 to check whether the objects have been downloaded.

Features

BOMs in SAP CRM

When replicated to SAP CRM, BOMs are represented as lists of products, linked by means of relationship types with the following:

  • Products representing materials replicated from SAP ERP

  • Objects representing equipment and functional locations replicated from SAP ERP

The entries in a BOM are displayed in the Service Parts - ERP assignment block in product and object data.

You cannot change BOM data in SAP CRM. It is not possible to assign any type of validity parameters, such as time. Header-level attributes of a BOM are not stored in SAP CRM.

Bill of Materials for Reference Product

A material that is assigned to a piece of equipment in SAP ERP as a construction type is represented as the reference product in the corresponding equipment object in SAP CRM. If a BOM exists for this material in SAP ERP, this is shown in the Referenced Service Parts - ERP assignment block in the equipment object in SAP CRM.

Bills of Materials in Transactions

You can assign a product or object from SAP ERP as a reference product for a service contract (and quotation), service order (and quotation), or service confirmation in SAP CRM. If this reference product has a BOM assigned to it in SAP ERP, the products from the BOM are included in the product proposal for transaction items.

Restrictions for Replication of BOMs

The following restrictions apply to the download:

  • Only BOM items of the following item categories are downloaded:

    • I (PM structure element)

    • L (stock item)

    • N (non-stock item)

  • Only group BOMs or BOMs from a specific plant are downloaded.

    This is because structured products cannot be defined for a specific organization, but are always valid across clients.

  • BOMs in which a material is used multiple times as a component are not downloaded.

  • BOMs in which a configurable product is used as a header product or component are not downloaded.

Activities

  1. Assign relationship types to categories for the products/objects to which BOMs are linked.

    In the CRM WebClient UI on the Product Hierarchy page, assign the relationship types BOMHEDS and BOMITMS to the following categories:

    • Material categories that you have downloaded from SAP ERP

    • Your category for equipment

    • Your category for functional locations

    Note: On the Product Hierarchy page, you can also specify for each category whether you want BOM products for the reference product to be included in the product proposal.

  2. Activate and set filters for the adapter object BOM_ERP in transaction R3AC1.

    Choose the In-/Active pushbutton to display inactive objects, then deselect the Inactive checkbox for the object.

    Set a filter for a combination of the fields WERKS (plant) and STLAN (usage type) and tables MAST (material), EQST (equipment), and TPST (functional location), respectively.

    Note Note

    You can only set one active filter per table for each of these fields.

    If you do not define a filter for a particular entity, BOMs are not downloaded for that entity.

    End of the note.

  3. To run the initial download, start transaction R3AS, specify the load object BOM_ERP, and then select an SAP ERP system as the source site and an SAP CRM system as the destination site.