Consolidating catalogs

Originally, I created multiple catalogs for each shoot. This has become unwieldy and ineffective for searching for and finding images. I know that I can export images as a catalog which I believe can be combined into a new consolidated catalog. My goal isto consolidate the existing catalogs into 3 major catalogs: general photography, family and learning tools.
Is my understanding correct and when I consolidate the catalogs, can I delete the older catalogs?

File > Import from Catalog will get you out of trouble.
And yes, you can then delete the old catalogues - just keep a backup
John

Similar Messages

Consolidating catalogs & backups

I gather by reading some of the posts in this forum that should be possible to merge old catalogs, into one new one as to consolidate picture locations into one.
If this is correct can I do the following without problems. I have Version 11 waiting to install. I have reorganized my PC & have some old catalogs,sometimes on different drives,as well as possible some stray pictures on them as well.
I was thinking of installing the new software & create a new catalog from scratch. I could then refer setup to the most recent version 10 catalog & have it import & upgrade it to 11. Once this done I could refer the program to older catalogs, & import them one at a time.
Can one if necessary restore a backup in lieu of a catalogue as well if necessary? If the program can update from these catalogs & backups as well will it create duplicates or just refer to the pictures being in the catalog already?
Can the program then do a search to find any other pictures that aren't in any catalog & add them in as well?
If I then end up with one consolidated catalogue that contains all pictures everywhere I think that a new backup might be in order. Any catalogue created this way would still result with pictures scattered across drives? I have lots of space available so backups aren't a problem. Do I move all files onto one drive first or would it be better to do so from the consolidated catalog & then move all pictures to one location?
Thanks in advance

From what you have written in other posts, I suppose you practically did not use tagging or other organization features like albums or stacks ?
If that is the case, in my opinion, you don't need to bother with old catalogs or backups. Your migration should be able to :
1 - create a new catalog in the PSE11 format from your current main catalog : it's the conversion process which does not change anything to your present older PSE version. No picture files are copied or moved, only a new different catalog is created. You keep both PSE versions and both catalog versions.
2 - import all pictures not included in your present catalog, even if they are on different drives.
Can the program then do a search to find any other pictures that aren't in any catalog & add them in as well?
Yes, of course. With the current catalog active, you use the menu 'get files from files or folders'. You can get files from external drives (USB, CD, DVDs...) You have the choice to do so in PSE11 after the conversion, or before in your previous PSE version.
If I then end up with one consolidated catalogue that contains all pictures everywhere I think that a new backup might be in order. Any catalogue created this way would still result with pictures scattered across drives? I have lots of space available so backups aren't a problem. Do I move all files onto one drive first or would it be better to do so from the consolidated catalog & then move all pictures to one location?
Absolutely : do a backup when the catalog is up to date.
You can move pictures to a single drive before or after the above job provided you move your folders from the organizer in folder view. Since the PSE11 interface has been changed a lot, you should be more at ease by doing so before the above conversion process.
The additional advantage of a full backup is that you can restore it easily to another computer or drive. If you choose the option to restore to 'custom' location, stating a master folder, various drives will be copied as new folders in the new drive. In that case, you don't need to move the files from the external drive. The restore puts them on the destination drive, with different drives showing as different folder trees.

I have mistakenly created two separate catalogs, one in 5.6 and one in Lightroom 5 original. The latter is on my external drive, the former is on my hard drive. How do I merge them and upgrade the 5.0 main catalog?

In trying to dump my Elements 10 catalog into my LR catalog, I can see I have mistakenly created a second catalog. My main catalog is on the external drive and remains in the original 5.0 version, the "elements 10 upgraded" was imported into the 5.6 upgrade of LR and is on my hard drive. Can you advise how I can fix this?
Thanks in advance.
Barb in Virginia

OK Jim Hess, that step is done. So on the hard drive, can I now delete:
1. the "extra" LR catalog?
2. the Elements 10 Catalog (which I had previously imported into one of the LR catalogs?
That leaves me with a single catalog on an external drive. The only question is: what about backup catalogs? how do I determine where my "new consolidated" catalog is backing up to?
thanks in advance.

