To determine whether a field is suppressed or displayed in the article maintenance, or whether entering a field value is mandatory or optional (in other words, whether it is a required entry or an optional entry field), the field must be assigned to a field selection group. You can assign each field to only one field selection group.
You can maintain several field references for each field selection group. For each combination of field reference and field selection group you determine whether the fields should be suppressed, displayed, must be maintained or can be maintained. This can be done in customizing (IMG:→Logistics General→Material Master→Field Selection→Assign Fields to Field Selection Groups).
You can then assign these field references to the article types in the article type maintenance. Each article type is assigned exactly one field reference. In the standard SAP Retail system, field reference HAWA is used by several article types.
Besides the article type, further influencing factors for the field selection are the industry sector, the article maintenance transactions, or the site. However, as the industry and the transactions are fix, and site-specific settings are usually not relevant in SAP Retail, the main influencing factor is the article type.
The priority of the field status is as follows (strongest to weakest): hide, display, required, optional.
In the detail view of the Customizing transaction Assign Fields to Field Selection Groups, you control the reference behavior of the individual fields.
When you create an article master record with reference, the field content is copied from the reference article as default value, but only in case the Propose field cont. indicator is set.
By means of the field attributes, you can determine whether changes to a reference level, for example from the client-wide reference site level in the article logistics views to the site-specific views, should affect master records that were created with this reference. If you have set the Propose field cont. indicator, so that the field content is proposed from the reference, you can also set the Copy field content indicator. The field content is then also copied as follows every time data on the reference level is changed:
From the generic article to the variants
From the reference site to the dependent sites
From client level to the lower validity areas of the article
If you have set the Propose field cont. indicator, by additionally setting the Incl.initial values indicator, you can determine that the field content will also be copied when the reference field contains its initial value (blank). This means that default values with lower priority can be overwritten (for example default values from customizing tables, or constants).
To restrict the article categories for which the field content is proposed, set the Restrict matl cat. field accordingly.
Note
You should only set the indicator Copy field content, when most of the sites will have the same field value, that is, that there will only be a few differences. For each deviation, the system creates an entry in the differences table accordingly. This may impact system performance.
In the General Control, Retail Master Data view in Customizing (IMG:→Logistics General→Basic Data Retail), you define parameters that are important for different SAP Retail functions on a client-wide basis.
Reference sites provide specific logistics data when creating or changing article data. This logistical data relates, for example, to data for requirements planning, forecasting and warehouse management. This minimizes the time and effort involved in entering data. Changes to the reference articles can automatically be integrated into the relevant data records.
Here you specify a distribution center that is used as reference for creating distribution center-specific article data, and you specify a store that is used as reference for creating store-relevant article data. Copying data from these reference sites happens for example when article listing was executed: For the selected distribution centers and stores (assortment users), the site-specific article logistics data is created.
You can use the customizing activity Distribution Chain Control (IMG:→Logistics General→Basic Data Retail→Distribution Chain Control) to maintain a reference site for each distribution chain. However, you can only create reference sites for store distribution chains. Furthermore, none of the stores entered here can be the same as the reference store in the General Control, Retail Master Data.
