E2E Change Analysis for MDM Servers on Unix shows no data

Symptom

After you performed setup of Root Cause Analysis for SAP MDM 5.5 with Solution Manager 7.0 SP 15 -Sp17, no data are being displayed in the Configuration and File Reporting and E2E Change Analysis for the MDM Server's ini files.

Reason and Prerequisites

Diagnostics setup does not recognize correctly the location of the MDM Configuration files (mds.ini, mdis.ini, mdss,ini...) on Unix MDM Servers. As a consequence, Configuration and File Reporting and E2E Change Analysis do not collect information from the MDM ini files.

This behavior was corrected for Solution Manager SP18

Solution

Perform the following steps for Solution Manager 7.0 SP15-17

1. Select Diagnostics Administration -> Managed Systems -> Agent Administration -> Applications Configuration -> Managed Systems -> com.sap.smd.agent.application.datacollector->Application resources -> -> cca_systemlandscape.xml

2. Select Scope <MDM Server>. Download the cca_systemlandscape.xml to your local pc.

3. Open cca_systemlandscape.xml in an editor.

4. In section <InstallationPath /> check that the installation path is correct (probably Path="<MDM_Home>/mdm". Otherwise correct it.

5. Replace <Path Name="Import Server/" /> with <Path Name="mdis/" />

6. Replace <Path Name="Server/" /> with <Path Name="mds/" />

7. Replace <Path Name="Syndication Server" /> with <Path Name="mdss/" />

8. Save the changed cca_systemlandscape.xml.

9. Make sure that the scope is still set to your MDM server and upload the file via "Upload custom Resource"

An MDM server trusted connection configuration not working

Symptom

You have configured a trusted connection between MDM server and a trusted server, but when attempting to establish a connection, it fails and the following (or similar error) message is logged to the portal default trace file:

"Error occurred: class javax.resource.spi.EISSystemException: Failed to

create session to repository <repository_name> on MDM

server <MDM server> for user <user name> because password was not

specified and connection to MDM server is not trusted."

Other terms

iViews; MDM Java API; MDM; allow.ip; deny.ip;

Reason and Prerequisites

You have configured a trusted connection for MDM server, including configuring the allow.ip and deny.ip files that reside on the MDM server host.

Solution

The trusted connection files, allow.ip and deny.ip should be lower case. (if you your trusted connection's file names are Allow.ip or Deny.ip, you should rename them to allow.ip and deny.ip correspondingly).

In addition, you should confirm that the mds.ini 'TrustFile Dir' property value contains the directory path to the folder where the trusted files allow.ip and deny.ip are located.

Once the file has been renamed to the correct case, or if you have modified the 'TrustFile Dir' value, restart the MDM server for these changes to take effect.

Note - Renaming is especially important for MDM server running on Unix based operating system, since as apposed to Window base OS, Unix is case sensitive.

Note - When a trusted connection has been configured, running a portal system object connection test will fail, since this test assumes the existence of user mapping. For more details, refer to SAP Note 1342477 "Portal System Object System Connection Test always fails".

 

 

SAP Netweaver Master Data Management GDS 2.0 FAQ

Frequently asked questions.

Solution

FAQs:

Question 1: Why does import process from ERP failes with null information provider?

A1: As part of default mapping delivered by SAP, information provider is passed as string 'default' which means import module will try to pick the value from default values maintained in UI Configuration for information provider field. Please maintain the default value for Main(System) -> Main -> Information Provider in UI configuration(GDS Console Application -> Application Administration -> UI Configuration -> Tab Configuration)

Question 2: Why default value for a lookup field doesn't show my record even though record is available in lookup table?

A2: It is mandatory to have the remote key mapping against remote system R3 for a record to make it available in default value field in UI configuration

Question 3: Why does import module fail with target market not found?

