Simplification Item: Business Partner Approach / Customer-Vendor Integration (CVI)

[Wagnerfr]

Hello,

for information related to the Business Partner Approach in S/4HANA see the following SCN page: Business Partner Approach in SAP S/4HANA
This page (like all of my SCN pages related to S/4HANA System Conversion and Simplification List) is not longer maintained by me, because I´m working now in a different departement of SAP.

Kind Regards,
Frank

_______________________________________

With the TOP Simplification List Items approach we want to start a S/4HANA SCN Blog series to provide more information about dedicated simplification items. Simplification items where we assume that any customer project has to deal with. The following S/4HANA SCN Blog is collecting these TOP Simplification Items with the links to the dedicated S/4HANA blogs.

The TOP Simplification List Items

Within this blog we want to provide additional information regarding the Simplification Item Business Partner Approach (Customer-Vendor Integration).

Simplification List Item Description

• There are redundant object models in the traditional ERP system. Here the vendor master and customer master is used. The (mandatory) target approach in SAP S/4HANA is the Business Partner approach (Customer-Vendor Integration [CVI]).


• Business Partner is now capable of centrally managing master data for business partners, customers, and vendors. With current development, BP is the single point of entry to create, edit, and display master data for business partners, customers, and vendors.


• The specific tables for customer data (KNA1) and vendor data (LFA1) remain available and are not impacted.

Business Impact

• Only SAP Business Suite customer with C/V integration in place can move to SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511 (Conversion approach).


• It´s recommended but not mandatory that BuPa ID and Customer-ID / Vendor ID are the same.
  Note: In case of overlapping number ranges for Customer and Vendor in Business Suite start system additional number range alignment is required!


• The user interface for SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511 is transaction BP. The specific transaction codes to maintain  customer/vendor separately like known from SAP Business Suite, are not available within SAP S/4HANA.

Required and Recommended Action(s)

• Execute the related conversion pre-checks. Adaption required in dependency to the pre-check results


• Necessary CVI Business Partner transformation customizing settings and checks must be performed


• Remove and avoid inconsistent customizing and inconsistent customer data (for example: Missing customizing tax types or inconsistent customer data like e-mail addresses without @-sign)

More Details:

• For more details see the PPT attached to the following SAP Note 2265093: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/0002265093


• See Customizing resolution program provided  to find out missing customizing entries and the solution to create/correct these entries for each client (SAP Note 2344034) https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/0002344034


• For the Conversion of Employees to Business Partners see appropriate Simplification Item (or the related text which is based on SAP Note 2340095
  

[JK]

thanks, especially the attachment pdf is really useful!!

[dkle]

Is the CVI approach also mandatory for system conversion to S4/HANA Finance (1503)?

[Wagnerfr]

Hello Daniel,

the CVI approach is mandatory for SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511. A customer using SAP S/4HANA Finance, on-premise edition 1503 does not need to introduce the CVI approach. Backgrond: With SAP S/4HANA Finance, on-premise edition 1503 the not simplified / traditional logistics functionalities are used.

Kind Regards,

Frank

[ildar_akhmerov2]

Thanks a lot, what would be very useful is a guide or tool (maybe excel) for high-level extimation of required effort for CVI.

For example based on about of records in tables KNA1, LFA1 and BP000 and results of check reports:

PRECHECK_UPGRADATION_REPORT from note 2216176

Z-report from SAP Note 2210486

CVI_FS_CHECK_CUSTOMIZING from SAP note 1623677

Is something like this available or planned?

Kind regards,

Ildar

[Wagnerfr]

Hello,

just wanted to add a comment, which might fit here. There have been question regarding the support of Business Partner IDOC Types (DEBMAS and CREMAS).

Like stated in revision log area of teh Simplification List for SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511 FPS1:

"Chapter 2.1.1.14 Business Partner IDOC Types (DEBMAS and CREMAS) removed from Simplification List. These IDOCs can be used to transfer data between SAP S/4HANA and other systems. The Customer-Vendor Integration is supported within these IDOCs". 

