Characteristics and their values are used to describe the attributes of an object, such as the color of a blouse, the size of a T-shirt, or the flavor of a yoghurt. For the characteristic color, the values for example could be white, red, yellow, and so on.
To make the characteristics available for the objects, you have to assign them to the classes, which are used to create these objects. For example, articles are created for merchandise categories: This means you have to either assign the characteristics to a merchandise category, a merchandise category hierarchy node, or to a characteristics profile, which in turn will be assigned to a merchandise category.
Manufacturing and retail-specific master data are within one product instance, which supports the verticalization of retailers and manufacturers. Generic articles with their variants are regular configurable products, for which the MARA-ATTYP = „01" (generic article) value is set. Also, variant-creating characteristics can be bundled and provided independent of the merchandise category hierarchy. This also means that the reassignment of generic articles and variants from one merchandise category to another merchandise category (Reclassification) is easy, as the variant-creating characteristics are not concerned by that reassignment.
The configuration class type 300 is used for creating generic articles. This means, characteristics (created in characteristics management, transaction CT04), are used to create variants. They are provided via classes of class type 300. These are created using transaction CL01.
There is a difference between:
Variant-creating characteristics (suitable for creating generic articles)
Non-variant-creating characteristics (for display/information purposes only)
Characteristics assigned to classes of class type 026 are only used for informative purposes. But there is a difference regarding the creation of a single article versus a generic article:
- If a single article is created, all characteristics assigned to a relevant* class of class type 026 with any relevancy indicator are available in the article master (Basic Data view) as informative characteristics.
- If a generic article is created, the same is true, except for those characteristics with relevancy indicator 2, which are used in the selected configuration class (class type 300) for that generic article. The assumption is that the actual variant-creating characteristics should not additionally be used as informative characteristics. This means that characteristics profiles, which contain exactly the same characteristics as the selected configuration class, are ignored. If a selected characteristics profile contains further characteristics than those in the configuration class, only these additional characteristics are available then for information purposes. This is true if the system is not in compatibility mode. If in compatibility mode, no informative characteristics are available at all for generic articles.
* A relevant class is the merchandise category, for which the article is created, as well as a characteristics profile, which may be selected during article creation.
The class type 300 is used for creating generic articles and their variants. The retail-specific relevancy indicator 2 is visible when assigning a characteristic to a class of class type 026, but it cannot be maintained manually.
Characteristics Profiles can be used and created to carry informative characteristics (relevancy indicator can’t be maintained and remains blank).
Note
- A class of class type 300 was created and was used the first time to create a generic article. Then automatically, the system creates a characteristics profile with the same characteristics including relevancy indicator 2, and it also assigns this characteristics profile to the merchandise category of the generic article.
- A class of class type 300 was created, and the user assigns it directly to a merchandise category. In this case, the same happens as above: The characteristics profile is created and assigned to the merchandise category in the background.
If a user doesn’t have the authorization to create characteristics profiles via article maintenance (first scenario), then a user with the relevant authorization can use the second scenario. In our system, the compatibility check is switched off, therefore the subscreen for the assignment of a configuration class to a merchandise category (for example, via transactions WG21, WG22) is not available. You can turn the compatibility check on/off via this customizing setting: IMG:→Logistics General→Material Master→Retail-Specific Settings→Settings for Hybrid ALE Scenarios (SAP ERP-SAP S/4HANA)→Deactivate Compatibility Check for Configuration Classes: E means the compatibility check is on, blank means it’s off. In the customizing activity underneath: ...→Deactivate Automatic Creation of Configuration Classes, the indicator Do not create configuration classes can be set or deselected.
Characteristic Values
Characteristic values are the concrete attributes of a characteristic, for example, characteristic = color, characteristic values = red, blue, yellow.
A characteristic can be used for many articles, but each individual article can have a different value assignment. For example, an article with the characteristic color can receive the value red, while another article can receive the value blue.
Characteristic values can be created with two different transactions:
Characteristics are created with the Characteristics Management transaction (CT04). Here, amongst other settings, you determine the data type, for example character, date, currency, numeric, and the number of characters for the value keys.
You can then directly create the values (key and description) in this transaction. Alternatively, within the transaction you can for example also refer to a Check Table, which holds the values you want to use for this characteristic.
Characteristics values can also be created with the New Characteristic Value Storage(WRFCHVAL). If you want to use this option, you have to assign function module WRF_CHECK_CHAR_VAL (delivered by SAP) for the value check in the Characteristics Management transaction. After saving the new characteristic, you can navigate to the Process Characteristic Values transaction (WRFCHVAL) to create the characteristic values for the new characteristic. Another prerequisite for using WRFCHVAL is that it has to be a character format (CHAR) characteristic, with a maximum number of 18 characters.
