Guidelines for Converting Business
Partners 
Purpose
SAP has introduced the SAP Business Partner to enable standardized business partner management. For Financial Services (FS), the SAP Business Partner was enhanced to include attributes specific to financial services and is called SAP Business Partner for Financial Services. The SAP Business Partner replaced the Treasury Business Partner. This replacement process is described as business partner conversion.
These guidelines provide information about how to convert to the SAP Business Partner. They offer a detailed description of the steps you need to take, the report programs you need to run, and the relevant tables and attributes for the respective phases.
As of Release Banking 4.63/CFM 2.0 all Financial Services applications use the SAP Business Partner. Only the Real Estate (RE) application continues to use the Treasury Business Partner up to Release SAP ECC 5.00. For this reason, the Treasury Business Partner was renamed the Real Estate Business Partner from Release Banking 4.63/CFM 2.0.
As of Release SAP R/3 Enterprise Financial Services 2.00, the Flexible Real Estate Management (RE FX) application, which uses the SAP Business Partner, is available in addition to the classic Real Estate (RE) application. You can convert Real Estate (RE) to Flexible Real Estate Management (RE FX) and consequently switch business partner processing in Real Estate (RE) from the Real Estate Business Partner to the SAP Business Partner as of Release SAP ECC 6.00.
Implementation Considerations
Whether or not you need to convert from the Treasury Business Partner to the SAP Business Partner depends on certain conditions.
The following table provides you with an overview of the use of the Treasury Business Partner and the SAP Business Partner in the individual applications at various release levels. The release levels were divided into four groups, from I-IV, to make it easier to decide when to carry out the business partner conversion as described in the subsequent graphic.
Release Group |
Core-Release/ AddOn/Extension |
Application |
Business Partner in Use |
|
|
|
|
Treasury Business Partner |
SAP Business Partner |
I |
4.0B 4.6B 4.6C |
FS applications - Treasury (TR) - Statutory Reporting for Insurance (IS-IS-SR) - Real Estate (RE) Classic |
In use In use
In use |
|
II |
4.6C with Banking 4.62/CFM 1.0 |
Special case; contact SAP |
|
|
III |
4.6C with Banking 4.63/CFM 2.0 4.70 with EA-FINSERV 1.10 |
FS applications: - Corporate Finance Management (CFM) - Bank Customer Accounts (IS-B-BCA) - SEM Banking - Loans Management (FS CML) - Real Estate (RE) Classic |
|
In use
In use In use In use
|
IV
|
4.70 with EA-FINSERV 2.0 4.70 with ECC 5.00 4.70 with ECC 6.00
|
Flexible Real Estate Management (RE-FX) FS applications: - Corporate Finance Management (CFM) - Bank Customer Accounts (IS-B-BCA) - SEM Banking - Loans Management (CML) - Real Estate (RE) Classic |
|
In use
In use
In use In use In use
|
If you are upgrading to Release Banking 4.63/CFM 2.0 or higher and are using at least one of the Financial Services applications, you have to convert the Treasury Business Partner to the SAP Business Partner.
Check whether it is necessary to carry out the business partner conversion for the upgrade you want to implement. The following graphic should help you make your decision. The release groups in the graphic refer to the groupings in the previous table.
Similar to the Euro conversion, the time required for the business partner conversion is considerably more than for a normal release upgrade.
SAP recommends you take account of the time required when planning the upgrade.
Note that you have to carry out all phases of the business partner conversion.
Scope of Functions
The business partner conversion must meet different customer-specific requirements. These are, for example:
· the re-numbering of the business partners, or transfer of the Treasury Business Partner numbers to the SAP Business Partner
· the use of Real Estate (RE) and/or
· the use of Financial Services applications
· customer enhancements that have to be transferred from the Treasury Business Partner to the SAP Business Partner for Financial Services
To meet all these requirements, the business partner conversion takes the form of a modular process based on several, consecutive activities that are spread across the following four phases:
Phase 0: Preparation |
Technical and business-related preparation of the business partner conversion. |
Phase I: Duplicating Treasury Business Partners in SAP Business Partners |
Transfer of the data from the Treasury Business Partner tables to the SAP Business Partner tables.
|
Phase II: Technical DDIC Conversion and Content Conversion |
Conversion of the references from the Treasury Business Partner to the SAP Business Partner in the customer applications, and content conversion of the key values in the application tables.
|
Phase III: Follow-up |
Follow-up and check. |
...
Sie ersetzen die Feldwerte von Tabellen, die bislang auf den Treasury- Geschäftspartner referiert haben, durch die entsprechenden Feldwerte des SAP Geschäftspartners (Umschlüsselung).
As far as possible, all the required activities have been implemented in the form of reports. This applies to the technical part of the conversion in particular, which covers the duplication of the business partner in phase I, as well as the DDIC conversion and the content conversion of the application tables in phase II. The reports are integrated in an SAP conversion tool. This tool provides an infrastructure for the reports to be carried out which ensures that the reports can be restarted and that they are connected to a log system. Reports from phase I are summarized in the conversion tool for project 0001, reports from phase II in project 0003. In addition a number of activities are necessary that cannot be automated in reports. These include the steps required in preparing the conversion and the follow-up.
All the steps you need to perform in the four phases, as well as the steps to be performed manually and the reports in the conversion tool, are listed in the correct processing sequence in the overview under Activities for Business Partner Conversion. The individual steps are described in detail in the sections that follow.
You can access the business partner conversion reports in the conversion tool for the SAP Business Partner for Financial Services, which you will find in Customizing for the SAP Business Partner for Financial Services. The following path in the Implementation Guide (IMG) brings you to business partner conversion control:
SAP Business Partner for Financial Services ® Settings for Financial Services ® Interfaces/Data Exchange ® Settings for Business Partner Conversion ® Conversion: Phase I or Conversion: Phase II ® Execute Conversion ® Execute Conversion Reports.
The conversion reports and their respective statuses are listed here in the sequence in which they should be executed.
As the status of the report influences the processing of the following report, SAP recommends you call only the reports from this IMG activity.