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Conversion of the Media Contact Person to the SAP Business Partner ( RELNISMAM_463_CP_CONV )

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Conversion of the Media Contact Person to the SAP Business Partner

Use

Use of the SAP Business Partner as an alternative to the IS-M business partner was introduced in Release 4.62. Release 4.63 now gives you the option of replacing the media contact person with the SAP Business Partner.

If you were not previously using the media contact person, meaning that there are no entries in table JJTAM, you only need to activate the contact person using the procedure described in the Perform conversion section.

Comparison of the IS-M solution with the SAP Business Partner

The media contact person in IS-M is not an independent business partner. They are only ever created for the business partner for whom they act as a contact person. The media contact person has attributes such as a home and office address, function, power of attorney, sales call times and areas of responsibility.

This model has the following disadvantages:

• If an individual acts as a contact person for several organizations (companies, departments within a company), you must create a separate media contact person in IS-M for each of these organizations. This leads to retention of redundant data, since each of these media contact persons usually has an identical home address.

• If the address of an organization changes, the office address must be changed for all media contact persons that this organization employs, since this address is managed as a separate attribute for the media contact person.

By contrast, business partner relationships are used to reproduce the contact person as a SAP Business Partner. A contact person is always an independent business partner who is positioned in a relationship of the is a contact person for relationship category with another business partner. This model is a closer reflection of reality than that offered by the media contact person.

• A business partner can act as a contact person for an organization or an independent business partner. As an employee in an advertising agency, Mrs Smith is for instance to receive the voucher copies for an ad that is produced by her agency. Mrs Smith also has a magazine subscription. This magazine is delivered to her home address, which is her personal business partner address. Voucher copies on the other hand are sent to the advertising agency for the attention of Mrs Smith. This is the business partner address of the agency with any address additions (such as internal mail) that is created with the contact person relationship. The SAP Business Partner allows you to reproduce this scenario using two business partners (Mrs Smith and the advertising agency) and a business partner relationship of the is a contact person for relationship type. The IS-M solution requires both business partners (the advertising agency as a media customer, Mrs Smith as a subscriber). Mrs Smith must also be created as a media contact person for the agency and the agency address must be entered separately as the business address for media contact person Mrs Smith.

• The SAP Business Partner means a business partner can act as a contact person for several organizations without having to create this contact person several times. If Mrs Smith acts for several agencies, it is only necessary to create the appropriate business relationships. The IS-M solution requires a separate media contact person with a separate business address to be created for each agency. The IS-M solution does not reflect the fact that an actual individual is involved.

• Using the SAP Business Partner greatly simplifies the relocation process: If the address of the agency changes, the contact person address does not require editing. It is only necessary to convert the address records that have been assigned to the business partner relationship as required. The IS-M solution on the other hand, requires all business addresses for the media contact person to be post-edited manually.

Basic principles for conversion

The media contact person was not converted in Release 4.62. This means that all applications that use the contact person are still working with IS-M-specific data. Use of the SAP Business Partner and its relationships is a fundamental prerequisite for integration of the my SAP CRM Marketing function, since CRM uses the SAP Business Partner.

Converting the media contact person, like migration of the IS-M business partner to the SAP Business Partner is not performed during the upgrade to Release 4.63, but takes place separately at a later stage. Complete migration of all IS-M business partners is a prerequisite for media contact person conversion.

Conversion is performed as a series of steps and parallel processing is possible here. Selection options (contact person number, BP number) can be used here.

SAP Business Partners that are created from the media contact person are created with internal number assignment. This means that the numbers for the media contact person and the resulting SAP Business Partner created are not identical. Retaining the same numbers is not possible, since the number ranges for IS-M business partners and media contact persons cannot differ.

User interface

Maintenance of contact person relationships is fully integrated with the Business Data Toolset used to maintain the SAP Business Partner. Since this Business Data Toolset is also used to maintain relationships and their attributes, you can add your own attributes that can be upgraded without having to make any modifications.

Following conversion, the IS-M-specific dialog for media contact person conversion will be obsolete.

