An Easy Alternative to LSMW to Update Customer Master Records in SAP




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The Legacy System Migration Workbench (LSMW) is a technical tool provided by SAP to help with the data migrations during initial implementations. It is also used by some SAP customers to make mass changes to master data in SAP. This article describes an easy non-technical alternative to update customer master records in fewer steps than LSMW; without technical involvement or requiring extra-authorizations in SAP. Using the tools and techniques described in this paper, hundreds of SAP customers are realizing vast productivity improvements in their SAP data loading and data update projects. Moreover, these projects are being carried out by business users themselves.
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1 2 3 4A recent series of published articles describe a business application common to many SAP customers - making mass updates to data in SAP R/3 or mySAP systems. The particular application of interest in these articles is to make a mass change to customer records such as Sales Office, Sales Group or Customer Group fields via the XD02 transaction in SAP. In the referenced articles, the suggested tool for making such changes is the Legacy System Migration Workbench (LSMW) tool from SAP. The articles give an excellent description of LSMW and go through a series of 14 steps involved in making a mass change to the customer master data. In this article, we introduce a much easier alternative to make such a mass update to the customer master records. We will show how the TxShuttle software can be used to easily accomplish the same business application in fewer steps. These steps can be run by business super-users or functional analysts without requiring extra authorizations to run LSMW sessions in SAP. 1SCM Expert Article (http://www.scmexpertonline.com/downloads/SCM_LSMW_StepsOnWeb.doc) 2 CRM Expert Article (http://www.crmexpertonline.com/archive/Volume_02_(2006)/Issue_02_(March)/v2i2a2.cfm) 3 FICO Expert Article (http://ficoexpertonline.com/downloads/0703.doc) 4 All SAP Links Article (http://www.allsaplinks.com/lsmw.html)
JULY 15, 2006
 © WINSHUTTLE, INC. 2005 Towards the end of the article we provide some other points of comparison between the TxShuttle application and LSMW.
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The following are the 14 steps required for updating the customer master records using the LSMW tool. More details about each of the following steps can be found in the above referenced articles. 1. Maintain Object Attributes - First the transaction XD02 is recorded using a batch-input recording session. Each field on every screen in the recording is edited and given a name. Depending on the number of screens visited and the number of fields to be uploaded, this step could take a long time to finish. 2. Maintain Source Structures - In this step, a source structure is named for the upload. 3. Maintain Source Fields - Here, all the fields that will be uploaded are given names and their format is precisely defined. 4. Maintain Structure Relations - In this step, a relationship I defined between the source structure and source field. For the customer master loading example, this relationship is automatically determined and this step does not require any work. 5. Maintain Field Mapping and Conversion Rules - Here, every field recorded in Step 1 is mapped to the source fields defined in Step 3. 6. Maintain Fixed Values, Translations, User-defined Routine - In this step of LSMW, any data translations that need to be done are defined. In the customer master example, this step is skipped. 7. Specify Files - In this step, you point at a tab-delimited file to be uploaded. If the source data file is in Excel, then that Excel file would need to be saved as a tab-delimited file. 8. Assign Files - This step is automatic for this example. 9. Import Data - Here, the source file is imported into the system. 10. Display Imported Data -This is an optional step where the imported file can be displayed for verification. 11. Convert Data - Here the imported data is converted into the appropriate input format. 12. Display Converted Data - This is... [download for more]