Purpose
You can use this report to display and edit vendor hierarchies.
A vendor hierarchy consists of various hierarchy node assignments. Anode consists of a combination of the Vendor and PurchasingOrganization fields. Each assignment has a validity period.
The assignment of a lower-level node to a higher-level node must alwaysbe unique. A node cannot therefore be assigned to several nodes within aperiod. You cannot therefore create any network structures.
Vendor hierarchy data is only saved in the LFMH table. Attributes of ahierarchy node (also known as relevance indicators) are recorded in thevendor master data in table LFM1. These relevance indicators are:

• Relevance for pricing


• Relevance for subsequent settlement

During assignment processing, the system transfers the relevanceindicators from table LFM1 and records them redundantly in table LFMH.If the attributes of a node in the vendor master data change, these canbe updated before or during hierarchy maintenance. However, you cannotchange the attributes during hierarchy maintenance.

Prerequisites
You can make settings for the following activities in the Customizingsettings for Purchasing (MM):


• Vendor Hierarchy

Define Vendor Hierarchy Categories
Define Partner Determination for Hierarchy Categories
Assign Account Groups
Assign Purchasing Organization
Assign Hierarchy Category per Order Document Type

• Partner Determination

Assign Partner Schemas to Document Types
If you have maintained the settings consistently and the hierarchy hasbeen created, the system checks whether the vendor appears in thepricing hierarchy defined for the current purchase order document typewhen the order is placed. If this is the case, the path with allhigher-level nodes for the vendors and all its relevance indicators iscopied into the order. Individual nodes with the hierarchy partner roles(starting from the initial partner role for the hierarchy category) arecopied into the order as partners. The path is displayed on thePartner screen in the order. You must define enough hierarchypartner roles so that all higher-level nodes are copied.
Hierarchy partner roles are only designed to be transferred into anorder. Since these functions are not used in the vendor master, theyshould not be included in the partner determination procedures forvendor master data. The system determines the first node for which therelevance indicator was selected from the hierarchy nodes pathtransferred. If hierarchy conditions are available for these nodes, theyare observed during pricing or during subsequent settlement.

Selection
Specify the hierarchy category on the selection screen. The hierarchycategory defines the usage category for a vendor hierarchy. Hierarchiesof different categories have no relationship with one another. Whilst anassignment in a hierarchy of a specific category is unique, it can occurin a hierarchy with a different category.
Enter the validity date for the vendor hierarchy. The system proposesthe current date automatically. The system selects all assignments thatare valid on this date. If a date in the past is selected, assignmentsthat are valid on this date are displayed but cannot be changed.
You can restrict the selection further by entering a specific vendorand/or purchasing organization. The system then displays all hierarchiesthat match the selection requirements. Select this type of selection ifan extremely large number of data records are available for a hierarchycategory and you want to improve system performance.

Output
The vendor hierarchy is displayed using the ALV Tree Control. Variousfunctions are available to you here:


• You can change the validity period.


• You can change existing assignments using Drag and Drop or the menu.


• You can create new assignments.


• You can reassign and remove nodes or sub-hierarchies.


• You can access the vendor master data directly and display or change the
data for a hierarchy node.

• If errors occur when the hierarchy data is read, you can view these in
the application log.
For more information on working with the ALV Control, see the SAPLibrary under SAP NetWeaver -> Application Platform -> ABAPTechnology -> UI Technology -> Controls and Control Framework for SAPGUI -> SAP List Viewer (BC-SRV-ALV).