Kind Regards,

Frank

[Wagnerfr]

Hello Ildar,

I contacted DEV regarding your request. Let´s see what happens. In case there will be appropriate updates you will find them here.

Kind Regards,

Frank

[Alexander_Roebe]

Hello,

just 2 questions with regards to FPS02:

* In simplification list is stated that classification is not available for customer master. Is it the same for vendor master? Does it mean it is not possible within BP-transaction but with transactions for classification (CL*)?

Some notes are stating the same but these are not released or updated recently.

* What about transaction MASS? I have heard that MASS is now available for business partner with object type 10006. I do not find any information about it.

Kind Regards

Alexander

[ignacio_kristof]

Hi all, question to anyone with experience in this subject:

Just for a demonstration,  Can I install S/4HANA 1511 if I could not convert all customers and vendors?

I want to know if despite receiving an error during pre-checks I can move forward with installation, accepting that the non-converted vend./cust. will be unavailable.

Background:

• I need to do a proof of concept for a company with 2,000,000 master data items between vendors and customers. As proof of concept, does not have to be perfect.
• I was able to convert 95% of items, but I do not have time to fix the bad data in the remaining 5%.
• I would like to proceed with installation anyway, accepting not having that 5% later. But I want to understand if this means a big technical issue.

Thank you in advance!

[Former Member]

Hi Ignacio,

I believe that you wanted to ask whether you can migration/convert existing system to S4HANA and not install fresh system. So if your question is related to conversion/migration here is what I am seeing currently,  I am working on PoC to convert existing system to S4HANA and during PREPARE phase, SUM tool runs step "PREP_EXTENSION/RUN_S4H_PRE_CHECK_INIT" step which performs functional checks and gets stuck if any of following checks are pending :-

(You might already know that we can run  report PRECHECK_UPGRADATION_REPORT to perform following check)

1. BP roles are assigned to account groups
2. Every account group BP Grouping must be available
3. Customer value mapping
4. Vendor value Mapping
5. Customer and Vendor Value mapping(BP->Customer or Vendor)
6. CVI_Link
7. CVI Mapping
8. Contact Person Mapping

If above checks are green and you just have a problem with converting customers/vendors into business partners then your might be able to complete migration to S4HANA. I haven't gotten to that point yet, I will know that soon. We have also left some customer without BP conversion.

I hope this answers your question.

Best Regards

Sachin

[Wagnerfr]

Hi Ignacio,

you can not execute a system conversion from SAP Business Suite to SAP S/4HANA 1511 without having the CVI active. This is independent if it is a PROD or a sandbox. Technically the Software Update Manager is re-trigerring the pre-checks and does stop in case an issue is detected (technically an error with return code greater than 8 [if I'm not wrong] as ooutcome of the pre-check). The reason why it is stopped in such a constellation is that the data conversion step within SUM (the point in time when the data from the old data structure is transformed to the new data strcture [example table MATDOC]) are programmed with the expectation that the CVI is active. There might be inconsistent application data if the CVI is not active. Accordingly this logic is in place.

At least this is my understanding.

Kind Regards,

Frank

[ignacio_kristof]

Hi Frank,

Thank you. I appreciate the prompt response. I did not clarify that this is a system conversion:

• We will have CVI active, just  a small percentage not converted successfully due to errors (small percentage, large number to fix in a couple of days).
• I will check  the error messages triggered by SUM and check return code as you  has mentioned.
• If we decide to try the installation anyway, I will do an entry in this blog to comment the results

As usual, thank you for the good information.

[ignacio_kristof]

Hi Sachin,

Thank you very much. In fact it is a system conversion and the scenario is the one you  have described. After analyzing Frank's point we will probably move ahead and try to install it. I will let you know what happened.

Appreciate you taking the time to respond.

