Business Partner - Customer Upload via LTMC

[mubeenashfaque]

I'm writing this blog to explain in detail the process of migrating Business Partner Customer Master via the Migration Cockpit in S4 HANA 1709.

With the introduction of S4 HANA and its different iterations (1510, 1611 and 1709) we found out that LSMW will no longer be supported for data migration. As a result, there is a majority of master data that can no longer be migrated via LSMW. However, during our implementation of S4 HANA 1709 we discovered that LSMW can still be used to migrate some data from legacy system.

How do we discern between objects that can be migrated via Migration Cockpit and LSMW? It’s quite easy. All objects that are provided within the Migration Cockpit framework for migration cannot be migrated via LSMW. For e.g. the list of objects in MC 1709 are;

Business Object Name	Area	Business Object Type	Migration Cockpit Object Name	Technical Object Name
Activity Type	CO	Master data	Activity type	SIF_LSTAR_CREATE
Cost Center	CO	Master data	Cost center	SIF_KOSTL_MASTER
Activity Price	CO	Master data	Activity price	SIF_ACT_PRICE
Internal Order	CO	Transactional data	Internal order	SIF_INTORDER
Profit Center	FI	Master data	Activity price	SIF_PRCTR_MASTER
Bank Master Data	FI	Master data	Bank	SIF_BANK_MASTER
Customer	FI, SD	Master data	Customer	SIF_CUSTOMER
Customer	FI, SD	Master data	Customer – extend existing record by new organizational levels	SIF_CUST_EXTEND
Supplier	FI, MM-PUR	Master data	Supplier	SIF_VENDOR
Supplier	FI, MM-PUR	Master data	Supplier – extend existing record by new organizational levels	SIF_VEND_EXTEND
Accounts Receivable (Customer) Open Item	FI	Transactional data	Accounts receivable (Customer) open item	SIF_AR_OPEN_ITEM
Accounts Payable (Vendor) Open Item	FI	Transactional data	Accounts payable (Vendor) open item	SIF_AP_OPEN_ITEM
Fixed Asset	FI-AA	Master data + Transactional data	Fixed asset incl. balances	SIF_FIXED_ASSET
G/L Account Balance	FI	Transactional data	G/L balance	SIF_GL_BALANCES
G/L Account Open/Line Item	FI	Transactional data	G/L open/line item	SIF_GL_OPEN_ITEM
Exchange Rate	FI	Master data	Exchange rate	SIF_EXCH_RATE
Inventory Balance	MM-IM	Transactional data	Material inventory balance	SIF_INVENTORYBAL
Material Master	LO-MD	Master data	Material	SIF_MATERIAL
Material Master	LO-MD	Master data	Material long text	SIF_MAT_LONGTEXT
Material Master	LO-MD	Master data	Material consumption	SIF_MAT_CONSUMP
Material Master	CO	Master data	Exceptional case: Material Price Chng for global currencies	SIF_MATPRICE_CHG
Material Master	MD	Master data	Material – extend existing record by new organizational levels	SIF_MAT_EXTEND
Material Master	CA-CLF	Master data	Material classification	SIF_CLF_MAT
Material Master	QM	Master data	Material inspection type *	SIF_INSP_TYPE
Material Master	SLL-LEG	Master data	Material – Commodity code	SIF_MAT_COMMCODE
Purchasing Info Record	MM-PUR	Master data	Purchasing info record with conditions	SIF_PURCH_INF_V2
Purchasing Info Record	MM-PUR	Master data	Purchasing info record	SIF_PURCH_INFREC
Purchase Order	MM-PUR	Transactional data	Purchase order (only open PO)	SIF_PURCH_ORDER
Pricing Condition	SD, CO, MM-PUR	Master data	Pricing condition	SIF_CONDITIONS
Contracts (Purchasing)	MM-PUR	Transactional data	Purchasing contract	SIF_CONTRACTS
Scheduling Agreement	MM-PUR	Transactional data	Scheduling Agreement	SIF_SCHED_AGRMNT
Source List	MM-PUR	Transactional data	Source list	SIF_SOURCE_LIST
Sales Order	SD	Transactional data	Sales order (only open SO)	SIF_SALES_ORDER
Sales Contract	SD	Transactional data	Sales contract	SIF_SD_CONTRACT
Batch	QM, SD, PP-PI	Master data	Batch (if Batch is unique at material level)	SIF_BATCHES
Bill of Material (BOM)	PP	Master data	Bill of material	SIF_BOM
Work Center	PP, QM	Master data	Work center	SIF_WORK_CNTR
Routing	PP	Master data	Routing	SIF_ROUTING
Equipment	PM	Master data	Equipment	SIF_EQUIPMENT
Functional Location	PM	Master data	Functional location	SIF_FUNC_LOC
Maintenance Task List	PM	Master data	Equipment task list	SIF_EQUI_TL
Maintenance Task List	PM	Master data	Functional location task list	SIF_FLOC_TL
Maintenance Task List	PM	Master data	General task list	SIF_GENMT_TL
Maintenance Plan	PM	Master data	Maintenance plan	SIF_MAINT_PLAN_2
Characteristic	CA	Master data	Characteristic	SIF_CHARACT
Class	CA	Master data	Class	SIF_CLASS
Commercial Project Management (CPM)	CA-CPD	Master data	CPM project	SIF_PROJECT
Inspection method	QM	Master data	Inspection method	SIF_INSP_METHOD
Master inspection characteristic	QM	Master data	Master inspection characteristic	SIF_MSTR_CHAR
QM catalog code group/code	QM	Master data	QM catalog code group/code	SIF_QM_CATALOG
Inspection Plan	QM	Master data	Inspection plan	SIF_INSP_PLAN
QM selected set	QM	Master data	QM selected set	SIF_SELECTED_SET
QM selected set code	QM	Master data	QM selected set code	SIF_SELSET_CODE
TRM – Financial Transaction	FI-FSCM-TRM-TM	Transactional data	TRM – Foreign exchange spot/forward transaction – contract	SIF_TR_FX_TR
TRM – Financial Transaction	FI-FSCM-TRM-TM	Transactional data	TRM – Foreign exchange swap – contract	SIF_TR_FX_SWAP
TRM – Financial Transaction	FI-FSCM-TRM-TM	Transactional data	TRM – Interest rate instrument	SIF_TR_IR_INSTR
TRM – Financial Transaction	FI-FSCM-TRM-TM	Transactional data	TRM – Interest rate swap	SIF_TR_IRDE_SWAP