In addition to the actual characteristic values (key and description), up to ten customer-specific values (as per customizing setting) can be maintained. Examples for a color characteristic: For each value, the analyzing color can be added. This may be relevant for reporting: How many red (bright / dark red, strawberry red, bordeaux..) articles do we have? Or the relevant pantone color code could be added, and so on.
Technically, the characteristic values maintained with transaction WRFCHVAL, and the characteristic values created directly for the characteristic by means of transaction CT04, are stored in different tables.
The use of color and size characteristics in operative processes (for example, in planning, in SAP BW/4HANA) is supported.
New Characteristic Values Creation: Use
Characteristic typing
direct/high-performance access to color and size information by means of the article basic data (table MARA)
Color and size information updated to the BW
Characteristic typing is used to categorize a characteristic (which can have any value and description) as a color, a main size, or a second size characteristic. It’s also possible to assign the value "not typed" if it’s neither a color, nor a size characteristic, but for which you still want to use the new value storage. This information is required as a control in operative processes (for example, price planning workbench). The characteristics values of a typed characteristic are also stored redundantly in table MARA for each variant of a generic article, so that the operative processes can perform better when accessing variants of a special color or size. You can type the characteristic directly in the Process Characteristic Value transaction.
You can also use transaction WRFCHVALTYPE to type characteristics. Generally, this only concerns characteristics that do not use the new characteristic value storage (but for example where the values are defined in CT04 directly).
Furthermore, in the Process Characteristic Value (WRFCHVAL) transaction, you define the check option, which has an effect during the article maintenance. You can use this to control whether additional characteristic values, which were not defined in the new characteristic value storage and therefore are only valid for this article, can be created spontaneously during the article maintenance. The options are not allowed, allowed, or allowed with warning-message.
This check option can only be maintained for characteristics maintained through the New Characteristics Value Storage. For other characteristics, the indicator Additional Values in the Values tab of the Characteristics Management transaction (CT04) can be used instead to determine, if new characteristic values can be created in the article maintenance on an ad-hoc basis.
For any additional customer–specific field (for example, analyzing color, pantone color) defined in Customizing for the characteristic type in question, values can be maintained in the Process Characteristic Values transaction. The values in these additional columns can be considered as an alternative identification of the characteristic values. This may improve the selection of the relevant internal characteristic values using the search help (F4).
In the case of color and size characteristics, as a rule, a large number of characteristic values is concerned (for example, several thousand color values, which are subject to constant seasonal enhancements), where, in the case of individual generic articles, only a very limited section from the characteristic value spectrum is required (for example, 20 colors and 20 sizes). This spectrum of relevant characteristic values can vary from one generic article to the next.
Against this background, it is important that the available characteristic values can be logically bundled into customer-specific groupings. This means that you can quickly identify the characteristic values relevant to you, by navigating through the individual groupings.
Grouping characteristic values simplifies the search for characteristic values when you are creating articles. After the characteristic values were saved, you can group them in a hierarchical structure:
The left-hand screen area displays the hierarchy tree with the already created characteristic value groups. Multiple levels are possible, so for example, further groups could be defined for the two nodes Basics and Autumn/Winter shown in the figure above. Characteristic values can be assigned to the individual hierarchy nodes at every level (screen area on the bottom right: characteristic values assignment), so that the characteristic values can grouped according to a retailer’s requirements. Characteristic values can be assigned to any number of hierarchy nodes, this means for example the value white could occur in both the Basics and Autumn/Winter hierarchy nodes. A hierarchy node can also be restricted to specific merchandise categories (upper right screen area: material group restriction). This means that, in the article maintenance, this node is only available in the characteristic values search help, if the article belongs to one of the specified merchandise categories within the restriction list. If there are no merchandise category restrictions, the node is available to all merchandise categories.
The hierarchical characteristic value grouping is then available during the article maintenance when the search help is used to select the characteristic values. For improved orientation, the individually defined additional columns (for example, analyzing color, pantone color) are available both in the Group Characteristic Values transaction, and in the search help (F4) for characteristic values.
When a purchase order or sales order containing generic article items is processed, the system analyzes the distribution curves that have been defined. They contain the quantity distribution ratio across the variant-creating characteristic values. The system uses the distribution curves to automatically breakdown, that is, distribute the order total quantity to each variant of the generic article due to the quantity distribution ratio.
Note
For retailers using many characteristics, the where-used-list is available to identify which class assignments exist for a specific characteristic. You can access the Where-used list in the Characteristics Management transaction (CT04), via Environment —> Characteristics List. Execute the list, then use the Where-Used List for Characteristic button to see the relevant classes.
Characteristic Value Conversion
A characteristic of a fashion article can be measured using different standards or scales in different countries or geographical regions. For example, a shoe that is considered size 9 in the UK may be a size 11 in the US. Hence, the shoe has both sizes marked on it. To facilitate this, a characteristic conversion mechanism is necessary to ensure that on every fashion article, sizes in all relevant size standards are correctly marked.
The characteristic value conversion function only applies to variant-creating characteristics.
Note