Review of SAP MDG Software

The purpose of this article is to review the strengths and weaknesses of SAP MDG software. I am writing this review based on my experience implementing SAP MDG, some experience implementing SAP Netweaver MDM, as well as helping many customers to implement master data governance and data quality processes, policies and organizational structures. I have over 22 years of experience helping customer to implement SAP ERP and other tools such as APO. Please note that the focus of this article is on MDG EhP 6.1. SAP has released MDG EhP 7.0 version, but as of publication of this article, this version was just released to general availability on May 19, 2014.

Many potential customers are still confused between the two SAP master data management products – MDG and MDM. Although recently SAP released Enterprise MDM bundle that includes both products as well as other add-ons such as Data Services and Information Steward, these two master data software packages have different focus areas and strengths.

To understand the differences in capabilities between SAP MDG and MDM, I suggest to closely referring to the following SAP chart.

As the chart shows, SAP MDG is related to “central creation” of master data, and MDM to “consolidation” of master data. The main purpose of MDG is to help organizations to create data and MDM to help syndicate/synchronize master data.

What is the difference between the two functions? To take advantage of key MDG strength, it should be implemented as the system that most master data is originated from – SAP MDG must own the creation process of master data. Since SAP MDG is closely integrated with SAP ERP master data, this implies that your SAP ERP system should be the “system of record” of your master data.

In contrast, MDM’s focus is on synchronizing or syndicating separate systems with master data maintained separately in the different business systems. The purpose of MDM is to help integrate the master data and make sure that data attributes in common have the same values. Data syndicator system must have strong match-and-merge functions with ability to match data records automatically, identify differences, combine data records based on pre-defined rules, and refer exceptions to manual match-and-merge processing. This functionality is lacking in MDG EhP 6.1 (some SAP publications claim improved match and merge in EhP 7.0, but I have not had a chance to test this function first hand).

Master data creation system must have strong workflow and data validation capabilities to support creation of complex master data objects by various functions within your organization. The definition of data governance is both management of the business process that supports creation and change of master data within organization as well as application of automated and manual data validation and enrichment rules. SAP MDM lacks strong workflow and validation functions, SAP MDG has them.

SAP ERP master data is very complex. It is important for a company that implemented SAP ERP to maintain quality of its master data to assure effectiveness of its ERP environment. Creation of SAP ERP master data typically involves many people working for many departments. SAP ERP lacks the functionality to help companies coordinate the creation of master data, validate it and approve it. For years, large companies developed workarounds to help them manage SAP master data. SAP MDG, therefore, filled an important gap in the traditional SAP ERP landscape.

This does not mean that SAP MDG should only be used for managing SAP ERP master data. It has excellent replication and integration capabilities to integrate and distribute data to other systems. However, when designing the process of integrating with external systems, it is important to remember that SAP MDG should ultimately own the master data and act as the originator/creator of data. It should not be implemented in a role of data syndicator.

One of the best strengths of SAP MDG is that it is based on SAP ECC platform and leverages existing SAP ECC technologies such as IMG, ABAP workflow, BRF+, and Web Dynpro. It is an advantage for customers who already use SAP ECC – they have to learn fewer new technologies, and they can leverage to a greater extend their existing IT analysts, developers, and external support partners.

Another important MDG’s strength is its close integration with SAP ERP master data. In Reuse mode, SAP MDG can easily update the SAP ERP master data and refer to this master data during the processing of master data change requests (SAP’s term for workflow transactions for creating and changing master data). In Flex mode the relationship is more complex and requires more complex data replication and load settings. Still, since MDG supports SAP ERP data models out-of-the-box, it is relatively simple to setup MDG to update the SAP ERP master data. The same holds true for implementing MDG in a co-deployment mode versus the Hub mode (i.e., in co-deployment mode is simpler from integration perspective). For more detailed information on MDG implementation options, please refer to other MDG related articles in my blog.

Based on my experience with multiple MDG implementation projects, SAP MDG (EhP 6.1) is a stable product and, once implemented, works well. It has sufficient out-of-the-box functionality to allow companies implement quickly some basic functions for governing SAP ERP data. It supports decent customization options allowing to customize the data model, workflows, user interfaces (UI), data validation rules, and to implement more complex data quality and data quality analytics leveraging additional Data Services and Information Steward software. As stated before, it also has good data replication capabilities supporting all of SAP ECC replication options using Web services, ALE, RFC or flat file. Additional replication functionality is available with Data Services (for complex data transformation and validation) and SAP PI (SAP’s EAI software).

SAP MDG’s main weakness is in complexity of its design – SAP, AG does not make the most intuitive easy to setup products, and MDG is not an exception. For example, SAP chose to implement a new concept of Entity Types with four different setup options instead of leveraging the existing SAP data dictionary based on a standard relational database technology. An Entity Type can represent a single data element or a group of data elements that share properties (similar to a table in relational data dictionary). In my opinion, this technological concept is a little cumbersome to implement and not intuitive.

Another example is BRF+ technology. BRF+ is a nice tool that allows to setup business rules to run workflows and validation processes using tables instead of programming, but to configure BRF+, an analyst must setup three tables and in many cases know how to activate the update BADIs (BADIs are SAP’s object oriented functions).

The most complicated part of SAP MDG is in the relationship between UI, workflow and data model as demonstrated by the SAP’s chart below.

In more complex cases, analyst implementing MDG must be familiar with all four technologies, SAP Web Dynpro programming or/and Floorplan Manager (SAP graphical UI tool that allows creating sophisticated UI, but is not very simple to use). This complexity should not surprise anyone already using SAP ECC. SAP ERP, for example, has more than 3,000 tables with hundreds (or maybe even thousands) of configuration tables/options.

In conclusion, SAP MDG EhP 6.1 is a very good product for customer already committed to SAP ECC environment. Its functionality is long overdue to help companies manage their SAP ERP master data. SAP MDG can effectively integrate with non-SAP systems, but it should be implemented in a role of central data creator system not data syndication system. SAP MDG can be enhanced by integrating SAP Data Services and Information Steward for added data validation, enrichment, and data quality monitoring functions.

Please note my extensive SAP ERP, SAP MDG and data quality experience. You are welcome to contact me if you have any questions or are looking for a senior consultant to help you with your SAP implementation and SAP system management needs.