Hi,

Just want to inform you what I have recently published a new How-To Guide on SDN with the title "Develop a custom master data object in SAP MDG (Master Data Governance)".

From my experience, many companies want to manage custom objects in a central master data system to be able to harmonize this information across their landscape. Custom objects can be individually defined objects such as assets or locations. Custom objects are typically less complex master data objects with a small and simple data model. They are often used as reference data in major objects such as material, suppliers and customers.

The How-To Guide describes the necessary steps to implement a custom object in SAP MDG. The guide is based on an object called “Location” and includes the following steps during the implementation phase:

• Create a new Data Model
• Define a new Business Object and Activity
• Create a custom User Interface
• Process Modeling
• Test of the custom object

The target audiences of the document are typically technology consultants and MDM/MDG architects.

Please access the guide here:

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/index?rid=/library/uuid/80cfacff-803f-2f10-ec92-9af0dd9fd89e

Best Regards
Steffen

Hi,

SAP MDM 7.1 SP08 is now generally available since beginning of Oct, 2011 and is available to be downloaded on SAP Service Marketplace. I have already used it during beta testing phase at different customers and I`m really impressed about it. I would like to share some of my observations with you in this Blog to convince you to push for an upgrade.

Basically I believe that this SP differs a bit to the last two SPs (SP06 and SP07) since it delivers really some key enhancements which can be used to address real business requirements and (in case you did so) can give you the chance to throw out some workarounds which you might implemented in earlier releases. You might even see that you have implemented something which still  has room for optimization.

This blog does not mention all the bits and pieces and as well not all the updates and new features. If you would like to get more info you might read the Release Notes published on http://help.sap.com .

I would like to highlight 3 topics which I believe are really worth mentioning because they deliver real benefit:

1. Enhancements on Tuples

The Tuples support has been improved a lot and they go hand in hand with some enhancements in the Data Manager. On one hand side there are now enhanced tuples validation capabilities but, from my point of view, the biggest improvement has been done on the modeling part: You can now define “reverse navigation” on tuples. This means that a tuple does not have only one direction. For instance if you define a relationship by a tuple between a customer and a bank objects, you are now able to see in the bank object to which customer a relationship exists. This was only possible with workarounds in older version. If you think about having self-referring tuple-based relationships within the same table you can now really build hierarchy and even network structures. The main benefits are:

• Capacity: You can now define hierarchies with thousands of nodes and leaf nodes. Since you are defining hierarchies in main tables you do not have to limit the amount of records. This limitation is simply gone.
• Assigning none-leaf nodes: Since every node within a tuple based hierarchy is a normal record you can refer from every other record (and of course from other business objects) to that record. In the past you were only able to assign leaf nodes or manually created internal leaf nodes
• Multiple parents: Which that new capabilities you can now even build networks i.e. assigning multiple parents to a node. This business requirement exists sometimes in the real world and can now be implemented with SAP MDM 7.1 SP08.

Generally the whole approach can simplify your data model dramatically and will reduce your day to day application maintenance costs.

In addition you will reduce your development costs during the project as well since you are acting on a smller amount of tables. Importing and Exporting data will be optimized as well due to simpler mappings and faster execution on a simpler data model.

2. Updates on the User Interface

2.1 Web User Interface

In the Web UI I would like to highlight only 2 features: First, the improved maintenance of MDM Destination by a new Web based tool called “MDM Destination Administration Tool”. This tool is part of the MDM Connector component and provides a convenient user interface enabling users to establish connections between an application and an MDM system.

The second enhancements will also be good news for many business users: After searching within a hierarchy table in the web UI you can now expand all the nodes below the result set. This can speed up the daily work if you have very deep hierarchies or hierarchies with a lot of records.

In the MDM Web Dynpro Components you can now also enable a option for displaying modeling based relationships: If you maybe try this feature you will see a nice new UI popping up with a visualization of the relationships through tuples.

2.2 Data Manager

The Data Manager has also been improved with alot of new features but  the features around displaying tuples are definitely worth mentioning: In record mode you are now able to display the tuple based hierarchies mentioned previously. Also data structure referring to a other main table are displayed in a “build in” modus. You can even navigate to the linked record and the Data Manager will automatically guide you to the corresponding table and/or record.

