Changing a Document with Reference to a Change Num (SAP Library

Changing a Document with Reference to a Change Number

The Document Management System (DMS) does not use Engineering Change Management to store processing statuses of a document with history. This is done using version management.

If you enter a change number in a document info record of a document, you have the following processing options:

You can group together documents and any other SAP objects that belong together under one change number.

You can manage single, independent documents that exist without reference to other objects in the system.
In this case the change is simple. The single document is changed and further object checks are not required.
Documents can also be linked to other objects (such as the material master record, equipment BOMs, functional location BOMs). Under these circumstances it is not immediately obvious which objects must be taken into account when a change is being made.
For example, a single product can have a bill of material, a task list and several documents (drawings, photographs, detailed descriptions).

In this case you should enter the same change number for the document that was chosen for the other SAP objects.

The valid-from date in the change master record is the same for all the objects.

This link is especially useful if you want to change the date of the change. You carry out a date shift in the change master record, and all objects processed with reference to this change number automatically have the new valid-from date.

You can assign a revision level to specific change statuses of a document.
You can only assign a revision level while you are processing the document info record. The change status to which you want to assign a revision level is defined specifically for each document type (see Revision levels).

Caution

You can only process a document with reference to a change number if the Change number field is defined as available for entry or required entry for the chosen document type. You can make the appropriate settings in Customizing for the Document Management System, under Define document types. If this is the case, the Valid from field is shown.