Preparing to Work with the BAS (SAP Library - Business Address Services (BC-SRV-ADR))

Preparing to Work with the BAS

The Role of Application Objects

Application objects that use addresses include purchase orders, invoices, sales orders, and so on. To use the Business Address Services effectively, you must answer the following questions:

Which application objects are linked to an address (which relations exist)?
Are the application objects that include an address master data or movement data?

Do the application objects that reference an address have the same authorizations, or are there objects with some kind of address management function (for example, because you created the address)?

These aspects are closely related to BAS concepts (see Where-Used List, Designated Application Objects). The last point is dealt with in more detail below.

Number of References to an Address

Is an address used on a cross-application basis, that is, is it referenced by several application tables? The important question is whether all users of that address have the same authorizations. Do these users reference the address only for a single process (such as an invoice), or do they manage the addresses for an extended period of time (which is the case for customer master data, for example)? Considering these points, it makes sense to grant objects that exist for an extended period more address access authorizations than other objects.

Sometimes addresses do not have a link to an application object. This occurs in applications that provide address book functions, such as SAPoffice, and is also true for delivery addresses in Purchasing. However, these are special cases and are only currently supported for address types 1 and 3.

Prerequisites for Using the BAS

Determining the Address Group

The address group is an attribute of an address or a person, which has to be specified by the application as a filter for almost all operations. Before you can use the BAS, you must assign your application to an address or person group together with the BAS developers.

The name of an address group or person group consists of two letters for the application ID and two characters that you can choose as required. For example, address group ME01 belongs to materials procurement.

Note

Customers can define their own groups in the customer namespace. The names of these groups are also four characters long and must begin with Y or Z.

When you maintain the address group or person group, you also maintain the MAINT_TYPE indicator If this indicator is set, the addresses can be accessed directly. This means that the addresses in this group can be maintained in the BAS standard transactions without an application object.

Registering the Application in the BAS

You must register the application by making an entry in table TSADRV. This table stores information on the usage and an associated BOR object (see Maintenance of Where-Used Lists).