“Getting started with the S/4Hana Migration Cockpit (OnPremise)” (Jörg Knaus, 2017. https://blogs.sap.com/2017/02/28/getting-started-with-the-s4hana-migration-cockpit-onpremise/)

 

From this list we can infer that consultants/users working on Sales and Distribution can migrate Business Partner Customer Master via Migration Cockpit, but for Condition Master migration standard LSMW recording can be used. Along with Condition Master I have also migrated Batch Search Strategy via LSMW on 1709 on-premise.

To get started with Business Partner migration, the trick is in the template. Migration Cockpit provides structured migration templates; such is also the case for Customer Master and Customer Master Extension.

The Customer Master template contains a number of sheets, each sheet has mandatory fields marked with (*) which must be filled. One of the mandatory fields is the Customer Number field.



In most cases I’ve seen and actually used internal number assignment for customer master in ECC 6.0 all EhP versions. However, after the introduction of Business Partner and Migration Cockpit there was a bit of confusion with regards to Internal or External Number assignment. On one hand Business Partner Configuration (will explain in detail in another blog) Internal Number assignment is allowed, whereas the migration cockpit template requires a customer number as a mandatory field.

(There is a reason for this customer number to be mandatory on the template; it serves as the unique identifier to link data in all sheets to the general data in the first sheet. This is further explained below with screenshots).

