The most critical areas to be considered when implementing SAP CRM Service Management with ECC are the following-

Master data

Service contracts

Billing

Service costing

Logistics integration

MASTER DATA

• Equipment is created in SAP ERP, either from a delivery (serialized material where the serial number profile is configured to create equipment) or from the production order.
• On saving the equipment, the data is replicated to SAP CRM via middleware
• On the SAP CRM side, an iObject of type “0401”is created and an IBase component is also created.
• If the equipment is a child of another equipment, for example, a sub-item in a Bill of Materials (BOM), and the parent equipment has previously been distributed to SAP CRM, then the child equipment is attached to the parent.
  As a result, the IBase component for the child is attached into the IBase of the parent.
• Standard information from the equipment such as serial number, material number, and so on is copied over.
• If the parent has not yet been replicated to SAP CRM, then a new IBase is created with a new component.
• The moment the parent becomes available in CRM, the child component is moved under the parent, and the IBase for the child is marked as  “Deleted”. 
• If there are partner records to the equipment in SAP ERP, then the partners are also replicated across.
• The partners can be assigned either to the IBase component itself or to the iObject (depends on configuration of the object family) .
  

Integration to SAP ERP Equipment Master

• Information exchange (at the equipment level) to the iObject level is bidirectional
• In customizing, you can choose between creating IBase components vs. creating iObject structure
• Equipment configuration can also be loaded from SAP ERP
  • A prerequisite for this is that the configuration knowledgebase has been loaded.

Middleware technical data

Replication object: EQUIPMENT, EQUI_CONFIG (only for configuration), SERIALNUMBER (to download pure serial numbers)

BDoc type: CRM_EQUI_DMBDOC, CRM_EQUI_CONF

• BAdI CRM_EQUI_LOAD is provided by SAP to influence data during the download process
• A standard implementation is provided: CRM_EQUI_LOAD_STDIMP and method PERFORM_LOAD takes care of creating the iObject and IBase, as mentioned previously.

Limitation with the standard load program
SAP creates a new IBase for every “functional location”in SAP ERP, which does not work if you want to see all equipment across all functional locations for a single customer in one IBase
A custom implementation of BAdI CRM_EQUI_LOAD fixes this problem

• To enable delta download of equipment changes from SAP ERP to SAP CRM, you need to make an entry in transaction BF31 (in SAP ERP) with event code PM000020, APPL - BC-MID and Function EQUIPMENT_COLLECT_DATA.
• The following set types are used by SAP CRM to store basic information on the equipment:
  
  COM_TA_R3_ID –contains the following fields:
  •  
    • TAR3_ID: Technical Asset Number
    • TAR3_STRUCTURE_CODE: Structure Indicator
    • TAR3_CATEGORY: Category of Technical Asset
    • TAR3_TYPE: Type of Technical Asset
    • R3MATERIAL_ID: Material
    • R3SERIAL_NO: Serial Number (this is an alternative ID)
    • R3BATCH_ID: Master Batch DEF.
    • COM_TA_MANUFAC –Manufacturer Information
    • MANUFACTURER_ID: Manufacturer
    • MANUFACT_COUNTRY: Country of Manufacture
    • MANUFACT_REGION: Manufacturer Region
    • MANUFACT_MODEL: Model Description
    • MANUFACT_PART: Manufacturer Part Number
    • MANUFACT_SERIALNO: Manufacturer Serial Number
    • CONSTRUCTION_DATE: Date of Manufacture

  The iObject is much richer in functionality than the equipment master and it makes sense to move equipment/IBase maintenance from SAP ERP to SAP CRM.