What are Masks?
As Roman Rytov explains in one of his blogs, Masks are static lists of selected object and not executed every time. To put it in other words, Mask is a snap shot of the whole bunch of records.
SAP’s MDM Console guide’s definition: A mask acts like a stencil, in that it blocks (“masks”) all main table records from view except the defined subset of records that are included in the mask, to allow the subset to be viewed and manipulated as a whole.
Is there any separate table for Masks?
Yes. There is a Special Table(Hierarchy) called Masks. Whenever a new repository is created, a special table called "Masks" is also created by default (along with other special tables).
How to create a Mask?
Select the Menu option "Records->Modify Mask..." and in the available Masks, right click and add a Mask as a sibling or child.
How to add/remove records to/from a Mask?
From the MDM Client go to “Records” Mode and from the List of records displayed, select the records that you want to add to a mask, right click and choose “Add to Mask” from the context menu. Choose the mask to which you want to add records from the cascading hierarchy of menus.
For removing records from the mask or to replace records in the mask, try other options displayed in the context menu.
Where can I use the Masks?
The customer has a product repository mounted on MDM and he has different users accessing this repository. The customer's requirement may be is to restrict the users from accessing the complete set of records and allow them to access only a subset of records.
This solution can be achieved easily by utilizing the Masking capability in MDM 5.5. First of all, different masks will be created and records to these masks will be added as per the requirement. After this, the users will be given access to a specific Mask containing the records that are relevant to the user (Hint:Just play around with the "Users" & "Roles" in Console).
