SAP MDG Overview

 Hello Folks,

If you are new to MDG, this is the right place for you to understand MDG in technical point of view.

First of all, MDG means Master Data Governance.

MDG is used to control the creation of master data objects by reducing the inconsistency and incorrect data which can be achieved by the governing it at multiple levels by different stake holders.

The following are very main concepts in MDG.

1. Data Modeling

2. UI modeling

3. Data Quality

4. Process Modelling

5. Data Replication

There are more concepts in MDG. But they will come mostly in integration scenario.

6. Key Mapping

7. Value Mapping

I will discuss the high level overview on every concepts now.

1. Data Modeling: Data Modeling is the most important part of MDG. On this, the entire behavior of fields depends in UI and runtime validations.

If a data model is created and activated, it means that it has generated some tables to store data in it temporarily. This is often called as Staging Area.

There will be other tables related to same data which stores permanently. That is often called Active Area.

For any data model, there will be two types of modes.

i. Flex Mode: Data will be stored in staging area permanently. Upon manual or automatic replication as user specifies, it will get stored to active area without deleting data from staging area.

ii. Reuse Mode: Data will be stored in active area permanently. Upon completing workflow, the data will get deleted from staging area and moves to active area.

Reuse Mode requires SMT mappings to be performed. More details about SMT mappings will be discussed later.

2. UI modeling: 

This is used to design UI for MDG applications with the help of Standard SAP framework called floor plan manager. MDG applications can be accessed via transaction NWBC.

3. Data Quality: In order to control quality of data, MDG will have some functionalities like duplicate checks, Validations and Derivations etc., 

4. Process Modelling: In order to show UI, there should be a workflow created in MDG. All workflow related process building comes under process modelling.

5. Data Replication: In order to move data from MDG staging area to Active area or from MDG to Other system(eg: S/4) , system needs some configuration to be done such that system understands whether it will get replicated though file transfer/ webservice / idocs and to which system data has to get replicated and its replication settings.

6. Key Mapping: Assume an integration scenario in which an object is coming into MDG system from System X. System X will have object id as XYZ. After replicating to MDG system, object gets created with ABC as object id. If change scenario gets triggered from System X, MDG system has to update the existing object ABC. In order to do that, MDG should know what is object id in System X. In order to store that data, MDG will have key mapping data stored. Hence, from key mapping data, system understands that this is change scenario of object ABC.

7. Value Mapping: This is similar to key mapping. But difference is key mapping is to maintain object key related information in multiple business systems whereas Value mapping is to maintain value related information. I know you didn't understood from it. 

For example:

There is one dropdown in System X : Business Type: 1 Logistics, 2 Manufacturing, 3 Sales

Same dropdown in MDG: Business Type: 1 Sales, 2. Logistics, 3. Manufacturing.

But without value mapping, if Business type: 1 gets replicated to MDG, in MDG its related to Sales. This creates in-correct data. So value mapping is required in this type of cases to maintain mapping between 1 in system X to 2 in MDG, 2 in system X to 3 in MDG and 3 in System X to 1 in MDG.

After value mapping, in-correct data will not exist for this type of scenarios.