SAP PI/PO Value Lookup, best option

[suwandi_cahyadi]

Hello,

I believe this has been asked many times, but I have some questions on this. In case for value mapping that is dynamic (could be changed), we need to maintain the mapping table and to do lookup to the mapping table. There are 2 things that I consider on this.

• Where to maintain the mapping table?

For this I've checked some people choose to have the mapping maintained on the back end (S/4HANA or ECC) for its maintainability. Since nowadays, mostly SAP PI/PO is single stack. But I've found a blog regarding custom table in SAP PI single stack here. But I think it is quite a long process compared maintaining it at the back end.

• Where to do the lookup?

Lookup could be done also at the back end via enhancement/custom process. Another way is to use VMR, which could also be fast in terms of performance. A less preferable way is to use RFC/JDBC lookup. But I haven't used VMR, is VMR reliable? Has anyone experience problem with it? Since it is stored in cache, then I think it is the same as value mapping? Is it good if the data stored is big?

Thank you.

[isuru_fernando24 · Accepted solution]

Hi Suwandi,

Do you have AIF in S4 HANA? If so, the best option is to maintain the value mapping in AIF instead of in PI/PO or a custom table in S4. If you do not have AIF, whether to build the mapping in PI/PO or S4 backend depends on the mapping requirment. If the mapping is more technical such as converting rigid values that should not be maintained by a user regularly (for example, flags), I would use PI. But if the mapping data is more business-related such as for customer numbers, material numbers, etc use S4.

Building lookups is not the best solution based on factors such as reliability, performance, and future Maintainance effort.

Regards,

Isuru

[suwandi_cahyadi · Accepted solution]

Hi Isuru,

Thank you for the comment. Not sure about the AIF, but I think it requires additional license?

Thank you.