A3: Sales organisation in ERP needs to be mapped to target market of GDS for import module to understand which target market does the item belongs to. Sales organisation number coming from ERP should be mapped as remote key mapping against R3 system for a record in lookup table Target Market. This can be done in Metadata Management in GDS console application(GDS Console Application -> Application Administration -> Metadata Configuration -> Tab Key mapping)

Question 4: Why does some of the buttons like publication, registration, Correct, Launch workflow are disable for a trade item?

A3: Please check following in the sequence specfied to check why these buttons are disable.

1. Check Registration status of Trade item and global item if it is in a valid status for these actions like Registration, Correct,

publication. For valid statuses for an action, please check User

guide of GDS 2.0

2. Check if the role, assigned to this user, has appropriate

operation permission. You can check this in User and Role

Management of GDS 2.0

3. Check if the role, assigned to this user, has appropriate

value based authorization. You can check this in User and

Role Management.

 

What is Master Data

Master Data Modeling for MDM Solution  (part 1)  (What is Master Data)

Introduction

In the blueprinting phase the most challenging part is to select the Data which should be part of MDM solution. The Business content can help us to great extend; however there are custom business requirement which requires to be incorporated into the MDM solution. Thus very careful study and understanding of the client Data is required to determine the relevant data to fit the business requirements.

Example

Library Index is a perfect example of Master Data. It contains the master data of the library books and not the transactional data. In library Index, Names of all the books, authors, publication year and their place in library is maintained. Based on this master data; the transactions are processed. Without this or any mistake, there will be chaos while finding books or where they kept. In today's world where time is key, we will be losing heavily on this main factor by searching for information.

I really love this example since it's very easy to visualize, maintaining the library Index cabinet solution is also similar to data modeling for master data management. There are multiple library indexes for books name, authors, publication house, and year of publication. They all are linked to 1 single ID which is unique ID assigned to a particular book. Isn't this is quite similar to the lookup tables linked to main table to the global ID. However Library Index modeling is the simplest example unlike the organizations where complexity is more to run the business processes across the master data.

This is it…

Now let's move to a project scenario where MDM solution required being part of many SAP and non-SAP systems. The standard content provided by SAP in SAP-MDM is based on their experience of Industry and their landscape to help the organizations. However SAP-MDM is as good as the designer/Data modeler. It is upto the imagination and skills of Data modeler to model the repository according to the requirements. For medaling the best suitable repository; first we have to analyse that what is master data and what is not in organization landscape.<span>  </span>

As we understood the master data definition for the example of library that Library Index is the master data which drives the transaction data. Definitely this master data is stable and doesn't change often. However there might be requirement when certain modification occurs such as change in place of book in library is changed. Also certain attributes that this book might not longer printed by publication house and thus further orders are not possible. This will also increase the value of book over time so the offenders can be punished adequately.

However I agree that library doesn't require an MDM tool for managing their master data unless its worldwide library facing issues in catering global books movement. However this example is only for understanding and similarly organizations found themselves in tricky situation when they don't know what's happening where in their organization. Thus management is not able to manage their business until their business operations are synchronized across landscape. However to synchronies their business processes, all the business processes should run on same master data.

What is Master Data

This blog will try to help in determining the relevant data to model the MDM solution.

Not everything is master data and not everything can be part of MDM solution. Proper understanding of master data of organization landscape as well as business processes running around that master data is essential. What is the master data in organization and which should be considered in MDM solution? The master data for MDM solution should be considered with utmost care and due consideration by interviewing all stakeholders and data profiling and other techniques. <span>  </span>

Master Data – Customers, Vendors, Materials, employees. This data is always managed in MDM such as customer and Vendor names and their addresses, description, VAT numbers, Duns numbers long texts, Vendor status etc.

Configuration Master Data – This is subset of master data which is often part of lookup tables like company codes, plants etc. This data doesn't change over long time and in most cases it's done once.

Conditional Master Data – There is also some debate on this kind of master data such as pricing. This master data is referred as conditional master data since pricing differs from customers to customers based on certain business processes. This can be maintained in MDM if it's based on simple logic however complex pricing should not be maintained in MDM. Price based on dates can be part of qualified tables.