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Function documentationGeneric Articles

 

You use generic articles for structuring and maintaining variants of a product. For example, if a shirt is available in multiple sizes and colors, these variants can be grouped together as a generic article. During sales order creation, you select variants for generic articles, and can use them to filter your search results.

To use this feature, you must activate the business function SAP Multichannel Foundation for SAP CRM (CRM_MCF_R1).

Integration

You create and maintain master data for generic articles and their variants in SAP Retail (SAP ERP), and then replicate them in SAP CRM for use in sales order creation in the Interaction Center. You use SAP Retail as a source of master data and for sales order fulfillment. For information about implementing SAP Retail, see SAP Library for SAP ERP on SAP Help Portal at http://help.sap.com/eccInformation published on SAP site. Choose a release and then Application Help. In SAP Library, choose Start of the navigation path Industries in SAP ERP Next navigation step SAP Retail Next navigation step Basic Principles Next navigation step Configuration as SAP Retail End of the navigation path.

Prerequisites

  • You have created generic articles and variants in SAP Retail (SAP ERP). For more information, see SAP Library for SAP ERP on SAP Help Portal at http://help.sap.com/eccInformation published on SAP site. Choose a release and then Application Help. In SAP Library, choose Start of the navigation path Industries in SAP ERP Next navigation step SAP Retail Next navigation step Master Data Next navigation step Article Master Data Next navigation step Articles: Article Categories Next navigation step Articles: Generic Articles and Variants End of the navigation path.

  • In your system landscape, you have connected SAP CRM and SAP Retail (SAP ERP).

  • You have replicated generic articles from SAP Retail (SAP ERP) to SAP CRM. To make generic articles available in SAP CRM, you must replicate generic article and variant master data, their variant-creating characteristics, stock indicator data for variants, and pricing conditions from SAP ERP to SAP CRM. For more information, see the relevant documentation for master data replication between SAP ERP and SAP CRM in SAP Solution Manager, under the basic settings for SAP CRM.

    Recommendation Recommendation

    When replicating a generic article, you must replicate all corresponding variants. Similarly, when replicating a variant, you must also replicate the corresponding generic article. Any variants or generic articles that you filter out during data replication are not available in SAP CRM after data replication. If you do not want to use outdated variants, archive them in SAP Retail (SAP ERP) before replicating the corresponding generic articles and variants to SAP CRM.

    End of the recommendation.

Features

  • View and select variants during sales order creation.

    When placing an order for a pair of shoes, for example, you can select the size based on the available options.

  • Filter search results on a product characteristic.

    You can use filters in the product search to reduce the number of variants shown for a generic article. For example, you could filter based on color.