Manage Item Relationships

Managing item relationships includes defining, editing, and deleting item relationships.

You can create, edit, and delete item relationships in these ways:

On the Manage Item Relationships page, search for and select items that have a specified item relationship type. Use this page for managing relationships across many items.
On the Edit Item page, select the Relationships tab and the subtab for the item relationship type. Use this page for managing item relationships for a particular item.

In addition to those ways of creating item relationships, you can create trading partner item relationships from the Create or Edit Trading Partner Item pages.

The item relationship types are:

Related Items
Trading Partner Item Relationships
Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) Relationships
Item Cross-References
Source System Item Relationships

You can search for different relationships across items on the Manage Item Relationships page. Before specifying item criteria, select the Item Relationship Type to search in and click Go. The item search criteria fields change automatically to reflect the relationship type that you selected. You can also perform keyword and parametric searches using various criteria to quickly locate any relationship of any item.

When creating or editing a related item relationship for an item, you can specify whether a related item relationship must be controlled at the master organization level or at an organization level. When you navigate to the related item relationships user interface for the organization item, you can find any org-specific relationships and the master-controlled relationships inherited from the master organization.

If a relationship is controlled at the master organization level, then it means that the relationship is applicable to all the child organizations to which both the FROM and TO items are assigned to. Any changes to the item relationship will be inherited by all child organizations.

If cyclic relationship isn’t allowed for a relationship type, you must use the import process to create a master-controlled relationship of this type.

Prior to this enhancement the audit log value for the Controlled-At field was Null. So, the records created prior to the enhancements shows the Null value in the audit. This is equivalent to the Master-level value for the Controlled-At field.

Optionally, you can specify the rank for the related item relationship. Rank must be unique for a combination of From item and the relationship type. For example:

From item X to item Y, Substitute type of relationship - Rank 1
From item X to item Z, Substitute type of relationship - Rank 2
From item X to item Y, Cross-sell type of relationship- Rank 1

Note: Rank-uniqueness validation is enforced across the org-controlled relationships and the relationships inherited from the master organization.

Related Items

Predefined relationship types are listed in the following table.

Relationship Type	Definition
Accessories	This indicates the item is an accessory of another item.
Collateral	This relationship indicates collateral, such as marketing brochures, that you have for an item.
Complimentary	This relationship indicates if a customer purchases one item, the other item is received for free.
Conflict	This relationship indicates that these items may never be used together.
Cross-Sell	This relationship indicates that one item may be sold in lieu of another item.
Fulfillment	Indicates if the item is a fulfillment item.
Impact	This relationship is used to relate items to each other, but only under special conditions.
Mandatory Charge	This relationship indicates a mandatory charge if a customer purchases both items.
Merge	This relationship enables rules based on the consolidation of contracts. You may use the earliest or latest target end date for consolidation. This enables you to choose how contracts are consolidated.
Migration	During contact renewal you're given the option of renewing contracts based on new licenses, or old licenses.
Optional Charge	This relationship indicates an optional charge if the customer purchases both items.
Prerequisite	This relationship indicates that you must mark one of the items as a requirement to using the other item.
Promotional Upgrade	This relationship enables a customer to upgrade from one item to another item or equal or higher value, without an additional charge.
Regulatory	This type relates a regulatory item with the context item.
Related	The items are related in a nonspecific way.
Repair To	You use the Repair To item relationship with field service operations that use spares management functionality. If a part has been superseded by another part, the Repair to item relationship determines the replacement part.
Service	This relationship establishes service items for a repairable item.
Split	This relationship enables you to split support for an item so you don't have to manually split support at contract renewal.
Substitute	One item is a substitute for another. You can't add a dual UOM item as a substitute of a non-dual UOM item and in reverse. If the item has dual UOM, then make sure that the respective primary and secondary UOMs of the dual UOM item and its substitute are the same. Note: These validations are enforced in the respective organizations. The validations make sure that the respective primary and secondary UOMs of a dual UOM item and its substitute are the same in the respective inventory organizations.
Superseded	This relationship indicates that one item has replaced another item that's no longer available.
Upsell	This relationship indicates that a newer version of the item exists, and can be sold in place of the older item.
Warranty	This relationship enables you to relate a warranty item with the item.

Effective Dates for Related Item Relationship: Enter the Effective Dates. For example, start date and optionally an end date.

Reciprocal: Indicates whether the item relationship is reciprocal.

Planning Enabled: When the item relationship type is substitute or superseded, it indicates if planning is enabled for the substitute item or superseded item, respectively.

Note: Your System Administrator can set up additional relationship types based on your business needs.

