Use

You can change the data contained in a material master record in one of the following ways:

In both cases, you can make your changes with reference to a change number. This identifies a change master record in engineering change management and has the advantage that changes to different objects (such as the material, bill of material, or routing) can be grouped together under this number. If, for example, a particular product gives rise to a complaint, you can record any resulting changes to the relevant objects under this number. For more information, see Special Features for Materials in the SAP library documentation Engineering Change Management (LO-ECH) .

Any changes that you make to material master records are recorded in change documents . In the case of scheduled changes, the change is stored in the change document and not in the material master record itself. The date at which the change is to take effect is stored in the document header. Such changes have to be activated. For more information, see Activating Scheduled Changes to Material Master Records .

Integration

Using a special cross-application tool, you can change several material master records at the same time, for example, if you need to adapt existing data to a change in circumstances. However, this tool must be used only by experienced users. For more information, see the SAP library documentation Cross-Application Mass Maintenance (CA-GTF-MS) .

Prerequisites

The material master record must already exist in the material master. However, it may happen that you cannot access the data screen for your user department by choosing Change . This is because another department has already created data for the material, but no data has been entered yet for your user department. Therefore, you must first extend the material master record to include your data. For more information, see Extending a Material Master Record .