Data Quality Care for Business Partners in SAPCRM

There are 3 cornerstones to ensure high Data Quality in CRM: Address Validation, Duplicate
Check and Data Cleansing (Data merging)
AddressValidation:Here is a first important option to support the user is to integrate a powerful
Address-Validation which automatically validates the address based on referential data sources,
and format the address according to the industry standards.
So if the user enters an Address the system will automatically suggest a corrected and
completed Address the user can select
Several 3rd Party solutions are certified on this Interface. You can find 3rd-Party-Solution in the
market according to our needs budget. We can also choose appropriate 3rd party solution
provider from SAP suggested listin SAP website
(http://www.sap.com/partners/directories/ProductSearchResults.epx?)
Besides 3rd party solutions, the other option is using SAP NetWeaver component called
Business Address Services (BAS)
SAP Business Address Services (BAS) is used for maintaining Business Partner (BP) address
data. You can maintain any number of addresses for each business partner. One address per
business partner is always flagged as being the standard address. You can define address
usages by assigning the different addresses to the relevant business processes. You can define
address usages by assigning the different addresses to the relevant business processes.

Advantages of Business Address Services (BAS)

Addresses play an important role in a large number of business processes. In Accounting, for
example, addresses are part of the customer master data. The addresses are collected and
then used in follow-up processes such as sales orders. Further examples include address data
of banks, vendors, and contacts. There are many areas in which it is natural to enter, change, or
use addresses for correspondence or other types of communication (e-mail, telephone, fax).

Considering these aspects, a central organization of addresses in components of the SAP

System provides the following advantages:

Standardized interfaces can be used centrally by all components. This makes address
maintenance easier.

Consistent encapsulation of the functions and data reduces the maintenance effort in the
components that use the Business Address Services.

New functions related to address management can be implemented on a central basis.

This is especially important with regard to globalization (for example, mail addresses
must meet international requirements).

Note: There are other solutions can be used with in SAP besides BAS-Interface such as
consideringin this context for the future MDM, eSOA as flexible interface.
Duplicate Check:
Based on complete and accurate Address Data the next level to ensure good data quality is the
Duplicate Check. The Duplicate Check works whenever a new Business Partner gets created or
if relevant fields get edited. Whenever there are similar Business Partner Records the user can
check, if the current record already exists in the system and if he wants to continue with an
existing record, still create a new record or if he wants to merge duplicate records
With duplicate prevention, you can perform a check for duplicates when you create master data.
When the system saves a new master data record, it performs the duplicate check and informs
the user about possible duplicates. The user decides whether or not the master data record to
be created is a duplicate. If the master data record to be created is not a duplicate, the user
saves the master data record. Otherwise the user terminates the creation.
In CRM, you can develop TREX- based duplicate prevention functionality which is part of SAP
NetWeaver. However it is also possible to use more sophisticated 3rd-Party-solutions. Here
again you can find some 3rd-Party solution within the Partner Information Center if you search
for Solutions based on Duplicate Check
(http://www.sap.com/partners/directories/SearchSolution.epx)
TREX (Text Retrieval and Exchange) is search engine developed as a component as part of
SAP NetWeaver versionSPS8). TREX offers duplicate prevention for master data objects
(business partners, customers, suppliers, products, etc.) linked to Business Address Services
(BAS). Duplicate prevention is currently only available for business partners.
Before you can use duplicate prevention for existing data, you must perform initial indexing. To
do this, the system stores the attributes of the data model of the business partner that are
relevant for the search in the search engine together with the content. Using the business
partner data, the system checks in the search engine whether there is a possible duplicate for
each newly created or modified business partner.
To use duplicate prevention, TREX must be fully installed and configured. We must configure
Search Engine Service (SES). We have to activate index BAS_BUPA. We must
performActivate Duplicate Check and Determine Limit for BAPIs. Set Limit for Duplicate List
in SAP Dialog Boxes.

We should also finish the configuration of Business Address Services (BAS). We must activate
Business Add-Inns (BAdI ADDRESS_SEARCH implementation and BAdI
ADDRESS_UPD_TREX implementation)

Data Cleansing (merging):

Data cleansing helps you to effectively consolidate duplicate Business Partner records and
automatically archive the redundant records in the background.Its ultimate purpose is to keep
the data consistent.
A single instance of potential duplicates that need to be cleansed is called a cleansing case.
You can merge more than two records into a single record. Merging of records takes places as a
schedule job in the background. Redundant duplicate records are automatically marked for
Usually the Duplicate Check can prevent the creation of many duplicate Account Records ... but
not all. Duplicates are always in the system and usually the number is growing. Therefore it is
required to create Cleansing Cases in order to merge redundant Account Records. This
functionality is available in CRM and is in principle also independent from the Duplicate Check
as such. The option to create Cleansing Cases is available for all Account Search-Result-Lists
and in addition (if a Duplicate Check has been activated) on the Duplicate Check Popup.
In brief in an integrated data cleansing scenario of business information provider to identify and
eliminate duplicates in the SAP Business Partner master data. Compare exported data with the
data in its own database.
Returns the enriched data file to the SAP System which is saved in database. Those duplicate
data records with the same identification number are identified and cleansing cases are created
which are further deleted or merged as per customization.
At the end there should be one remaining consolidated and enriched Account Record and all
Non-Master Accounts are flagged for archiving
You can identify duplicate records for accounts or employees, consolidate the duplicates into a
single record, and archive redundant records, thus ensuring that your data is consistent.
There are three simple steps to cleanse your Business Partner data:
Step 1. Create the data cleansing case
Step 2. Process the cleansing case
Step 3. Delete the duplicate business partners (optional)

SAP CRM has functionalities for creating and executing cleansing cases, three of these
functionalities are the transaction BUPA_CLEAR and the Merge Accounts and Duplicate Check
functions in the SAP CRM 7.0 All three provide an effective way to remove duplicate business
partners without purchasing third-party software
You activate and make basic settings for data cleansing in Customizing for Cross Application
Components, under SAP Business Partnerand select Data Cleansing
The data cleansing function is delivered with default customizing settings that determine which
data is automatically merged and which data is displayed on the data cleansing case (. You can
change this Customizing to meet your requirements. You do this in the SAP GUI transaction
BUSWU02
.
Merging of Business Partners
Merging of business partners, takes place as a scheduled job. To enable merging, you need to
do the following:
Define the action profile BP_TASK.

You do this in Customizing for Customer Relationship Management, under Basic

Functions Actions Actions in Transaction Change Actions and Conditions Define
Action Profiles and Actions.
Configure and activate the action profile BP_TASK, and set up scheduling appropriately.

You do this in the above Customizing section, in the activity Define Conditions.
Assign the action profile BP_TASK to a task type.

You do this in Customizing for Customer Relationship Management, under Transactions

Basic Settings Define Transaction Types