Expressions can now be copied in the expression editor. The SAP MDM Data Manager as well:

• Displays now who/which user has checked out a record,
• Displays with the new SP directly the remote keys within the record mode and
• Is able to define assignments on tuples!
• Is able to do mass updates on Tuples.

The value is obviously: Reduce implementation cost for the project manager; less stressed developer or data modeler.

3. Administration

On the administration side, there are also important new features:

1. You can now define performance tracing as option in the MDM Console (for all MDM server types). This option logs information about each MDM activity completed on a server, helping to identify where performance bottlenecks may be occurring. Performance tracing can be enabled from the server configuration (.ini) file, CLIX, or from within MDM Console.
2. Delta syndications can now be executed on Port level. This is important if you have define multiple ports for one system and you want to suppress unchanged records for each port. This was not possible in the past and your workaround was maybe to add more and more remote systems.
3. Secure connections directly to Microsoft AD by SLDAP.

The enhancements on the Administration side will enable you to work more efficiently and to reduce operating costs.

4. Conclusion

Finally I would like to mention that I really believe that the new SP will

a) save time during implementation phase,

b) optimize the administration and the corresponding costs and

c) improve the usability of the MDM solution to be able to manage master data more accurate and simple.

Cheers

Steffen

BTW: I would like to thank especially Richard Savery to help me on some of that content. In addition i would like to thank Vic Hansen for all the support and valuable thinking he shared with me not only on this work.

Hi,
In various discussions with customers,  the question often arises "where to place validations in an SAP MDM landscape". This is very relevant a landscape where MDM is used to store master data and BPM is used for human centric processes around master data. Because of this I'm writing this blog to give you an idea regarding the possibilities.
If you decide to combine MDM and BPM you can draw the following architecture picture:

By showing this image the various possibilities are more or less obvious:

1. SAP MDM: The MDM tool itself comes at least with two options, which you both will utilize:
   a. By modeling a well defined data model: By using the correct data types and the correct modeling capabilities (using lookups, qualified tables, tuples in combination with single and multi-valued features) you can already build “implicit” validations. For instance, if you choose to use a data type “Integer” for a certain field, a user can only enter digits
   b. MDM Validations: MDM uses the concept of validations, which are basically Excel-like formulas that return a TRUE or FALSE value as the result of the validation. Please read this blog from Klaus David: MDM Validations
2. SAP BRM: BRM gives companies the possibility to define, execute and manage business rules spanning across different business applications used by different departments within an organization. In BRM you can write rules and validations in a script language. In addition you can define so called decision tables. These rules and validations can be exposed as Web Services (>CE7.2) and thereby you can consume these functions or methods from almost any system; as well from MDM or of course from the Process layer.  This is especially useful where the rules can change frequently.
3. Service Layer. You can also write  validations in your service layer, but more important is that you can expose and interface existing validations in existing backend systems. For example  you can expose SAP ERP validations by consuming RFCs in your Service layer by Web Services.  This option is very interesting if you use SAP’s CAF because this framework comes with many wizards and helpers to consume and expose services from SAP systems.
4. User Interface Layer: In addition to the above,  you can also define your validations directly in the user interface layer. Especially “active validations” can be placed here because the user can’t even choose a wrong value, or see validation rules before entering data (e.g. mandatory fields in combination with contextual dependencies like account groups and must-fields). As well you can do pre-selections and pre-filtering of lookups in this layer.

In your project, you should make the effort carefully reviewwhere you place your validation. Generally and in long term I believe the BRM and of course the modeling itself is the right place. (BRM would have the advantage in that it is easy to maintain/change rules right ? so great if the business rules change frequently?)

Cheers
Steffen

PS: Many thanks to Jens Sauer, Rene Klumberg and Simon Townson for the help they provided during writing this blog.

Hi,

since I was struggeling a little bit with using the MDM Java API within a Web Dynpro Development component I'm writing this Blog to give you a description HOW TO USE THE MDM JAVA API WITHIN A WEB DYNPRO DEVELOPMENT COMPONENT.