During our project, the client’s requirement was for Internal Number Range for various Customer Account Groups. We had configured the Business Partner accordingly, but the real challenge was getting those numbers on the template or to have the migration cockpit generate the internal numbers, we also needed a unique identifier to link the data between sheets. This was achieved by assigning a number series to the customers in the same range as the Internal Number. For e.g. if the internal number range was based on 10 digits 1999999999, then we assigned 0000000001 to the first customer.



We had also tried assigning the actual internal number range (based on assumption) and the data was migrated with the same numbers, however the above was found to be an easier and risk free method.

If custom account groups (Z account groups) are being used instead of the standard. Then, the same can be mentioned in BP Grouping and Customer Account Group fields and the data will be mapped accordingly.

For migration you do not need to fill all sheets with data, as you can see in the screenshots I have coloured a few sheets red, these are the sheets that I did not need any data from. We are going to maintain minimal data for the creation of this customer master.









This is all the data maintained for General Role. Moving on to the sales area data;



 

Note the customer number is same as provided in the general data. Fill in the whole of sales area data in this sheet and move to the Sales Partner Sheet.

All customers are created with four (default) partner functions (additional partner functions can be added as required) in this sheet the partner roles are maintained as below;



The customer numbers are repeated four times to assign each partner role to that customer. Similarly, the Customer ID is repeated again in the next column and with it the Partner Description is provided.



After this we move to the Company Code Data.



Our template is now set with minimal data to create a Customer Master that can be used to process Sales Documents.

Migration Cockpit:

Create a migration cockpit project for Business Partner Migration.



We are using the on-premise edition of S4 HANA 1709.

Within each project, you can activate one or multiple migration objects.



Once the migration object is created, you can start by downloading the master data template and upload the files for import



I faced problems with the template at this stage, as I had downloaded a template from a different migration object and provided that template to the client to maintain Master Data. When I tried to upload that same template on another/new migration object, I received an error regarding the active version for that particular migration object. To overcome this, you have to download the template from the active migration object and maintain the same data in the active sheets (we copy pasted everything from the maintained templates to the active templates).

Now upload the active template to the migration object.



Select and activate the file, then start validation by clicking “Start Transfer”.

Post validation, any errors, warnings, or information messages are displayed in the notification section.





I had purposefully left some incorrect data on a few of my sheets, in this case you have to remove this data from the template and go back to step one. First deactivate the file, delete it, then re-upload the file, activate and re-validate.

Confirm mapping values from the file to the values on SAP.



The template contains an external number for the customer; however, we need internal number assignment so the mapping is maintained as below;



Click on save and the internal numbers will be generated in sequence.

Click next to simulate import of the file.



Any errors, warnings, information messages will be displayed in the notification section.

Click next to Execute Import.



Once completed click on Finish to complete migration of Business Partner Customer Master.

This concludes the migration of Business Partner – Customer via the Migration Cockpit.

Please let me know in your comments if this was useful. Also, do share your ideas/suggestions to make this process better and easier, or if I have missed anything please do let me know.

Thank You.

 

[odocimo]

Great and detailed post!

Tank you for sharing.

[Rauno]

Hello Mubeen

thank you for the detailed description.

I have some comments/extensions:

• You can still use the LSMW for some of the objects which are also available in LTMC, especially, where data structure was not changed to much between HANA and ERP. For example we did create the Equipments with LSMW because not all necessairy fields where available in LTMC (and could not be extended)
• Material master extension has some very strange behaviour in LTMC –> it is only possible to create new sales views if you are also creating new plant views in the same file. This is not mentioned in the official documentation – we had to learn in the hard way.
• Error management is also not very easy. The Web frontend is not always showing helpfull messages. Best tipp is to also check the SLG1 transaktion in SAPGUI and System log and Dump analysis to get all possible informations.

Especially for Business partners you can consider to use the Post-Processing Office for the CVI Customer Vendor Integration. Here you also can get some helpful hints.

• One additional thing: if you want to maintain Contact persons of the business partner, you can maintain them in an own page of the tempalte sheet. But theses persons will also be created as business partners in the same numbering intervall as the Customer itselve. We did not find a way to maintain the contact persons in a different BP grouping. Does anybody know a way for this?

