Deciding on a Project Coding Mask

[Former Member]

FACTORS FOR DECIDING A PROJECT CODING MASK IN SAP

In SAP Project Systems, a Project Coding Mask is used to create a structure for the project number. Masks help in displaying complex project numbers and  in indicating the position of a WBS element in the project hierarchy.

Complex projects often require a complex numbering structure. A WBS element number may look like this: M-EIPL123-02-A7/18. Here a project coding mask can be used to provide this structure uniformly to all WBS elements in that project, without giving scope to user errors.

The project coding mask is made up of 2 parts: Project Coding Key and Coding Mask.

A. Project Coding Key:

1. The Key is present at the start of the project coding mask, in the above example being ‘M’. The Key determines the structure used for coding the Project definition and WBS elements, hence it is a mandatory field if a company decides to use a coding mask for their projects.
2. What if the user enters a different Key while creating a project? The system can be customized to prevent the user from entering a different Key.
3. The project coding mask can have a maximum of, but not necessarily, 24 characters. Out of these 24 characters, the Key can have a maximum of 5 characters (For ex. ABCDE). This maximum possible length for the Key needs to be specified in customizing under Define special characters for projects.
4. The Key has a few restrictions:
   1. If a project is created using say 3 characters for the Key, then the length as specified above cannot be edited to a lower value unless the project is deleted.
   2. This length specified in customizing, say 3, is then reserved for the Key out of the 24 characters for all the projects in the system. The balance quantity can be used by the mask section. This is irrespective of the Key length specified while creating a project coding mask. That means even if the Key is assigned as 1 character, the mask section can still have a maximum of 21 characters only.
   3. No two keys can start with the same character. That is, if you have a key ‘G’ for a particular coding mask, then you cannot have another one as say ‘GRK’. For this reason the Key is not limited to numeric or alphanumeric characters. It can be created using any character.

B. Coding Mask:

1. The coding mask can consist of numeric characters (represented by ‘0’), alphanumeric characters (represented by ‘X’), and separators.
2. A separator is a symbol which distinctly separates the coding mask from the Key. It is also used to represent the next level of WBS elements. A separator can be any of the following: / . : > ; - < =. A separator is also counted as a character.
3. Thus a project coding mask may be represented as, say, ABC-XXXXXXX-000.XX/00. Here each separator creates the next WBS element level representation. Thus ‘XXXXXXX’ represents the top level WBS element (Level 1), ‘000’ represents WBS elements of Level 2, ‘XX’ Level 3 and so on.
4. The coding mask also has a few restrictions:
   1. The first character following the Key must be a separator.
   2. At each WBS element level the mask can either be numeric characters (-00) or alphanumeric characters (-XX), but not both (-X0).
   3. Once a project is created using a project coding mask, the mask cannot be deleted in customizing unless the project itself is deleted.

Creating a project with a Project Coding Mask:

1. While creating a project, the system identifies the coding mask from the Key being entered by the user. If the project coding Key consists of more than 1 character, it is mandatory for the user to enter the entire Key exactly. Otherwise it will reject the entry.
2. Once the Key is entered correctly, the system creates the project and displays the project coding mask on the screen.
3. The system cannot prevent the user from creating the project definition with just the coding Key. It can make automatic corrections in some other cases. These corrections vary in nature for numeric and alphanumeric coding masks. For example, if the project coding mask is TFP/XXXXX-0-0-0, following are the user entries and the corresponding system corrections:

USER ENTRY	SYSTEM CORRECTION
TFP	TFP (No change)
TFP/000	TFP/000 (No change)
TFP-	TFP
TFP1	TFP/1
TFPabc	TFP/ABC
TFPabc1234	TFP/ABC12-3-4
TFP12345a	Error (There should be a number in place of ‘a’)

If the project coding mask is TFP/00000-0-0-0:

USER ENTRY	SYSTEM CORRECTION
TFP/000	TFP
TFP/00000	TFP
TFP1	TFP/00001
TFP-1	TFP/00001
TFP>=1	TFP/00000-1
TFP/->=1	TFP/00000-0-0-1
TFP/11	TFP/00011
TFP-100000	TFP/10000
TFP-1000033	TFP/10000-3-3
TFP-11-11	TFP/00011-1-1
TFP-12345678	TFP/12345-6-7-8
TFP-123456789	TFP/12345-6-7-8
TFP123456789	Error

In any other case the system will give an error.

• If more than one project coding mask is present in the system, the system can be customized to limit the user to entering only the required coding key.
• If no project definition text is entered by the user, the system automatically names it as ‘Project Definition [project number entered by user]’. The text field is editable and can have a maximum of 40 characters.

Limitations of using project coding mask:

There is one limitation of using the coding mask. While creating the project definition, the user must enter the exact number of characters as given in the coding mask after the first separator. That is, for TFP/XXXXX-0-0-0, the user must enter the definition with 5 characters after “TFP/”. The system is unable to prevent the user from doing otherwise. There are 2 scenarios:

1. When the system converts a user entry TFP-ABCD133 to TFP/ABCD1-3-3, the user should manually trim it down to TFP/ABCD1. This is because when the system generates the WBS element number, it copies the entire definition number and adds one level to the same. For example, if the definition is kept unchanged as TFP/ABCD1-3-3, the top level WBS element (level 1) is named as TFP/ABCD1-3-3-1. As per the coding mask TFP/XXXXX-0-0-0, the system then identifies this WBS element to be at level 4, which is the last level. Beyond the last level in the coding mask, the system only provides a temporary number (%00000001) which cannot be saved as is.
2. If the user enters TFP/ABC, the project definition stays as TFP/ABC. However, the top level WBS element (level 1) gets named as TFP/ABC1, and a subordinate WBS element gets named as TFP/ABC11. As per the coding mask TFP/XXXXX-0-0-0, the system then identifies both the WBS elements to be at level 1, which is not desired.

Structuring the client's Project Coding Mask:

Considering all the above points, assuming that the client has specified 5 WBS element levels, the coding mask can be structured as follows:

FIELD	LENGTH
Project Coding Key	1
First Mandatory Separator	1
Subordinate WBS levels	4 x 2 = 8
Separators for each subordinate WBS level	4 x 1 = 4
Provision for one more subordinate WBS level in the future (including separator)	3
Balance quantity available for top level WBS element	7
TOTAL	24

The project coding Key is assigned only 1 character so that more characters can be available for the top level WBS element. The Key characters can be one of the following:

G – indicates projects involving ground mounted structures

R – indicates projects involving roof mounted structures

M – Mixed

  In the mask section for this client, alphanumeric characters are desired for the project definition, while numeric characters are desired for the WBS element levels. Thus the sample project coding mask would show as: G-XXXXXXX-00-00-00-00

Any suggestions / corrections are most welcome.