2710333 - Frequently Asked Questions on SAP Business ByDesign Organizational Management

Following are frequent queries related to Org Structures under Organizational Management work center for SAP Business ByDesign System.

SAP Business ByDesign

1. Is it possible to PSM release the Organization Center Business Object?

No, Organization Center BO can't be enabled for read or write PSM release.

Reason being the Organization center is the core BO and changes may lead to inconsistencies.

As the Applications & Customers work with the projections, not with Organizational Centers, the parent is a semantical question, for example, a company has no Parent the Org unit being a Company may have.

Net of semantic free Org units can't be used without projections. On all projections the OrgCentreAssignment is released and all semantic parents are available with OrgCentreAssignmentNode.

An Org Unit needs to be semantically called, for example, as a projection BO, and then that node is obtained using the projections and the OrgCentreAssignmentNode.

2. Can Org Units be mass deleted in the application from standard OWL?

Action for deletion is only offered in OWL for single Org Unit (only leaves are allowed to be deleted; no mass deletion).

3. If an employee has a Primary Org Unit and a Secondary Org Unit, which Org Unit is used for transactional documents?                                                           

Primary Org Unit of an employee is used for all transactional documents.

4. How many Primary and Secondary Org Unit assignments are possible for an employee?

An employee can be assigned to only one Primary Org Unit at a time and any number of Secondary Org Units.

5. Does ByDesign Org Structure have Staging Area?

Yes, Org Structure in ByDesign system has both Staging and & Planning area.

6. Why is an Org Unit able to be seen in Active Area but missing from Planning Area?

The Org Unit is deleted in Planning Area but the changes are not activated, hence the Org Unit can be seen in Active Area, but not in Planning Area. The changes made in this Org Unit can be seen via Changes tab in Active Area.

7. Is it possible to re-align the Org units?

Re-alignment of Org unit is possible only if there are no dependent data existing for the Org unit in the system.
Example: Sales Order and Fixed Assets assigned to the Org unit could be the dependent data, which prevents the re-alignment of the Org unit.

8. Is it possible to build OData Services directly on the business object Organizational Center?

SAP Business ByDesign does not offer any possibilities to build OData Services directly on the BO Organizational Center. Part of the desired data is available in MDAVs (Analytics). It is possible to build OData Services on the MDAVs.

Refer to the blogs below:

OData for SAP Business ByDesign Analytics

Using Filter and Selection Parameter in ByD OData for Analytics

9. What are the approaches to export the Org Structures?

1. Webservice: QueryOrganisationalCentreIn to retrieve the Org structure data through a webservice. Refer to the documentation: Query Organisational Centers
2. In the Org Structures view, use the Export->To Microsoft Excel option to export the Org structure into an excel.
3. Extract the Organizational Management information through the Data Extraction view in Application and User Management workcenter, choose the extraction object: ORG_CENTER - Organizational Structure and run the data extraction.

10. Unable to Active Org Structure for a large number of Org Units.

This happens due to time out issue. The error message displayed is, for example, "Please try resuming your work. If you still face issues, report an incident."

Activate the Org Units with the option " Activate Selected and Dependent org Units in Background" with Top to bottom approach.

11. Why is an Org Unit unable to be seen in both Active and Planning Area?

You are trying to search the Org Unit Effective From past date. If the Org Unit is valid from DD.MM.YYYY, then it cannot be searched it before this date in Active or Planning Area. Hence, select relevant Effective From date in Org Structure screen.

12. The error "Cannot edit org. unit, the org. unit is currently being edited by user SAP_SYSTEM." is received when an attempt is made to edit and activate an org unit.

One of the reasons for the above error is because during the night, the replication of employees from EC to BYD is executed by user SAP_SYSTEM. The user will lock the org structure every time an employee is assigned to the org structure. This lock can be raised for quite some time especially in case of higher level managers. If this interferes with the maintenance of the org structure in the morning, the replication jobs could be scheduled to an earlier time in the night.

13. Is it possible to maintain the org unit name in multiple languages (for example, English when logging in with language English, German when logging in with language German)?

No. The org unit names are not logon language dependent. This means that whatever is entered as the org unit's name will be displayed in the same language of creation across all logon languages.

14. Is it possible to extend the length of the org unit name for more than 40 characters?

No. The restriction of Org Unit Name to 40 characters is in place because this name is also used in other business areas where name is restricted to 40 characters. For example: when creating the org unit a Company, it will create an Account or Supplier, and for these objects the Name field is restricted to 40 characters.

15. Does SAP offer a service where the SAP can update the Organization Structure, to insert a ROOT Org Unit at the very top of an existing Org Structure above the Company level Org Unit?

Business Use Case: Org Structure should have an initial Org Unit that is considered ROOT and not a true business entity. The ROOT Org Unit function allows to add new parent companies above an existing top-level parent company code.

To create an initial Root Org Unit without any business character, follow the below steps:

1. Go to Organizational management workcenter.
2. Go to Org structures view.
3. Edit requirement Org Structure.
4. Select New then select Org Structure (Check that the date is in line with the existing Org Structure).
5. Fill in the detail for the top Org Unit Root node (id and name) and Activate.
6. Select Cut option to move the existing top level Company Org Structure and Paste it below the new top Org Unit Root node created.
7. Activate.

With the above steps the customer should be able to create a parent unit that is not a business entity.

16. The Org Unit ID of the Group Parent Company is required to be changed from XYZ to ABC due to the change in company's legal status. 

It is not possible to change the Org Unit ID of the company even from the backend. We recommend the following steps.

  1.Create a new Org Unit with the desired ID on the same level of the old company.
  2.Cut all org units under the old company and paste under the new company.
  3.Delimit the old company.

On activation, veto checks could happen if the Company is referred in business documents. It is required to resolve all inconsistencies to activate the new org structure.

17. Is it possible to roll back deleted Org units?

The Roll Back feature can be used before activation to restore deleted org units. Once the Org units are deleted and activated, they cannot be restored.

18. Is there a limit on the number of Org Units can be maintained in the Org Structure?

There is no hard limit, however it is recommended to stay below three thousand.

19. The Job Definitions cannot be translated using the Language Adaptation Tool in the organizational work center.

The Job's name cannot be translated in the Job Definition using the Language Adaptation Tool. Hence, it will show only in English.

20. Can multiple Cost Center Managers be Assigned in the Org Structure or suggest if there are any Work around for this requirement?

It is not possible to maintain multiple Cost Center Managers. It is only possible to maintain one Manager per Cost Center in Organizational Management, as per the standard system design.

Org Structure, Organizational Management, FAQ, FAQ Org, Org unit faq, org unit, frequently asked question, cannot edit ORG unit, the ORG unit is currently being edited by user SAP_SYSTEM , KBA , AP-OM , Organisational Management , Problem

SAP Business ByDesign all versions