[ildar_akhmerov2]

Hi Ignacio,

For POc purposes you may consider remove this 5%.

Is that an option?

Kind regards,

Ildar

[ignacio_kristof]

Hi IIdar,

Yes, that is on the table. To mark the items as flagged for deletion and archive them.

Appreciate the comment.

[ignacio_kristof]

Hi all,

Just to provide an update on our experience, as Frank said above, we cannot continue with installation if we do not have all vendor/customer conversion complete.

Right now we are facing an issue with contacts person. Apparently contact persons were not mapped and we cannot finish the conversion.

Thank you.

[Former Member]

Hi All,

Working on a greenfield PoC to demonstrate how BP would work in S/4HANA.We're trying to check if there can be a particular Number Range selection possible based on the BP Role selected in BP transaction. In BP transaction  both BP Role and Grouping are drop down selections with several entries. i.e. there does not seem to be any one-to-one link setup in the system.

Is there a way to have a restrictive link between BP Role and Grouping so that user cannot change the Grouping from dropdown after selecting a BP Role while creation?

Thanks and Regards,

Hemant

[Former Member]

Hi All,

A very usefull discussion is going on here. I have one question: We have created business partner on ECC 6.0 which comprised both Customer/Vendor's Master data. Now we are supposed to transfer these data to another Invoice System (Based on HANA). Are there any difference between the BP of both technologies in terms of fields and attributes or anything else? Can we transfer the data 1:1? Is there already any OSS-Notes about this issue?

Thanks

[ignacio_kristof]

Hi all again, I am contacting this group to see if someone has a response to this specific question.

*We have performed CVI integration and S/4HANA installation successfully.

*Now we need to perform HCM integration to S/4HANA which has to create employees as Business Partner: Create them as person, with employee role and assign them also vendor role.

*The problem is that as we had employees as vendor already, so they were converted as the CVI.

So the question is: Does anybody know the right approach to follow?

1.Should employees in vendor master record, be part of CVI?

2.If NO,we have an issue as I believe that all vendors needs to be integrated to BP in order to install S/4HANA.

3.If YES, what will happen when HCM integration tries to convert the employees in the vendor role.

Any input  though will be helpful. Thanks!!

[Wagnerfr]

Hello Ignacio,

just as additional information (do not know the direct answer to your question). In SAP Note 2340095 you can find additional information regarding the conversion of Employees to Business Partners (see aswell the attached PDF).

Kind Regards,

Frank

[ignacio_kristof]

Hi Frank, thank you very much as usual.

Please see the update I have, regarding the findings we could do:

We were finding out this, and were able to reach out some consultants at SAP:

1.We need to do CVI for all our vendors, included employee.

2.The employee vendors must be converted to a different range to avoid conflicts with HCM integration at later stage.

3.With this pre-requisiste we can install S/4HANA.

4.Then HCM synchronization program will be executed and create the employees as BP, assigning the vendor role.

We agreed  with SAP consultants, that there is a gap in the process design, as it makes no sense to convert employee vendors during CVI that will not be needed.  So, this was going to be escalated in order to review a permanent and more efficient solution to this scenario.

Kind regards.

[madhavan_krishnamurthi2]

Hello Frank

We are working on a System conversion from HANA-S.Fin 1.0 to S/4-1610 and currently working on pre check activities for Business partner conversion.

For one of the  vendor account group and customer account group, we have an overlapping number range (From A To-ZZZZZZZZZZ)

ABXX exists as a vendor in LFA1 and exists as a customer in KNA1


In the above situation can you please guide us on the steps we need to follow for the BP conversion to migrate vendors and customers


Thanks
Madhavan

[former_member241840]

Hi Alexander,
The simplifification list was not 100% clear to me either.

I've tested on a S/4HANA environment, CL24N still works.
I think that simplification list points that this is not possible anymore to maintain customer classification via XD transaction since it is routed to BP transation, nor via BP transaction.
I saw some screenshots on classification on BP but this is not on Customer directly.