Trading Partner Item Relationships

These are the subordinate relationships for trading partner items:

Customer Item Relationships are used to associate an internal item with one of your customer items.
Competitor Item Relationships are used to associate an internal item with one of your competitor items.
Manufacturer Part Number Relationships are used to associate an internal item to a manufacturer part number.
Supplier Item Relationships are used to associate an internal item with your supplier item.

For each trading partner item relationship, you can define its Status as Preferred, Alternate, or Obsolete.

Manage Links Between MPN Relationships and Supplier Item Relationships for an Item

You can create and manage links between Manufacturer Part Number (MPN) relationships and supplier item relationships for an item. The allowed linking is N:N. You can link one MPN relationship with one or more supplier item relationships and link one supplier item relationship with one or more MPN relationships. It helps to increase tracking and allows for a more robust digital thread amongst your product number, supplier part numbers, and manufacturing part numbers.

You can set one of the linkages of an MPN relationship or a supplier item relationship as primary. The reciprocal of the linkage will also be considered as primary.

Note:

The feature is available only for manufacturer and supplier relationships; customer and competitor relationships aren't applicable for this feature.
You can link multiple supplier items belonging to the same supplier with an MPN and vice versa.
Linkage for trading partner item relationship is currently supported only on the Edit Item page.
You can't delete an MPN relationship or a supplier item relationship that has a linkage present. You must first delete the corresponding linkages before deleting the parent relationship.
You can publish, audit, and report the links between the manufacturer part number relationships and supplier item relationships for an item.

To link MPN relationships and supplier item relationships:

Browse to the item for which you want to create a link between the MPN relationship and supplier item relationship.
On the Edit Item page, click the Relationships tab, and then click the Trading Partner Items subtab.
Select a manufacturer or supplier relationship. Based on your selection, the Linked Supplier Items or Linked Manufacturer Part Numbers table is displayed.
On this table, click the + icon, or from Actions, click Select and Add. The Select and Add dialog box is displayed.
Search for an existing supplier item relationship or MPN relationship (associated with the context item).
Select one or more rows (multiselect) from the search results and click OK.
The dialog box is closed, and the selected relationships are added to the linkage table.
(Optional) Select a relationship from the linkage table and make it the primary by selecting the check box in the Primary Linkage column.
Click the page-level Save button to save the linkage between the trading partner item relationships

Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) Relationships

Relationship between an internal item and a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN).

When creating a GTIN Relationship, you must specify the Unit of Measure (UOM), and also specify whether you're adding to a new GTIN or one that already exists.

You can associate the same GTIN with more than one item when the GTIN UOM and the item's primary UOM are the same. For example, when two or more items vary only by labels, you may want to use the same GTIN for those items. In such cases, you can create item relationships by associating the same GTIN to those items. To do this, you must enable the Allow Multiple Item Relationships to Same GTIN profile option in the Manage Administrator Profile Values task in the Setup and Maintenance work area.

Spoke System Item Relationships

Establishes a relationship between an internal item and a spoke system item. This relationship is helpful in mapping and identifying items that have been consolidated from multiple source systems into a single master item.

Item Cross-References

Cross-referencing an item with something like an old part number. While creating a Cross-Reference Relationship, you first select a Cross-Reference type and you specify whether the relationship is applicable to all organizations or whether it specific to only a selected organization. If it's specific to one organization, you select the organization.

Cyclic Relationships

A cyclic relationship is a relationship between items that forms a loop with other existing relationships. This can be undesirable, so you can disallow cyclic relationships from being created for specified relationship types.

It's possible to create a relationship between two items that forms a loop with other existing relationships, which can be undesirable. For example, consider these scenarios:

Item A has a Substitute relationship to Item B. When a user tries to create a new Substitute relationship from Item B to Item A, that forms a loop.
You discover that item XY-100 is defective. You introduce item XY-101 to remedy the defect. You create an item relationship of type Superseded from XY-101 to XY-100. If another user were to create a Superseded relationship from XY-100 to XY-101, that would form a loop in which the defective item is a replacement for itself.

Cyclic relationships can also form in chains of relationships. For example, assume that Item A has a Substitute relationship to Item B, and Item B has a Substitute relationship to Item C. If a user tries to create a new Substitute relationship from Item C to Item A, that forms a loop.