Problem splitting catalog in Lightroom 2.1

I am using Windows XP w/sp2 and have migrated to Lightroom 2.1. There are two people sharing one catalog each with one master folder in the catalog and a hierarchy of sub folders. I have tried to set up a second catalog for the second user. Wanting to be cautious, rather than trying to export the entire second user's master folder at one time I exported a bottom level folder with a few picture files (CR2 & JPG) into a new catalog. This worked fine. I then tried to export more folders to this new catalog, but each time Lightroom created another new catalog for the folder. I now seem to have several catalogs where I only wanted one more. If I try and import to the new catalog I get messages which say the images are allready in the catalog.
I have been unable to find this problem discussed in any of the forums etc. which I have come across. I did see a comment in an older discussion thread that Lightroom 1.x would not accept folders into a folder which contained images. Does this still apply?
I am now in the situation where I need to export a block of folders from the origional catalog to a new or recently created catalog, and add to it the sub folders which inadvertently reside in their own new catalogs. Once everything for second user is in a new consolidated catalog I should be able to drag and drop in order to organize properly. Can anyone help before I make it worse that it is? I do not want to lose adjustment data.
Additionaly is there anywhere in Lightroom that will list all of the catalogs which have been created? The only list I can find seems to be in file > open recent, which does not distinguish between catalogs and folders within a catalog. File > open catalog, just gives access to everything on the C (main hard) drive.
Thanks in advance to anyone who has the solution or can point me in the right direction.

I don't think you are describing anything that is a bug or problem, just a misunderstanding: you just cannot export TO an existing catalog, which you already discovered.
Whatever it is you want to do, you need to either export an entire set of images at once, or import into another catalog that does not have the images already in it.
Maybe you can export the images you didn't, already, to a new catalog, then import those individual catalogs into it. It's a bit unclear what your exact situation is so it is hard to describe in detail, what to do.
One thing that might help you is that you can right-click on a folder in the catalog's folder list and say "Add Parent" and it'll move that folder and all it's peers down one level so you can then synchronize that parent folder and get to the other folders that are peers to the ones already in the catalog.
The only way to find all your catalog files is to do a file search for *.lrcat files.

I want to do some file cleanup/consolidation/archiving - will Organizer still keep catalog data ?

Over the years, my pictures have been stored on my laptop in various folders, as well as on 4 different external hard drives. I have pictures in Organizer 11 and another catalog with totally different pictures from Organizer 12. I have a new PC now and want to archive off a large portion of the pictures from old hard drive...but I don't want to lose the catalog data as I have many keytags etc for family and sports teams that my kids play on. I will need to access the sports catalog in particular this year as my son will graduate and I do special projects for all the senior players with pictures from all their prior playing years (school as well as local travel teams). I can't redo all this tagging and can't risk not being able to find images quickly.
Is there a way to export pictures from a catalog to an external drive and have Organizer update the catalog information to point to this new location and remove the reference to the old?
Also, is there a way to export certain data, like perhaps just all the school sports related pictures and have this accessible as a new catalog?
Thanks for the help and guidance!

Thanks everyone - I have a wealth of advise, options and warnings to shift thru here!
Really appreciate everyone taking the time to help me out
99jon seems to have the best solution for my unique situation - but so many of you added good tips or additional info - I really appreciate it - gained so much more knowledge just from these responses!
dj_paige - I appreciate your concerns for lost data or extra work - but reality is the files I am looking to move aren't very likely to ever be needed again. It's 1,000s and 1,000's of pictures of "other peoples kids" from 9 years of High school soccer, 4 years of College hockey and 11 years of club soccer. Obviously I am keeping the images featuring my own children or their close friends. I really just didn't want to clog up my new PC or waste space on my external drives (i have 4 totaling about 9 terabytes of storage)
My plan is to extract these unneeded pics to one of my older external drives - which will be dedicated as "archive" so I will always know where they are...save the metadata as suggested, and then delete then from the existing catalog so I can cut it down to size. It took 8 hours to do a full catalog back up of my PSE 11 catalog......only a little over 3 for my PSE12 - where I was much more disciplined in my "star" maintenance and deleted sub standards shots much more religiously!

Sub item not appearing in consolidation.

Hi Experts,
We have an isse in consolidation. We have maintained few P&L GL accounts and have done some depreciation postings. How ever when we have checked in consolidation FS item is updating but sub item is(cost center) which is not updting.
How can we update subitems in consolidation without changing the FI data. Is there any way that we can achieve this.
Cheers
Muralidhar

Hi,
In your case, Vendor Product Number (Supplier Parts Number) is required.
Please make sure that Vendor Product Number is in catalog and contract.
Regards,
Masa