Regards
Jerome

[former_member198457]

Dear Expert,

We are in a green field implementation of S4 HANA, our requirement is to receive the  Vendors from a non SAP legacy system through idocs. Could you advise me the idoc type and required configuration to receive.

I tried simulated the scenario with the CREMAS idoc for the creation of vendor master, but unfortunately only the vendor is created, and the system has not triggered the business partner.

Request your advice / inputs

Regards
Praveen 

[Former Member]

Hello Frank!

I would like to know where I can find a detailed description of each BP role and which processes they are connected to.

I have been reading most of the documentation available about CVI and I have not found a recommendation or best practice regarding bp role mapping. For example: SAP recommendations for vendor and customers regarding bp roles, like must have roles and when should a role be used.

We have some errors code 12 that are connected to CVI. In the document S4/HANA for master data - business partner precheck for upgradation (precheck_upgradation_report) page 5, there is a text saying:

"You must mandatorily maintain the Customizing entries for the following checks.

• For CVI Mapping

In transaction SE11, ensure that you maintain in mapping tables, CVI_CUST_LINK and CVI_VEND_LINK, the same number of entries as in customer table KNA1 and vendor table LFA1.

• For Contact Person Mapping

In transaction SE11, ensure that you maintain in mapping tables, CVI_CUST_CT_LINK and CVI_VEND_CT_LINK, the same number of entries as in Contact table KNVK with the condition NVK with where condition KUNNR<>Space ad KNVK with where condition LIFNR<>Space."

Can this be configured somewhere? In that case, can you send me the path?

The problem is that in these four tables there are no maintence vews. When using SE11 the Utilities->Table Contents -> Create entries, this feature is not active(grey).

The data browser/table view maintenance under Delivery and Maintenance is Display/Maintence Allowed with restriction instead of X Display/maintenace alowwed.

Am I supposed to change these standard tables to Dsplay/maintenance allowed or there is any other way that I should handle this?

It seems wrong to make changes to standard tables to do something that is mandatory.

Is there any detailed information regarding how to solve this issue.

What is the meaning of this mapping? I am really confused.

Can you please send an example on how the configuration/entries should look like?

Thanks in advance!

Best regards,

Karin

 

[geir_sunde]

Is it possible (and advisable) to do the transfer to the CVI in the ERP system weeks or months before an actual conversion to S/4HANA, or is it strictly to be done at the time of conversion to S/4HANA?

[Former Member]

Hi,

We are facing issue w.r.t. CRM integration with S4HANA.

Can you help me with below issue :-

https://answers.sap.com/questions/165602/issue-in-bp-replication-from-sap-crm-to-s4hana-uti.html

 

 

regards,

Sagar

 

[Wagnerfr]

 

Hello Geir,

sorry for the late reply, but I´m working in different topics now. So I`m do not frequently look into the SCN any longer.

The CVI functionaliy i already available in SAP ERP. Accordingly you can address the CVI tasks before you start the S/4HANA conversion.

 

Kind Regards,

Frank

[Wagnerfr]

 

Hello Sagar,

sorry there is nothing I can do. I´m no longer in the S4 System Conversion topic and don not know personally the answer to your CRM integration question.

 

Kind Regards,

Frank

 

[henrik_godiksen]

Hi Frank

 

We are using the plant level data on the vendor master (table LFM2) and are not using Business Partners. When we upgrade to S4 then we need to start using Business Partners. I have not been able to find any information regarding the content on the table LFM2. Do we need to change our way of using the system or is this table also going to be supported by Business Partners?

Kind Regards

Henrik

[Former Member]

Hi Frank,

We currently have existing vendors/ customer numbers in SOH, the problem is when we are going to migrate to S/4 HANA, we need to externally assign the BP number range. Can you share your idea on that?

Thanks a lot!

 

[Former Member]

I think there is no issue in migrating to S/4HANA..