By default, cyclic relationships are allowed. You can disallow cyclic relationships for a relationship type by using either of these methods:

Setup: Use the Manage Related Item Types task in the Setup and Maintenance work area
REST: Use the Related Item Types REST resource

Procedure Using Setup

To disallow cyclic relationships for a relationship type:

In the Setup and Maintenance work area, use the Manage Related Item Types task:
- Offering: Product Management
- Functional Area: Items
- Task: Manage Related Item Types
On the Manage Related Item Types page, select the relationship type.
You can enter a type name in the filter field to narrow the list of available types.
In the Allow Cyclic Relationships column for the relationship type, click the toggle control.
A message informs you whether cyclic relationships are now disallowed or allowed for the selected relationship type. You don't need to explicitly save your selections.
To return to the setup page for the Product Management offering, click the Parent page control in the page header.

Procedure Using REST

To disallow cyclic relationships for a relationship type:

Use the Related Item Types REST resource to specify the relationship type and set the value of the property cyclicRelationshipFlag to false for that type.

Example request body:

{  
        "cyclicRelationshipFlag": false
}

Example

This example shows the effect of disallowing cyclic relationships on item maintenance:

The item AS54888 has an existing related relationship type of Substitute with item KM2584.
You disallow cyclic relationships for the relationship type Substitute.
A user tries to create a related item relationship of type Substitute with the FROM item as KM2584 and the TO item as AS54888.
An error message informs the user that the relationship she's trying to create between items KM2584 and AS54888 forms a loop, and that the relationship type Substitute doesn't allow cyclic relationships.

Considerations

Cyclic relationships for a relationship type are allowed by default until you explicitly disallow them:
- By toggling the Allow Cyclic Relationships control in the Manage Related Item Types task
- By changing the cyclicRelationshipFlag to false with the REST resource
The start date and end date of relationships (their effectivity range) is taken into account when determining whether a relationship is cyclic.
Cyclic relationships can only be disallowed between relationships of the same relationship type. For example, if A has a Substitute relationship to C and you try to create a Cross-Sell relationship of C to A, that's not considered a cyclic relationship.
The Reciprocal setting isn't considered when checking for cyclic relationships.

After you disallow a relationship type, you must query any existing cyclic relationships created before you disallowed and modify them to be valid. The following query example fetches all the existing relationships of type Substitute that are cyclic. You can substitute another relationship type, using the internal name of the relationship (which is 'Substitute' in this example).

SELECT * FROM (

SELECT item_relationship_id,

       inventory_item_id,

       (SELECT fi.item_number FROM egp_system_items_b fi WHERE fi.inventory_item_id = c.inventory_item_id AND ROWNUM = 1) FromItemNumber,

       related_item_id,

       (SELECT ti.item_number FROM egp_system_items_b ti WHERE ti.inventory_item_id = c.related_item_id AND ROWNUM =1) ToItemNumber,

       start_date_active,

       end_date_active,

       sub_type, CONNECT_BY_ISCYCLE iscycle,

       level

 FROM  (SELECT item_relationship_id,

               inventory_item_id,

               related_item_id,

               start_date_active,

               end_date_active,

               sub_type

          FROM egp_item_relationships_b RelatedItemEO

         WHERE item_relationship_type = 'RELATED_ITEM'

           AND sub_type = (SELECT lookup_Code FROM fnd_lookup_values_vl WHERE lookup_type = 'EGP_RELATIONSHIP_TYPES' AND meaning = /*:BindSubType*/ 'Substitute')

           AND ( start_date_active <= Nvl(NULL /*:BindEndDateActive*/, To_timestamp('9999/12/31 23:59:59', 'YYYY/MM/DD HH24:MI:SS'))

                 AND Nvl(end_date_active, To_timestamp('9999/12/31 23:59:59', 'YYYY/MM/DD HH24:MI:SS')) >= Nvl(/*:BindStartDateActive*/ null, sysdate))

         ) c  

CONNECT BY NOCYCLE PRIOR related_item_id = inventory_item_id ) WHERE iscycle = 1;

Descriptive Flexfield Context

A system administrator can configure descriptive flexfields for item relationships that are used to maintain additional details about relationships.

When you configure new descriptive flexfields for item relationships, you must use the following prefix to descriptive flexfield context codes in order for the segments to show up for the respective relationships.

Relationship Type	Prefix
Related	RELATED
Item Cross-reference	XREF
GTIN	GTIN
Source System	SYS
Customer	CUST
Manufacturer Part Number	MFG
Competitor	COMP

For example, you could setup a descriptive flexfield with the context code RELATED_RELATIONSHIP_ATTRIBUTES, and the segments of this context will display for the related item relationships on the transaction side.

When creating item relationships, you must provide values for the mandatory descriptive flexfield segments such as context segment and context sensitive segments when using the Item Relationships user interface, during import, or when using web services. If you don't provide values for these segments, an error occurs, and you won't be able to create item relationships.