Keyword consolidation

Can anyone offer any help, suggestions, erm... plugins?
Over the last few years I've built myself an extensive keyword hierarchy in Lightroom - several thousand keywords in it - works well for me. Since LR3 is able to handle larger catalogs, I've recently imported my pre-lightroom images. Import worked fine, the only problem is these images were keyworded prior to having a keyword hierarchy. This means that all the keywords have appeared at the top-level of the hierarchy. I now have literally thousands of duplicate keywords in my catalog. And in for reasons I won't bore you with several hundred triplicate keywords, all of which need to be consolodated. In fact there are so may duplicates at the top level that I the list is longer than lightroom can display in the panel.
Because the 'duplicates' are at the top level finding the duplicates is easy. Here's the steps I'm taking to consolodate the keywords.....
1. look at duplicate keyword in the top level.
2. Click the arrow to display the images assigned to the duplicate keyword
3. type the keyword name into the "filter keywords" box
4. locate the master keyword from the list of filtered keywords (this only works providing the duplicate keyword isn't a synonym as there is a current bug that prevents synonyms from being filtered this way - that bug really isn't helping this!).
5. Drag the images from the grid onto the master keyword.
6. Delete the duplicate keyword from the top level
As an estimate I have at least 3000 duplicates/triplicates that I need to consolodate. Providing I don't mis-click or mis-type the above process takes about 70secs per consolodation. By my estimate that would take 60 hours of clicking and typing to complete the consolodation.
Can anyone suggest any ways to speed this up? I've looked at Rob Coles keyword consolidator, but that just tells me what needs consolodating and doesn't actually do any of the work. (In my case I already know which keywords need consolodating - it is manually doing the work that is the problem.
Thanks,
Ian

3bells wrote:
I'm wondering if your KeywordConsolidator would work with Lightroom 4?
In a word: Yes , but please contact me directly if any issues spring up - thanks:
PM: http://forums.adobe.com/people/areohbee
or: http://www.robcole.com/Rob/ContactMe
R

Is it possible to move a book project from one LR5 catalog to another?

I have spent days laying out a book on my laptop with low resolution jpegs in a temporary project catalog. I wanted to export the book project in a project catalog and import it into my main catalog on my desktop to swap out the small jpegs with full sized images and then order the book.
However I have been stuck because apparently LR 5 does not export the book project with the catalog. I was surprised after importing the project catalog into my main catalog on my desktop because the book project was not there, only the selection of images in a new default book layout. When I open the temporary project catalog exported from my laptop, only the images were in the book, but all formatting and text pages are missing... it was essentially a default book layout. It seems the book project does not export, even when right clicking on the book project and selecting "Export this Collection as a Catalog".
I know I can import the high res files to my laptop and complete the order, but I want the archive of the book project in my main catalog, as I will want to use it in the future, both for digital PDFs and physical book orders.
Or am I missing something entirely? If anyone has any advice, I would love it.
I am using Lightroom 5.3 on a mac running OS 10.8.5 (both desktop and laptop)
Thanks,
Sol

John,
OK, I re-exported the book project as a catalog and opened the exported catalog on my laptop to check it before transferring to my desktop. After double clicking on the book project, it loaded properly. What I did not know before is that you have to double click on the book project icon after importing to load it. I was only selecting the book project in the collections panel.
Now I just need to reimport into my master catalog on my desktop… but it should work.
I have not started using smart previews, because I just upgraded to LR5 and have been busy consolidating my many separate catalogs into one master catalog and struggling with the metadata mismatches. Once that is all cleared up, I will start working with smart previews.
Thank you,
Sol Hill
www.solhill.com
805-453-4375

Question re: second catalog in lightroom 4

I created a second catalog in lightroom 4 and imported a number of photos. the photo id number i.e. the name of the photo was not imported so the second catalog has an entirely new set of identification numbers. this is not helpful to me as I have references/notes to the original numbers. how do I indicate that I want the original names/numbers to transfer to the second catalog? can I fix what has already happened?
Also: now that I have the second catalog, I want to delete some photos with out deleting the photo from the original catalog. so far, when I delete a photo it gets deleted from both catalogues in lightroom.

