Reposting (Characteristic
Relationships)
Use
Characteristic relationships allow you to determine that, within a planning area, the system automatically derives the values of certain characteristics when generating transaction data and enters these derived values in the key of the data record. Apart from the possibility to determine characteristic values with exits, the way of determining characteristic values complies with conditions which are specified by data modeling: Attributes, hierarchies, and the link to reference data can be selected here.
If there are changes in the area of data modeling after transaction data has been generated using characteristic relationships (for example, a new assignment of attribute values or the reorganization of a hierarchy), the transaction data has to be made consistent.
You have generated transaction data for the article “light bulb”. Because of a characteristic relationship defined in the planning area, the appropriate article group “electrical appliance” was derived for the article, and the data record was saved in the database with the characteristic value combination “light bulb”/”electrical appliance”.
Later, in the context of a reassignment, the article “light bulb” was assigned to the article group “household goods”. Thus the data record saved with the characteristic value combination “light bulb”/”electrical appliance” is invalid.
In our case you have to define a planning function of type Repost (Characteristic Relationship) that contains the article group characteristic as a field to be changed.
Integration
Implementing this function is only advisable under the following conditions:
· Within a planning area in which characteristic relationships of the type derivation are defined.
· After data records have been generated whose characteristic value combinations may have been affected by these relationships.
Prerequisites
To make sure that all possible data records are entered by the function, you can only create and execute functions of the type Repost (Characteristic Relationships) in a planning level that contains all characteristics and key figures of the InfoCube it is based on.
Planning functions of type Repost (Characteristic Relationships) can only be created in a basic planning area and not in a multi-planning area.
The function type Repost (Characteristic Relationships) differs from all other planning functions in so far as the system checks whether the planning level contains all characteristics and key figures of the InfoCube.
The reason for this lies in the function’s mode of operation. To repost the existing transaction data records from the previously assigned characteristic values to the values that are valid now, the existing key figure values must be assigned internally to the characteristic value combinations that are valid now. This is only possible if the transaction data records are selected with all characteristics for which data was posted at any time. But this condition is only fulfilled when the quantity of characteristics in the planning level in which reposting is executed, corresponds to the upper quantity of all characteristics from all levels of the planning area. The same applies to the quantity of key figures. But even under these circumstances, it is possible that a level contained further characteristics for which data was also posted at an earlier time. Therefore, a secure and consistent reposting of data can only be guaranteed if this happens taking all characteristics and key figures of the planning area into account.
Features
You make a selection of the fields to be changed where the system (different to all other planning function types) does not offer all characteristics of the planning level, but only those which occur as a derived characteristic (target characteristic) in the characteristic relationships of the planning area. If necessary, you can define the conditions to restrict the data space within the function.
The parameter group that you create for a function type Repost (Characteristic Relationship) has a formal character. You only enter the names of the parameter group here. Further functions in relation to the fields to be changed are not possible.
If you execute the function with parameters set in this way, the system determines all data records in accordance with the selection in the planning package that are saved for characteristic relationships, in which at least one of the target characteristics occurs from characteristic relationships of the type derivation. If necessary, the function changes the values of the derived characteristics in accordance with the conditions, which apply in the data model at the execution point of the function.
See also: