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Title: Migrating Material Master into SAP

Author: Keith Peel, Harlex Consulting Services Ltd

Keywords: Material Master SAP Data Migration LSMW RMDATIND

MM01 Standard Load Program
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Table of contents

1 Overview .............................................................................. 3
1.1 Introduction............................................................................................................................. 3
1.2 Load methods .......................................................................................................................... 3
1.2.1 Standard load program RMDATIND ..................................................................................... 3
1.2.2 BDC recording of transaction MM01 ................................................................................... 3
1.2.3 BAPI – object type BUS1001006 .......................................................................................... 3
1.3 Assumptions............................................................................................................................. 3
2 The Basics ............................................................................ 4
2.1 Data structures........................................................................................................................ 4
2.1.1 BMM00 ................................................................................................................................. 4
2.1.2 BMMH1 ................................................................................................................................ 4
2.1.3 BMMH2 ................................................................................................................................ 4
2.1.4 BMMH5 ................................................................................................................................ 4
2.1.5 BMMH6 ................................................................................................................................ 4
2.1.6 BMMH7 ................................................................................................................................ 4
2.2 Important fields ...................................................................................................................... 4
2.3 Modifying the standard structures .......................................................................................... 6
3 Common Problems ............................................................... 7
3.1 Legacy Material Number ......................................................................................................... 7
3.2 Duplicate Materials ................................................................................................................. 7
3.3 Alpha conversion ..................................................................................................................... 7
3.4 Taxes ....................................................................................................................................... 7
3.5 Multiple Plants ........................................................................................................................ 7
3.6 Units of Measure ..................................................................................................................... 7
3.7 Background Load ..................................................................................................................... 7
4 Footnote .............................................................................. 9
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1 Overview

1.1 Introduction
This document is intended as a simple guide in how to overcome the common problems in migrating
Material Master into SAP.

For a one-time conversion into SAP, we favour using the LSMW tool. It allows you to leverage the full
power of ABAP while using standard SAP processing functions, yet it does a lot of the file
management and processing work automatically. However, even within LSMW there are a number of
possible methods for migrating Materials.

This document will discuss loading Materials using the standard load program RMDATIND with a brief
mention of other methods.

1.2 Load methods

1.2.1 Standard load program RMDATIND
This is the approach I favour for the migration of the Material Master into SAP.

The standard load program is not perfect but it is flexible and you do not have to be one hundred per
cent accurate with the population of fields, i.e. in BDC a populated field that is not available in the
current screen will cause a message to be raised, in RMDATIND we can specify the level at which to
report errors and so are able to ‘skip’ these messages.

It is a powerful and flexible program, and it is relatively simple to use. If you are unsure in certain
situations (eg. a material with multiple plants and sales organisations) as to how to manipulate your
load file in LSMW into the load format for RMDATIND, you can manually create a test material in your
development system and then run program RMDATGEN on that material to view a sample file.

The fact that you can run the load step in test mode before creating any data is also a major
advantage.

1.2.2 BDC recording of transaction MM01

This solution is only suitable for a very basic upload. If for example you are only creating the basic
data or if you want to go further, limit the recording to one material type as screen sequences can and
usually do change between material types and this will cause problems in your BDC session. A BDC
recording for MM02 (Change) can be a quick way of updating one or two fields for existing materials
but again be aware of the different screen sequences that may appear.

1.2.3 BAPI – object type BUS1001006

As always, the BAPI is a flexible and powerful tool though often not particularly intuitive. Using LSMW
you could load materials using the Standard Material business object. This uses ALE message type
MATMAS_BAPI and BAPI function BAPI_MATERIAL_SAVEDATA. We favour the standard load
program RMDATIND as it is fast (direct upload) and simple to use, and also because it can be run in
test mode.

1.3 Assumptions
This document assumes a working knowledge of LSMW, and at least some basic understanding of
the structure of Material data in SAP.
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2 The Basics

2.1 Data structures

There are multiple structures in the Material Master load program RMDATIND, below are listed those
commonly used:

2.1.1 BMM00
This structure is mandatory and contains the key information used in creating a Material.

2.1.2 BMMH1
This structure is mandatory and contains most of the remaining data needed to create a Material, e.g.
Description, Basic Unit of Measure, Legacy Material Number, plus Purchasing data, Plant data etc.

2.1.3 BMMH2
This structure is used when more than one tax country is required for Sales.

2.1.4 BMMH5
This structure is used when the material short description is required in more than one language.

2.1.5 BMMH6
This structure is used to populate alternate units of measure as required by the business, e.g.
Purchasing buy a product in Cases but Sales sell in Pieces, these conversion factors between the
different units need to be captured here.

2.1.6 BMMH7
This structure is used to populate long texts for the material, e.g. Sales text, Purchasing text, Long
Description, etc.

2.2 Important fields

Structure Field Field Name Details

Key Fields
BMM00 MATNR Material Number Can be either Internal or External
BMM00 MTART Material Type Mandatory
BMM00 MBRSH Industry Sector Mandatory
BMM00 WERKS Plant
BMM00 LGORT Storage Location
BMM00 VKORG Sales Organisation
BMM00 VTWEG Sales Distribution Channel
BMM00 TCODE SAP transaction MM01 for creation, MM02 for Change
Basic Data
BMMH1 MAKTX Short Description Mandatory field
BMMH1 MEINS Base Unit of Measure Mandatory field
BMMH1 MATKL Material Group Usually mandatory
BMMH1 BISMT Legacy Material Usually mandatory for migration
BMMH1 MTPOS_MARA General Item Category
Group
BMMH1 PRDHA General Product Hierarchy
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Purchasing Data
BMMH1 EKGRP Purchasing Group
BMMH1 PLIFZ Planned delivery time Also appears in MRP
BMMH1 WEBAZ GR processing time
BMMH1 BSTME Purchasing Unit of Measure Only use if Material bought in a unit
different to the base unit
Sales data
BMMH1 SPART Division Also appears in Basic Data
BMMH1 VRKME Sales Unit of Measure Only used if Material sold in a unit
different to the base unit
BMMH1 DWERK Delivering plant
BMMH1 KTGRM Account Assignment Group
BMMH1 KONDM Material Pricing Group If specified must exist in customizing
BMMH1 PRODH Sales Area Product This can differ from the general Product
Hierarchy Hierarchy specified in basic data. If
specified must exist in customizing
BMMH1 MTPOS Item Category Group This can differ from the General Item
Category Group specified in basic data.
If specified must exist in customizing
BMMH1 VERSG Material Statistics Group If specified must exist in customizing
BMMH1 MTVFP Availability Check Also appears in MRP. If specified must
exist in customizing
MRP data
BMMH1 DISPO MRP Controller If specified must exist in customizing
BMMH1 DISMM MRP Type If specified must exist in customizing
BMMH1 DISLS Lot size If specified must exist in customizing
BMMH1 BSTMI Minimum lot size Not always used – depends on Lot Size
BMMH1 BSTMA Maximum lot size Not always used – depends on Lot Size
BMMH1 BSTFE Fixed lot size Not always used – depends on Lot Size
BMMH1 MABST Maximum stock level
BMMH1 BESKZ Procurement type If specified must exist in customizing
BMMH1 SOBSL Special Procurement If specified must exist in customizing
BMMH1 LGPRO Production Storage Location If specified must exist in customizing
BMMH1 LGFSB Storage Location for If specified must exist in customizing
External Procurement
BMMH1 EISBE Safety Stock
Accounting data
BMMH1 BKLAS Valuation Class If specified must exist in customizing
BMMH1 STPRS Standard Price
BMMH1 PEINH Price Unit
BMMH1 VPRSV Price Control
Costing data
BMMH1 PRCTR Profit Centre If specified must exist in customizing
BMMH1 LOSGR Costing Lot Size
BMMH1 NCOST Do Not Cost
Foreign Trade data
BMMH1 STAWN Commodity Code If specified must exist in customizing
BMMH1 HERKL Country of Origin If specified must exist in customizing
BMMH1 HERKR Region of Origin If specified must exist in customizing
Tax data
BMMH2 ALAND Tax Country If specified must exist in customizing
BMMH2 TATY1 Tax type for Country (upto 9) If specified must exist in customizing
BMMH2 TAXM1 Tax Class for Tax Type If specified must exist in customizing
Description data
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BMMH5 SPRAS Language of Description This must be in internal format, e.g. ‘D’
for German
BMMH5 MAKTX Short Description
BMMH5 SPRAS_ISO Language in ISO code Specify this as an alternative to SPRAS
Alternate Unit of Measure data
BMMH6 MEINH Alternate Unit of Measure This must be in internal format
BMMH6 UMREN Numerator For standard measurements these
MUST be specified as per SAP.
BMMH6 UMREZ Denominator For standard measurements these
MUST be specified as per SAP.
Long Texts
BMMH7 TDID Text ID ‘GRUN’ = Basic text
‘BEST’ = Purchasing text
‘0001’ = Sales text
‘PRUE’ = Inspection text
‘IVER’ = Internal comment
‘LTXT’ = Material memo
BMMH7 TDSPRAS Language key
BMMH7 TDLINE Text line
BMMH7 TDSPRASISO Language in ISO code Specify this as an alternative to SPRAS

2.3 Modifying the standard structures

It is possible to upload customer specific fields with RMDATIND. You will need to create/modify the
structures, usually ZMMH1 and CI_MMH1, if additional fields have been added to a SAP table or the
field(s) you require are not currently available in RMDATIND.

For full details please see OSS note 44410.

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3 Common Problems
3.1 Legacy Material Number
It is crucial when migrating Materials into SAP that a reference to the Legacy number be stored.

It is important both for business and technical reasons; business users will initially want to be able to
find materials based on the legacy code, it is the one they know; technical users will need the link
such that subsequent objects can be successfully loaded, e.g. open purchase orders, Inventory load.

The intended and normally used field for this purpose is BISMT but note that some materials are
duplicates of one another and this cannot be handled solely by using BISMT.

As mentioned it will be necessary to retrieve the SAP material for not only subsequent objects but also
to ensure duplicate materials are not created within SAP. It is therefore recommended to create a
routine that can be called by all the required programs; we suggest GET_SAP_MATNR.

3.2 Duplicate Materials

The existence of duplicate master data is often a problem when migrating data from legacy systems. It
will normally be required to setup a simple translation table in LSMW to handle duplicate material
master records.

This translation will need to be accessed in the above mentioned GET_SAP_MATNR routine to
ensure the correct SAP material number is returned.

3.3 Alpha conversion

When loading materials (or any object) it is good practice to validate customised fields and the master
data itself. To this end you should always be aware of the format of the data as stored within the
database, e.g. It is possible to pass ‘123456’ as the MATNR but to check if that material all ready
exists you will need to pass it as 18 characters with the leading zeroes as this is how it is stored in the
database tables.

3.4 Taxes
In multi-country organisations it can often be the case that Taxes are required for multiple countries.
The way to determine which countries is to call function STEUERTAB_IDENTIFY. You will still need to
know which Tax Class to use for each Tax type.

3.5 Multiple Plants

It is normal for a material to exist in more than one plant and a common error is to try to re-populate
the sales data at the same time, which results in a message that can be mis-leading. When creating a
material in more than one plant for which both plants exist in the same sales area reset BMM00-
VKORG and BMM00-VTWEG to the ‘NODATA’ flag, default ‘/’.

3.6 Units of Measure

You should only specify the BMMH1 alternate units, e.g. Purchasing unit, Issuing Unit, if they differ
from the base unit otherwise an error will be flagged. Once an alternate is specified structure BMMH6
must be created for each alternate.

N.B. the values specifies in UMREN and UMREZ must be accurate, no automatic correction takes
place in direct-input mode unlike online mode.

3.7 Background Load

For high volume loads it is usual to submit the load in background. To do this it is required to setup a
job via BMV0 and submit via the same transaction. A typical error comes during the production load
as multiple processors are usually present and the job is routed to the ‘background’ processor but the
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input file for RMDATIND has been created on the ‘dialog’ processor; the key is to either specify the
‘dialog’ processor on which the file is converted at the job submit phase or perform the import and
convert phases on the ‘background’ processor.
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4 Footnote
This guide should be viewed as a starting point for discussions and is not intended as an exhaustive
examination of the various methods available. There will inevitably be circumstances specific to
individual situations that cannot be covered here.
For further information on the migration of materials into SAP or indeed on any data conversion topic,
please contact Harlex Consulting Services Ltd at info@harlex-ltd.com.