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Function documentationMaterial Creation and Change Locate this document in the navigation structure

 

You use this function to create material master records, change existing materials, or create plant data for materials on the Enhanced Material Search user interface.

You can create materials out of supplier catalog products found during a catalog search, using an existing material as a template, or completely from scratch using one or more of the following methods:

  • Simplified Material Creation

    Use this method to create standard materials as well as single articles in SAP for Retail systems.

    You can use reference materials during simplified material creation by associating existing materials with a material type and, optionally, a vendor or vendor subrange. For more information, see Reference Material Maintenance.

  • Business Add-In

    Use this method to implement a customer-specific method using the BADI_WSD_MAT_CREATION_EXTERNAL BAdI. For more information, consult the BAdI documentation.

  • Core Master Data Maintenance for Materials

    Use this method to create materials (retail articles) in SAP for Retail systems. You must maintain a maintenance group in the Enhanced Material Search Customizing. For more information, see Articles: Core Master Record Processing

  • Material Master Maintenance

    Use this method to create retail articles in SAP for Retail systems by way of the Material Maintenance function (transaction MM41). You can also change materials in SAP standard systems using transaction MM02, and in SAP for Retail systems using transaction MM42.

  • Price Catalog (PRICAT)

    Use this method to create retail articles in SAP for Retail systems by using catalog search results obtained by searching a price catalog. You must select the SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Search as your search engine to use this method. For more information, see Master Data Exchange using Price Catalogs.

Prerequisites

  • If you are using the Simplified Material Creation method to create materials, you have configured it in Customizing by choosing   Logistics — General   Material Master   Enhanced Material Search with Material Creation   Configure Simplified Creation of a Material in the Material Search  

  • If you are using the Price Catalog method, you have activated the PRICAT_DATA_EXTRACT default implementation of the BADI_CATALOG_DATA_EXTRACT BAdI. This makes it possible to extract supplier product data maintained in PRICAT tables and to transfer the data to the WSD_CAT SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Search object connector.

Features

Material creation and change methods

The following table illustrates the scenarios in which the various material creation and change methods can be used:

Method

Create a material using an existing material as a template

Create a material without a template

Create a material using a supplier catalog product

Change a material

Simplified Material Creation

X

X

X

Business Add-In

X

X

X

Core Master Data Maintenance for Materials

X*

X*

X*

Material Master Maintenance

X*

X*

X

Price Catalog

X*

Note Note

Table entries containing an asterisk apply to SAP for Retail systems only.

End of the note.

Material Plant Data Creation Methods

You use this option to create plant data for materials used in the Enhanced Material Search function. You can do so in three ways:

  • Allow Automatic Creation

    You use this option to automatically create plant data (MARC data). Listing (WLK1) data is subsequently created for selected materials and plants. In addition, plant data is also created for the reference plant from the calling application, as well as for the reference plant configured for the distribution chain.

  • No Automatic Creation

    You use this option to indicate that no plant data should be created for selected materials when adding them from the Enhanced Material Search function to the calling application.

  • Creation of Plant Data via Business Add-In

    You use this option to invoke the BADI_WSD_CREATE_PLANT_DATA BAdI to implement a customer-specific behavior for creating plant and listing data for selected materials.

Force TREX Update

You can activate this setting in the Material Creation part of the Enhanced Material Search Customizing to automatically add a newly-created material to the TREX search index. The setting triggers a delta update of the SES business object BUS1001006 when a material is created in the Enhanced Material Search function. The new material will be immediately available in subsequent material searches. You must select the Search Engine Service as your search engine to use this feature.