 In the past and with older NW release you can use the MDM Java API in a very easy way by defining the reference to the runtime within your Web Dynpro project itself. For the local compilation you just had to add the Libraries to your local build path and for the runtime you had the hard reference to the connector itself which was deployed on the server. The following picture shows you the OLD way:

USING MDM Java API : The old way within a Web Dynpro project

(see also: Referencing the MDM Java API during development and runtime  (Referencing the MDM Java API during development and runtime))

Java Build Path for local compilation

Hard reference for the Runtime on the server

USING MDM Java API:  IN A DEVELOPMENT COMPONENT (NWDI or Local Development)

Since NW CE7.1 the above mentioned way is deprecated and in CE7.1.1 it's even not possible at all! Because of that you must use the following way of using the MDM Java APi within your Web Dynpro Application:

1.  Create a new Development Component. Type: External Library<br />Use any name you want. Maybe it’s a good idea to use something like "<xy>/extlib/mdm". In my example I used "upod/externallibs/mdm"</p><p>!https://weblogs.sdn.sap.com/weblogs/images/63702/MDMJavaAPI_NewWay_1.JPG|height=469|alt=|width=426|src=https://weblogs.sdn.sap.com/weblogs/images/63702/MDMJavaAPI_NewWay_1.JPG|border=0!</p><p>2. Add MDM jar files to the External Library project below folder libraries:

You can do that by drag & drop from your Windows Explorer. Just imagine that you need to add the correct version in respect to your current MDM Server version.

3. Add puplic parts to your External Library DC<br />Add two puplic parts for COMPILATION and ASSEMBLY and add all the jar files to both public parts (as archive). 

4. Build and deploy the External Library DC

5. Switch to your Web Dynpro DC and define a new dependency

6. Reload your Web Dynpro DC and ensure that you have the mdm.jars in you build path automatically by defining these dependencies

!https://weblogs.sdn.sap.com/weblogs/images/63702/MDMJavaAPI_NewWay_5.JPG|height=340|alt=|width=614|src=https://weblogs.sdn.sap.com/weblogs/images/63702/MDMJavaAPI_NewWay_5.JPG|border=0!</body>

Hi,
in my blog "Integrating MDM Item-Details-iView into a WebDynpro Application" (Integrating MDM Item-Details-iView into a WebDynpro Application) I have explained how to integrate a MDM-Item Details iView within a Web Dynpro Java application. Of course you can also implement this Web Dynpro application as Guided Procedures Callable Object. From my experience there is one big problem regarding the user acceptance: If a user enters data into the integrated iView and he forgets to click the "Save"-button before he clicks on the "Guided Procedures controll button" he will loose all the entered data because the iView hasn't saved the data yet to the repository.

The following screenshot shows you this circumstances:

Since SAP MDM 5.5 SP6 you have the possibility to add Custom Events to your ItemDetails iView: You can add such a Custom-event in the DesignTime within the Content Administartion of the Portal. The most important information are the following:
- Target => remember this value, you need it in the Web Dynpro application
- Namespace => remember this value, you need it in the Web Dynpro application
- Parameters => use at least [Save Success] and set a Parameter name

"

After configurating these settings you must add into your Web Dynpro source code only two important things:

1. in the wdDoInit() Method: Subscribe to the Event:
WDPortalEventing.subscribe("urn:com.sap.test.save","savetest",wdThis.wdGetCatchEventAction());

Parameter 1 is the Namespace defined with the Item Details. Parameter 2 is Event Name and the third Parameter is the method which is called then the event is thrown.

2. A new event handler including the corresponding method:
wdGetCatchEventAction()
Thid method will be called as soon as the event is thrown on the page. You can add code like:
  public void onActionCatchEvent(com.sap.tc.webdynpro.progmodel.api.IWDCustomEvent wdEvent, java.lang.String dataObject )
  {
    //@@begin onActionCatchEvent(ServerEvent)
 String [] allFields = new String [1];

 msgMgr.reportWarning("dataObject: "+dataObject);

// Now you can split or detect the String. Within the String you will have the defined
// Parameter names and the corresponding values. Something like:
// saveall=true&recordId=1
 
    //@@end
  }

Regarding the MDM-GP Integration you can do the following:
By default all buttons which are calling a complete-method are disables. After catching the "Save success" event you can enable the Buttons for the process control (GP-Complete-Method), because the user has clicked (at east once) the SAVE button within the Item Details iView.

 You can see a screencam of the result here:

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/30e9149b-daae-2a10-ca9f-eeb0f4a43bcf

Steffen