[benhongxiao]

Hi, Thank you for your post, it's quite helpful.

I have a question which confused me a lot, it will be appreciated if you could give some tips. Say I have a Business Partner A, which is my customer, General data、Company Code data and Sales Area data are needed. When uploading this Business partner into sap using Migration Cockpit, do I have to create 3 templates with each of them corresponding to a BP Role, Or Only one template with 3 BP Roles?

Looking forward to your information. Thanks!

[sanjayshah_21]

Hi Mubeen

Thanks for sharing nice blog.

But it seems Customer migration data template does not contains BP Role so that we can create source customer as business partner in S/4HANA.

How this can be achieved?

[former_member602118]

Hi,

some very useful hints - thank you.

Regarding the contact person we planned to use an own Grouping for this. So first of all create the BP of Group Contact Person and than use this BP number in the customer master data as address number. As said, this is currently our plan, it isn´t tested yet.

Have you already done the migration? I am wondering how we can migrate customers and vendors, using the same BP number.

Greetings Claudia

[former_member562981]

Very Nicely written, great effort.

[former_member589744]

Great effort

I make all number is internal in vendor master but it raise this error

control parameter _cp_ctr_vend_numbrg_s = 00002 (external numbering)

How to change to be 00001 (eternal numbing)

[jai1231]

Dear sir.,

Thank you so much for your blog,

I have a question, how to pay freight charges to the freight vendor in S4hana?

Actually, in ECC, There's is an option in MIRO (Planning delivery cost) to pay freight charges, But in S4hana there is no option to pay freight charges to the freight vendor?

also ERS?

So, what is the process to pay the freight charges to the freight vendor?

Note: With respect Bill of landing we can pay

 

Thank you

 

Jai

 

 

 

[former_member191777]

Very nice blog!

I have tried in our project very useful tool .

Cheers

Vyomakesh Bharadwaj Racherla

[former_member573804]

Hello, thanks for the article, very useful,   I have a problem to upload a new project using Customer – extend existing record by new org levels, I Already create a project and use the object, all the task works fine but nothing happened in a ERP, so I deleted the project and try to create a new one.  When I try to load de file, the system show me the message “Error al cargar, El nombre del fichero no es valido o el fichero es demasiado grande”.  I use the same file, also I download the templante and try again, but the same error.

Please help, I don’t know what else to do.

[former_member693773]

Hello, thanks for all the information. It has been very helpful.

Right now Im trying to extend existing customers master data to a new sales organization. However, the cockpit migration program sends me the error message
"Source KUNNR = XXXX already transfered to target system" as the customer number already  exists, but im trying to extend it to a new sales organization. is it correct to use this tool to extend previous existing customers? does it need a different treatment?

 

Please let me know.

Error message number is: DMC_RT_MSG 622.

Regards!

[ankit_x_periwal]

Hi, thanks for this article - its really useful to people like us trying to get our head around LTMC migration.

One question - The customer LTMC template does not seem to have all the standard fields available within business partner data in SAP. Is it possible to extend the LTMC template to add those fields? as we need to populate them via LTMC.

 

Thanks,

Ankit

[former_member410417]

Hi Mubeen,

This is very informative blog. Thanks for posting.

Question: Do you know how do we add multiple ship to for one sold to party in the template. also how to link contact person for the sold to.

 

Thanks,

S Shah

[ibrachka]

Hello,

Thanks for this blog.

It is uncomplete, it does not explain how partner roles are created. in S4 HANA 1709 partner role tab was not covered in LTMC template, and YOU did not explain how partner roles are created. For example, when a customer is only a ship to party, we should not maintain this customer accounting data (partner role FLCU00) however you did not explain how it works.

[zaipo]

Hi,

Thanks for the blog.

 

LTMC   is a 'quite good' tool for online processing, also if I still prefer on sapGui and not in Fiori...

But I have a problem:

I have every night,  a file with customers to be uploaded extracted from external system,

How to run the upload / verify / create step of LTMC  in a background job?

With LSMW  it was very easy .....