Glossary
The terms, the way we use them in projects.
22 short definitions in four groups — open a group or jump straight to a term. Each links to the page that goes deeper.
01
SAP interfaces and objects
8 terms
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- 01BAPI
- Business Application Programming Interface — SAP’s standard, released function modules for creating and changing business objects (e.g. BAPI_BUPA_CREATE_FROM_DATA for Business Partners). Loading through BAPIs keeps SAP’s validation, number ranges and change documents active.More
- 02IDoc
- Intermediate Document — SAP’s standard message format for exchanging master and transactional data between systems (e.g. DEBMAS for customers, CREMAS for vendors). With CVI active, customer and vendor IDocs generate the Business Partner.More
- 03OData / RAP
- REST-based APIs of S/4HANA (e.g. API_BUSINESS_PARTNER) and the RESTful ABAP Programming model behind them — the integration path for S/4HANA Cloud and Public Cloud, where classic BAPIs and direct database access are not available.More
- 04SAP Migration Cockpit
- SAP’s standard tool for loading data into S/4HANA (LTMC / LTMOM / the Migrate Your Data app) through predefined migration objects and templates. Validates what SAP will accept; does not know the customer’s business rules.More
- 05SAP BODS
- SAP BusinessObjects Data Services — an ETL tool often used as the load engine in SAP programmes. vise DMW can act as the data-quality and mapping layer in front of BODS instead of loading itself.More
- 06CVI (Customer Vendor Integration)
- The SAP mechanism that maps customers and vendors to Business Partners (roles FLCU01, FLVN01…) and synchronises them. Mandatory in S/4HANA; must be active before any customer or vendor record can be created or loaded.More
- 07Business Partner (BP)
- The leading master-data object in S/4HANA for customers, vendors and contact persons (tables BUT000, BUT020, BUT021), carrying roles, a category (person / organisation / group) and a grouping.More
- 08BP grouping
- Customizing that determines a Business Partner’s number range, mandatory fields and allowed roles. Legacy customer and vendor account groups are mapped to BP groupings during migration.More
02
Mapping and values
5 terms
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- 09Field mapping
- The specification of which source field becomes which target field, with the transformation rule in between. In vise DMW a versioned spec; with vise FieldMap, drafted by AI with a confidence score and approved line by line.More
- 10List of values (LoV)
- The set of allowed values for a coded field — payment terms, account groups, countries, currencies, units, plants. A value not on the target’s list fails the load or breaks a process later.More
- 11Value harmonisation / value mapping
- Mapping source reference values to the target’s allowed values, once, for every site — the Value Map step of vise DMW, handled by vise LoV-MAP. Multi-key mappings (plant + storage location) are where spreadsheets fail.More
- 12Cross-reference table
- The audit deliverable of a Business Partner conversion: legacy customer and vendor numbers (KUNNR, LIFNR) mapped to the target PARTNER with grouping and roles, including merged customer+vendor cases.More
- 13Golden record
- The single, consolidated version of a master-data entity (one customer, one vendor) produced from duplicates across systems by documented matching rules — deterministic and fuzzy — with the discrepancies flagged for a business decision.More
03
Data quality
5 terms
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- 14Validation rule
- A check applied to every record — format, list of values, conditional, custom, aggregate — with a severity, a scope, documentation and an owner. In vise DMW a small versioned function (rules as code), tested in a sandbox before activation.More
- 15Data-quality dimensions
- Completeness, validity, conformity, consistency and uniqueness — the five measures per object that a DQ scorecard reports and a readiness score rolls up.More
- 16Readiness score
- One number per site and programme — the share of records passing the agreed validation rules — published weekly with its trend and the top offending rules, replacing fragmented trackers with one answer to “are we ready?”.More
- 17Top offending rules
- The validation rules with the most errors, ranked, with the six-week trend and the owner next to each — the list that tells a programme where effort moves the readiness score.More
- 18Test data readiness
- A check, run before a test cycle, that the data every end-to-end test case needs exists, is consistent across the ERP and its satellite systems, and matches the business rules the test assumes.More
04
Loading, approval and operations
4 terms
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- 19Load simulation (dry run)
- Running the load against the target through the real interface without writing any record, to find the errors that would otherwise appear at the real load. Repeated until clean; because the target system validates each record, the simulation returns the same errors the real load would.More
- 20Change mode
- Updating records that already exist in the target instead of reloading everything — needed for multi-wave programmes, re-runs after corrections and post-go-live changes.More
- 21Four-eyes approval
- A control where a second, named person approves a change (or its execution) separately from the one who prepared it. In vise Data Run and vise DMW nothing is posted without an approval that carries a user and a time.More
- 22BAU data changes
- Business-as-usual: the recurring data changes after go-live — price updates, vendor mass changes, plant-maintenance reorganisations — governed in vise Data Run with validation, dry run, four-eyes approval and audit trail.More
Three ways to learn. Pick the depth you need.
- Learn the terms · You are here Glossary One-line definitions of the words used across this site, each linked to the page that goes deeper.
- Read the guides 9 guides Answer-first explanations of the concepts: migration, data quality, mapping. Short enough to read before a meeting. Browse the guides →
- See field notes 6 posts What we learn on migrations, data-quality programmes and everyday data operations — with the numbers. Read the blog →
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