Understanding Product Hierarchy Setup for Self-Service Order Entry

When customers access the system using self-service, you can enable them to view products by group and hierarchy. By assigning items to product groups and hierarchies, you relieve the customers from having to scroll through a complete list of the inventory items.

You define a product group by selecting a category code from either the F4101 table or the F4102 table. Items that have the same assigned category codes belong to a group. For example, a bicycle manufacturer can create a group called Bikes that contains subgroups for mountain bikes, road bikes, and so on. The system assigns hierarchies based on the sequence number and the parent directory that you specify. For example, the group Bikes would have a higher sequence number than the group Mountain Bikes. The resulting tree-like structure can have any number of levels.

If you have defined item restrictions for a customer in the Customer Master program, that customer is not able to view the restricted items, although the items remain part of the product groups and hierarchies that you assign.