As SAP Expert already wrote, there are several systems usually present in the SAP landscape. At a minimum, you should have Development, Test and Production.
In a green field SAP implementation project, there are some master data objects that you start to create long before a Production system may be installed. And these objects remain more or less static during the whole lifecycle of the system. I mean objects like GL Accounts, Profit Centres, Cost Centres, sometimes Internal Orders.
Some SAP configuration steps include these objects, for example automatic account determination. It means that it is very important to have these objects aligned between all the systems in SAP landscape.
Even if your project is not green field, it is important to have master data intact to run proper tests in Test or Development systems prior to moving changes to Production.
How can this be achieved?
Of course, you can ask someone to monitor all the changes and maintain the alignment of the systems. But this is not the way out, as you can understand.
There are SAP standard tools for that, specifically IDOCs. There are special types of IDOCs and even standard SAP transactions to distribute General Ledger accounts, Cost Centres, Profit Centres, Internal Orders, Banks.
You can find them in the SAP Easy Access menu under Tools – ALE – Master Data Distribution branch. Here is a quick list of transactions for you:
As a prerequisite, you need to configure ALE between your systems. How? Talk to your Basis team, or ask SAP Expert!
SAP Expert would like to make some comments on how to use these transactions.
Do you want to know more about SAP Master Data distribution? Ask SAP Expert the question you’re after.
How to: keeping master data aligned across the #SAP landscape http://t.co/sB3ylfMwl4
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[…] you to send and receive master data. SAP Expert wrote in details about information exchange for Cost Centres, Profit Centres, their hierarchies, Internal Orders, Banks and so on. There are also standard IDOC types for vendor, customers and other master data […]