Understanding Characteristics Maintenance

Now that you've been introduced to variant configuration in the previous section, take a closer look at the master data.

Characteristics and values, and at least one variant class (class type 300), must be created in SAP classification.

The following figure gives a first impression of the information that's defined for a characteristic. Separate information is later available for the characteristic status and the format specifications.

Creating a characteristic, you have to follow these naming conventions:

• Letters, figures, underscore, and hyphen.

• Characteristic names must start with a letter.

Characteristic names with a hyphen require a keyword when used in dependencies. If you use a characteristic whose name contains a hyphen, you must use the expression SKEY to address the characteristic in dependencies. Enter the characteristic name in single quotation marks:

SKEY 'EXT-COLOR'.

You can define additional statuses in Customizing for classification, if required.

You can also change existing statuses. The slide shows the standard settings.

The following figure gives you an overview of the possible data type of a characteristic. The most used ones are the data type Numeric and Character. The table explains what you have to define for these formats.

Be aware of the following when working with exponents:

Formats DATE, TIME can be queried in object dependencies. If you use the CURR format, the currency itself is not taken into account in variant configuration.

You use the Entry Required indicator to define whether it is mandatory to assign a value to a characteristic.

In addition to single values and intervals, you can also enter characteristic values in the form of a hierarchy, in order to structure the entry of characteristic values.

You can create a long text for a characteristic by choosing Documentation. On the Values tab, you can create a long text for values of CHAR characteristics.

If you have defined a default value for a characteristic, you see this characteristic value immediately in value assignment functions. You can decide whether to accept the default value or select a different value.

You can use this function to create a list of all characteristics and characteristic values.

You can create a list of all objects here, to which a particular characteristic value has been assigned. For example, you want to delete a value, but this is not allowed because objects have already been assigned a value. The objects were valuated with this value.

In the class menu, choose Environment → Reporting → Where—Used List for Characteristics / Characteristic values.

Enter the characteristic and the characteristic value.

Reference characteristics are characteristics that refer to table fields. You need reference characteristics in configuration if you want to refer to the values of table fields in object dependencies.

Basic data (such as format and length) is copied from the table field in the repository to the characteristic.

Reference characteristics can fulfill two functions:

• Read-only access to table fields in conditions

• Changes to field contents with object dependencies

You create reference characteristics using the Additional data screen in characteristics maintenance. Enter the table field to which you want the characteristic to refer to. If you want to refer to a table field in several tables, you can enter several tables. However, the format of the field must be the same in all tables.