GlueData leads SAP MDG implementations

SAP's Master Data Governance (MDG) solution is gaining traction in the marketplace. GlueData, the specialist SAP data solutions company that holds SAP Recognised Expertise accreditation in the area of enterprise information management, is trailblazing in both the South African and international market for the delivery of MDG solutions.

"SAP MDG reliably supports you in keeping your master data consistent, even when your system landscape is complex and distributed across various locations. It enables you to adjust your master data quickly to reflect changes and respond flexibly to new requirements in a structured, work-flowed and transparent manner. It also enables you to track changes made to master data," states Brett Schreuder, Managing Director at GlueData.

"SAP MDG delivers domain-specific, out-of-the-box applications as well as a framework for custom-defined master data. It can be deployed as a separate hub system, or co-deployed with an operative SAP ERP and can use SAP, as well as company-specific business logic, to create master data ready to be used in the business processes," continues Schreuder.

GlueData will work with the customer to assess the strategy of deploying hub or co-deployment. This is a key decision and benefits not only the approach to data, but also the strategy to future migration and managing a combination of federated and centralised business strategies.

GlueData's top eight features of SAP MDG:

1. Governed creation and change of master data:
* SAP MDG offers change request-based processing of master data with an integrated workflow, mass processing, staging, approval, activation, and distribution to all systems.
* A change request within SAP MDG contains master data content, associated comments, and approval history, as well as defines workflow and step owners. The user interface highlights changes (different colors for different users), showing who did what and what needs to be checked and approved. In addition, a full audit trail provides visibility into what changes were made, who made them, when they were made, and why, and it enables you to roll back changes to any version.
* SAP MDG also uses a temporary staging area for master data that is still in process. After all changes are approved, the application transfers data to the active master data repository. There is clear separation between active master data that is approved and master data that is still in process and not yet approved. Access to in-process master data is restricted so that only approved master data is used.

2. Load, standardise and de-duplicate
* SAP MDG delivers capabilities to load master data from many different sources, standardise the master data, and to detect duplicates.
* For each of the resulting match groups, SAP MDG calculates a best record out of the duplicates in that group, using survivorship rules on the master data attributes.
* These best records can then be used in dedicated analytical or business scenarios.

3. SAP MDG consolidation provides an understanding of enterprise master data that is owned and maintained decentrally.
* Key- and value-mapping capabilities support scenarios where the same master data object is used in different systems with different identifiers.
* Key mapping is used when the primary key for a supplier is different in various systems, and it helps ensure you know which primary keys represent the same thing in different systems.
* Value mapping is used, when codes used in master data attributes are different between systems, and it helps ensure proper translating when one is distributing master data between systems.

4. SAP MDG Central Governance provides central ownership of master data in line with a company's business rules and business processes.
This helps automate governance by controlling data quality at the point of authorship.
Currently, the below domains are supported for central governance:
* Material
* Customer, supplier and business partner
* Finance
* EAM (enterprise asset management)
* RFM (retail and fashion management)

5. Point of entry validation
By integrating data governance into business processes, clients can help ensure duplicate checks and field validations are performed before a new record is created. Standardised and automated workflow routing and notification help ensure participation from the right people and increase productivity.

6. Personalised, role-based data access helps enforce security policy even on mobile devices.

7. Replication and syndication
* Once clients have validated and approved master data, the application can distribute it to any SAP or third-party software system, eliminating the need for manual maintenance multiple times in different systems.
* A wide array of movement mechanisms are supported, including Web services, application link enabling, remote function calls, and file transfers, and orchestration is independent of the mechanism used.
* The application keeps track of what data needs to be distributed where and what has been distributed successfully or not at the level of master data object.
* Target systems can subscribe to the distribution of master data on the basis of filter criteria and delta tracking, which enables tailored selection of master data for specific applications.

8. Monitoring and analysis
* Clients can define service level agreement metrics within SAP Master Data Governance and monitor master data processes and activities against those metrics.
* Clients can also set up automated notification based on metric thresholds and perform root cause analysis by drilling down from the top-level aggregated metrics to the individual levels of object, change request, workflow step, and person.
* Finally, clients can compare processes across different organisational units, different master data domains, and different change request types, as well as over time. Perform analysis to identify both inefficiencies, such as which workflow steps are causing backlogs, and business outcomes.

"In our experience working with SAP MDG, we have found the application to be flexible enough to support customer needs, yet retain the structure required to manage master data creation or maintenance, through a validated and repeatable process. It provides the features required for quality master data management that other applications lack, or conversely those applications need to integrate to SAP which brings latency, integration, configuration and metadata complications," states Schreuder.

Summary

"MDG is a solution that provides clients with accurate, complete, and trusted data to master your digital business processes and business models. MDG simplifies the integration of master data residing in both SAP and third-party sources and supports cleansing, standardisation, duplicate detection, and best-record calculation. It then lets you synchronise clean and standardised data across cloud and on-premises applications," concludes Schreuder.

For more information, contact GlueData at www.gluedata.com or info@gluedata.com.