Companies often store specific materials at several storage locations. For example, say you work in plant A and need to use the master data for material B for a warehouse movement from plant B. Rather than manually entering material B’s data, with the Copy from … functionality, you could access material B’s data from plant B and transfer it to the master data at plant A. This reduces the possibility of introducing data errors and enhances efficiency.

However, you must have the proper authorizations in place to copy material master data. I’ll walk you through the process to set up these authorizations. You can give a single user or a group of users access to copy materials from other plants, depending on your company policy. I suggest only giving access to users who are responsible for creating materials. To do this, assign them the job role that grants the access by combining the proper authorizations: authorizations 1 and 2, in my example.

Create the Authorizations

Suppose your company has users who work in plant 4000 and the authorization manager defines their role so that it includes transaction code MM01 for field WERKS (plant 4000). Authorization 2 at the plant organizational level field WERKS is different from the defined plant authorization levels in the user role. In my example, I’m assuming that the user who needs the authorizations works only in plant 4000.

You set up organizational levels, such as company code, plant, purchasing group, and purchasing organization in Profile Generator (transaction PFCG) to meet the various security requirements of the organizational units in your enterprise. To control authorization management, use transaction PFCG or follow IMG menu path Logistics – General>Material Master>Tools>Maintain Authorizations and Authorization Profiles. The authorization object M_MATE_WRK controls access to the Copy from … functionality and regulates users’ access to create and copy materials.

Table 1 shows the values that the authorization manager must enter for M_MATE_ WRK. Both authorizations 1 and 2 are required to give users access to copy materials defined for other plants.

• Authorization 1 allows users to create materials via transaction MM01 (without the Copy from… functionality)
• Authorization 1 combined with authorization 2 permits users to use the Copy from… functionality. Without this combination, the system generates the error message No authorization to display data for plant.

Next, in transaction PFCG, follow menu path Edit>Insert authorization(s) >Manual input or press Ctrl-Shift-F9 to enter the customized authorization object for the user role (Figure 1). Press F1 in the Activity field for object M_MATE_WRK. In my example, the authorization manager provides the values ACTVT=* and WERKS=4000 for authorization 1, and values ACTVT=[No value] and WERKS=* for authorization 2.

Figure 1

Change role: Authorizations screen via transaction code PFCG

Transport the User Role

After you make the customization via transaction PFCG for the user role, you have to transport it from the development system into the production R/3 or ECC system via transaction PFCG.

In the main screen of transaction PFCG, go to menu path Role>Transport. Fill in the roles that you want to transport. Go to menu path Program>Execute or press F8. The system shows a screen in which you select the objects that you want to use when transporting the role (e.g., user assignment or personalization). Press Enter and the system prompts you to enter a change request.

Create a new request by pressing F8 or by clicking on the create request icon. Enter a description for the request. If you are transporting just one role, you can enter the name of the role in the Description field. If you are transporting several roles, you can give a general description for the roles, such as purchasing expert roles for all plants in company A.

Next, enter the name of the system in which you want to insert the changes. For example, enter PRD if this is the definition of the system that your system administrator gives you. Save the request by clicking on the save icon or by pressing Enter. Go to transaction code SE10 to find your request. You’ll see that the system has created a task for your request. Release the task first and the request second by pressing F9, or by following menu path Request/Task>Release>Directly. Transport the request via the standard transport system using transaction code STMS. You might need the help of a transport manager for this step.

Now the user can copy materials defined for other plants by using the Copy from … section in transaction MM01 (Figure 2).

Figure 2

The Copy from … area enabled for the user via transaction code MM01

Maria Nikolova

Maria Nikolova has worked as a senior SAP expert for the National Electricity Company (NEK) in Bulgaria since January 1999. Maria has a master’s degree in telecommunications as an engineer from the Technical University in Sofia, Bulgaria. She has experience with an MIS project implementation of SAP R/3 (headquarters and rollout), the authorization concept and user administration, SAP Customer Competence Center (SAP CCC) , SRM, and the SD, HR, CO, Asset Management (AM), MM, and PM modules. Prior to joining NEK, she worked as a manager of Equipment Engineering Ltd. for four years.

You may contact the author at searchsapmnikolova@yahoo.com.

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