Restrictions

• All attributes for the media contact person are copied into the attributes for the contact person relationship in the SAP Business Partner as far as this is possible. However, certain restrictions apply: Certain attributes, such as the Block flag, buying habits, call frequency and sales activity group are not copied, since the respective attributes do not exist in the contact person relationship. If these attributes are required, they can be added using a separate enhancement.

• Responsibility for additional business partners and product hierarchies can be entered for the media contact person. These additional responsibilities are not interpreted by the IS-M/AM System. This responsibility can however be reproduced as a separate BP relationship if you are using the SAP Business Partner. Responsibility for product hierarchies can also be recorded in the SAP Business Partner. Existing responsibilities are not copied automatically.

• Free subscriptions can be entered for the media contact person: The number of free copies to be delivered is specified for each publication and edition. This was only used for information purposes and was not interpreted by IS-M/AM. Free subscriptions can be entered as a separate enhancement. The same applies to the attribute and distribution list functions.

• Sales support functions (management of contacts and sales activities) are no longer supported by IS-M/AM. These functions are now performed by the my SAP CRM Marketing function. Existing data is not copied.

• Sales call times for the media contact person can be transferred to the sales call times in the contact person relationship. No automatic transfer is performed here.

• Classification of business partners is not currently supported by the SAP BP.

Perform conversion

Conversion is performed as a series of steps.

1. Transfer Customizing settings

Customizing settings for the contact person relationship for the SAP Business Partner must be assigned to the Customizing settings for the media contact person. Define the settings for the contact person relationship in the IMG under Cross-Application Components → SAP Business Partner → Business Partner Relationships → Basic Settings Contact Person and assign these settings to the settings for the media contact person in the IMG under SAP Media → Tools → Conversion of Media Contact Person to SAP Business Partner → Assignment of SAP BP Settings to Media Contact Person Settings.

1. Convert media contact person automatically

The system creates an SAP Business Partner in the contact person role with a contact person relationship for each media contact person master record. Parallel processing is possible for automatic conversion and the conversion process can be started several times. Media contact persons who could not be converted can be post-edited manually and converted in a new conversion run. Media contact persons who have been converted successfully cannot be edited subsequently. Conversion is performed in the IMG under SAP Media → Tools → Conversion of Media Contact Person to SAP Business Partner → Perform Conversion Convert Media Contact Person.

1. Set conversion status

Media contact persons who cannot be converted automatically can be converted manually or defined as not relevant for conversion by assigning the relevant conversion status. Media contact persons that are defined in this manner are not included in subsequent conversion runs and are deleted from the respective documents when orders and contracts are converted. The conversion status is assigned in the IMG under SAP Media → Tools → Conversion of Media Contact Person to SAP Business Partner → Perform Conversion → Define Conversion Status.

1. Convert orders and contracts

Once you have converted the master data, you can convert orders and contracts. This conversion can only be performed in a period in which no orders or contracts are being edited, since orders and contracts are blocked exclusively. If you do not specify media contact persons for the selection, the contact person can be activated automatically as required and the final step is not required. The program can be executed several times. Perform the conversion in the IMG under SAP Media → Tools → Conversion of Media Contact Person to SAP Business Partner → Perform Conversion → Convert Orders and Contracts.

1. Activate contact person

Activating the contact person as an SAP Business Partner concludes the conversion process. Activation cannot be reversed and all applications that use the contact person will only interpret the contact person relationship and not the media contact person once activation has taken place. This activation is performed in the IMG under SAP Media → Tools → Conversion of Media Contact Person to SAP Business Partner → Perform Conversion → Activate Contact Person.

If you were not previously using the media contact person, you only need to perform the activation. If you have entered any contact persons, you can start with step two: Define all media contact persons as not relevant for conversion and then activate the contact persons.

Function exits

Function exits EXIT_SAPLJGBP03_001 and EXIT_SAPLJGBP03_002 in enhancement JGBP0301 that you use to reproduce the media contact person attributes as SAP Business Partner attributes are available to you for conversion.

Note

Information that is required to convert orders and contracts is recorded in the JHCPCONV table. You can delete the content of this table once contact persons have been activated successfully.

Further Information

Release note SAP Business Partner in IS-M for Release 4.62.

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