- SAP Managed Tags
Business Partner screens in S4HANA allows to maintain various kind of information at diferent views, for example, General view, Company code view, Purchasing Organization view, Employee view etc. Under each level, you have certain tab groups and fields therein.
However, you cannot maintain information that is non-standard format, comprising of custom attributes as per business needs, and especially in vast structured quantity. Here, the question is, does S4HANA offers any standard solution to maintain such structured data in a delicate way?
Answer is, Yes, certainly SAP has incorporated a standard functionality which offers to maintain even large size of data at granularity level. And, its not just limited to Business Partner Master, you can do same in Material master and Equipment master too. In all places, we have one common function to approach the solution, that is, the Classification.
Let's explore in detail, for Business Partner:
Scenario:
Business comes up with a requirement to maintain BP master with certain data categroized in hierarchy and grouping. User require to maintain this data at BP Role level where role can either be standard or custom one.
Let's say the data is in following shape:
Main Category: Civil
Sub-category:
- Infrastructural
- Concrete
- Precast Concrete
- Block
Lets construct the solution design, step-by-step:
1. Create Characteristics – CT04
Input the Characteristic ID
Click on 
Now select the Data Type CHAR
Specify the number of characters for Characteristic, and also values
Now go to tab
Here assign all the required values for characteristics
Save the data,
Now, according to the hierarchy, let's design the sub-category, the same way:
2. Create Characteristics – CT04
Input the Characteristic ID
Click on 
Now select the Data Type CHAR
Specify the number of characters for Characteristic, and also values
Now go to tab
Here assign all the required values for characteristics
Save the data,
3. Define Class and Assign Characteristics - CL02
Here define the Class title and specify the Class type as 010 – Vendor Class
Click on 
Enter the description and validity period
Now go to Tab 
Save the entries
4. Copy Role FLVN00 to Z0001
Instead of using General BP role 000000, you must copy either FLVN00 or FLCU00 because SAP supports Classification functionality only for Vendor and Customer roles, Check Note 2561811 - Fix for classification disabled in BP transaction - SAP for Me
SPRO -> Cross-Application Components -> SAP Business Partner -> Business Partner -> Basic Settings -> Business Partner Roles -> Define BP Roles
Click Copy button to copy all settings
Name the role Z0001 and click enter
Following message will appear
Click save button.
Z BP Role Z0001 will look like as below:
5. Testing in BP Master Data
Open Transaction BP for any existing or new Vendor
Select BP Role Z0001 – Sub Contractor
Now, from top menu, select Extras -> Classification
Following screen will appear:
Use F4 search to find the Class we already created in Step 3 above.
Now hit the Enter key;
Both Characteristics assigned to class will show under Tab
Use F4 search to find all the values of each characteristic
For example, for first characteristic “Subcontractor Main Category”, all its values will pop-up
Let’s select first characteristic “CIVIL”
Click on ok button
Similarly, select second characteristic “Subcontractor Sub-Category” and click F4 search
All values assigned to this characteristic are shown.
Let’s select first value “INFRASTRUCTURAL”
Click on ok button
Since both main category and subcategory characteristics are assigned, so click on F3 button to reach back to main screen of BP and save it.
Conclusion: Using Classification, you can assign and maintain Characteristics of BP, in an orderly manner, with its respective values.
Hope, you enjoyed the read and flow of stream is clear.
Let me know for any feedback and suggestions.
Regards,
Bluesky
