What are the most important features of SAP SRM-MDM Catalog?

SAP Supplier Relationship Management-Master Data Management Catalog offers a number of features to help simplify cataloging tasks required to excel in today's complicated supply chains. Here's a look at six of them.

Jawad Akhtar

Published: 22 Dec 2017

SAP Supplier Relationship Management-Master Data Management Catalog is a central repository to manage a company's...

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products and services portfolios. Suppliers can register their products and services in a company's SRM-MDM Catalog, giving procurement personnel more buying choices. That capability is especially important with today's globalized and diverse supply sources.

SRM-MDM Catalog is an on-premises catalog management feature available in the SRM landscape, and implementing it does not require buying additional user licenses. Companies already using SRM or ones using SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) can integrate their existing SAP systems (SRM, ECC or both) with the Catalog feature available in the SRM-MDM component. If a company is already using ECC and SRM, which are both part of SAP Business Suite, then it is possible to integrate ECC and SRM with SRM-MDM Catalog by upgrading the SAP systems to meet technical requirements of implementing SRM-MDM Catalog.

Here are six features of SRM-MDM Catalog that make it a preferred choice for catalog management.

1. Repository manager

Apart from supporting globally recognized standards or classifications of products and services, such as the United Nations Standard Products and Services Code and [email protected], this feature also supports company-specific product structuring and logical classification of product or services.

2. Import and map

The ability to import a supplier's catalog that is shared as an Excel or XML file and then also map and match with the company's own product schema ensures there are no redundancies or duplication of records. Importing and mapping suppliers' catalogs can either be a manual or an automated step, and such mappings are saved to ensure that the future and latest suppliers' catalogs are uploaded, updated and mapped with minimal effort.

3. Enrich product content

To add more details to a product, such as detailed product specifications, user guides, images and technical specifications, this feature in SRM-MDM Catalog provides the option to upload and attach detailed supporting documentation that then aids the business user in choosing only the correct product required.

4. Approve product content

A company's standard operating procedures and policies may require an internal approval process when opening a new product code or creating price or code changes to existing products. Standard workflows are available in this SRM-MDM Catalog feature that uses a Microsoft Visio Pro plug-in to assign approval tasks to approvers for their further actions. In large public sector or government organizations, this feature is a mandatory requirement of the procurement process.

5. Enable web catalog

With this feature, it is possible to control access to specific screens, fields and catalogs available to relevant purchasing personnel only. For example, purchasers responsible for packing materials procurement only are neither required to have nor provided access to catalogs that feature assets, such as machinery or equipment.

6. Search for items

Providing fast, efficient and relevant search for different products and services is one of the main features of SRM-MDM Catalog. Different types of searches, such as drilldown search, advanced search, keyword search, memory-based search and hierarchy search options, are all available with this feature.

When SRM-MDM Catalog integrates with SRM, as well as with ECC, it is equally possible to integrate several procurement elements, such as a purchase order, a quantity or a value contract with SRM-MDM Catalog, that then significantly improve business users' ability to quickly and correctly create these procurement elements with minimal effort.