Question:
Hi folks
We have a situation wherein we have to change the Standard Cost attribute of 0MAT_PLANT as time dependent attribute. Standard Cost was implemented as a Time-Independent attribute previously and now they want to change it to Time-Dependent attribute. Here are my questions.
1. How is it going to impact the old queries which are using the 0MAT_PLANT master data? Do we need to make any changes to these queries?
2. I have some Infoobjects which refer to Standard Cost or 0MAT_PLANT. Will they also be impacted by the new change?
Any thougts about this. Thanks in advance.
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Answer:
I may be wrong but this is how i understand it
When running a query, there is a Key date "variable" that is automatically included in all queries. Typically the value in this key date is the current calender day. When working with time dependant attributes in the query it will by default use the key date of the query to determine the value of the time dependant attribute.
Obviously this can be a problem if for example you are reporting on all the months in the past year as you may want the query to use the COST as it was in the specific month you are reporting on and not the "Current" Cost. You can achieve this in the restrictions on the columns. You may have to create a few user exit variables to determine the last day in each of the past 12 months. then when reporting and restricting on your different columns you can then use these user exit variables as the key dates for that column. (even this sollution has a problem in that you will then not reflect any cost changes within a specific month but only reflect the cost at the specific date used as key date)
With all these issues may i suggest that you rather capture this Cost against the transactional data in your CUbe. Just include COst as a extra key figure in your cube and fill it during update as a masterdata attribute. You will see that because it is a time dependant attribute, that the update rules will require you to supply a key date for the lookup. You can just use the posting date for this key date.
hope this helps
Answer:
1. How is it going to impact the old queries which are using the 0MAT_PLANT master data? Do we need to make any changes to these queries?
2. I have some Infoobjects which refer to Standard Cost or 0MAT_PLANT. Will they also be impacted by the new change?
well well well, seems some people like to put problems where there are no issues.
1. your old queries will run as before.
Avanie's reaction is needed ONLY if you change your mind about what those queries should show.
At the moment, they show current situation. In the future, they will show situation at key date, key date being 'today' will make them behave same way as before.
2. if you created infoobject as "reference to" 0mat_plant, those infoobjects use the same master data as 0mat_plant, so the answer is yes.
If it's a copy, the answer is no.
Ch
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Answer:
LOL CHC is right
I jumped to the conclusion as to the reason why you would want to change an attribute to time dependant and guessed that you would like to see the COST as it was at specific times rather than what you curently had as the "current" COST. If this is not the case then as CHC says, you wont have to change your queries.
Answer:
The Standard Cost is presently used for lookup while applying the Update Rules for the transactional data load. Other than that Standard Cost is never used after that. The issue now is what happens if the transactional data needs to be reloaded? For eg. if 05/2001 data needs to be reloaded into a cube, it will get the Present Standard Cost instead of looking for the standard cost of 05/2001. They want to aviod this situation and thus the implementing the Standard Cost as a time-dependent attribute of 0MAT_PLANT. I have suggested the Archiving as one of the solution for this, if at all they lose the prior data and needs to reload they can do it from the archives. But I am not sure this is a good soultion. Thanks CHC and Avanie for your time.
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