Question: Are smaller catalogs faster?
Answer: At some things: yes; other things: not at all.
Yes: when doing whole catalog metadata operations, like displaying consolidated metadata, and lib filtering, and updating smart collections.
No: when editing in develop module, or displaying thumbs or loupe view in library module.
Why?
Databases use random access (read/write directly from/to pre-computed location) for reading and writing info for a single photo. - Therefore it is just as fast even if there are millions of photos and 100's of gigabytes in the database (catalog).
However some things do require Lightroom to read or write *all* records of the database, and process the data - those things take longer when the catalog is bigger.
So, whether to split your work into multiple catalogs depends on how you work. For me, a second catalog when traveling, consolidated with main upon return is my only use for a second catalog. But for people who work for independent clients, or who don't re-access older photos... - multiple catalogs makes more sense.
Summary: How you divide your work (photos) into catalogs depends mostly on how you work. Dividing into multiple catalogs for general performance improvement is not recommended, unless it really fits your workflow. However you do it, I recommend minimizing switching back and forth - lest you become crazy... .
Just my .02 opinion - YMMV...
potato321 - until you know what you're doing, I'd definitely recommend consolidating back to one catalog: just import your 2nd catalog into your main (original) catalog. Make backups of both catalogs first, in case you run into trouble.
PS - I agree with both Cornelia and dj-paige: having the same photo in more than one catalog is a recipe for disaster - just don't do it (ok, I could imagine some really unusual circumstance where this might make sense, but in 99.9% of cases: no). Now that I think about it, I did have all the same photos in Lr3 catalog and Lr4-beta catalog when I was strattling both worlds, but at the risk of sounding immodest: I knew what I was doing.
PS - Catalogs don't suck photo file data into themselves, they reference it from where it sits, in "independent" files on the disk, *but* you can duplicate physical photo files into the same directory as the catalog when you export a catalog - so be careful: it's worth knowing exactly where your photo files really are... - and whether you've inadvertently created duplicates... - I help way too many people recover previews who've inadvertently deleted photo files.
PS - I wish Lightroom had a checkbox you had to check: "I swear I understand the basics of catalog/photo-files and importing, non-destructive editng/xmp, and embedded-previews vs. rendered raw data" before it would allow you to open Lightroom - until then, it just presented the basic tutorial... (joking, but you get the idea - right?).
Rob

E-commerce shopadmin - moving shop from dev to Consolidation

hello there,
We are using E-Commerce on ECC 6.0.
I have done a download from development of the XCM b2b config and XCM shopadmin config.
I have uploaded the b2b and shopadmin config into the consolidation system.
When we go to the URL http://<server>:<port>/shopadmin/shopadmin/init.do we did not get all the shops that were in development.
How do we move the Shop managament information between systems? When I do the search shops it does not show any shops. In development I have 10 shops with different shop ids. where we setup the General Information, Catalog, Transactions and Customers with different Business Scenarios.
Thanks for your assistance.
Deidre Logan

I do not think so because the configuration and application data are displaying properly in the XCM for the B2B and Shop admin.
I am think that the Shops are either setup in each system - which would not be nice.
Or they are actually transported on the ABAP side of the system even though they are created on the java stack. The Shop Management appears to be a web dynpro application.
I just do not know what the CRM folk consider the movement of these objects. In the ABAP side it is a transport or promote to production.
I am not sure the terms in CRM. It seems to be a little different than the other SAP apps.
Any help would greatly be appreciated.
How to move these shops between systems Dev to Consolidation to production......
thanks,

Catalog on Eternal, OK?

Hi! I got a new Mac and after two weeks of dealing with question marks and exclamation points, multiple catalogs and folders everywhere...moving and consolidating files, etc., I am happy that I've now got everything neatly into folders and everything up and working wonderfully--all 500,000 photos! (I learned so much about how NOT to do things while cleaning up the mess that I made in the the first place.)
I've put my catalog (Ircat, Irdata) and photos all in one place: On a 4TB external HDD. I've cloned that disk as a backup.
My questions:
1. I've been reading that catalogs cannot be on an external drive. Is this true? I believe that mine are indeed on an external drive.
2. Should catalogs be on the computer itself instead? Are there advantages to this?
IF YES, then:
3. If I have Lightroom "Back up catalog" under "Catalog Settings/General" when I close Lightroom down, could I just use that copy (I suppose I'll have to relink question-marked folders, yes?) instead of the external catalog?
I'm hoping someone knowledgeable will tell me that having everything nice and neat on an external should be fine.

lisa_vogt wrote:
I'm hoping someone knowledgeable will tell me that having everything nice and neat on an external should be fine.
Yes, that's fine...
Ideally, you should put your catalog on a really fast drive which can be internal or external–it really doesn't matter. The catalog can NOT be put on a network attached drive however (although the images in the catalog can be on NAS).
The catalog backup can also be on any drive and as long as your images in the catalog are not moved, it should not produce a problem if you need to restore your catalog from a backup.

Importing catalogs in Lightroom

How can I view photo folders in Lightroom on left side after I've imported a catalog? (I'm consolidating my catalogs)

Lightroom is notoriously fickle when trying to import direct from an attached camera. Have you got a card reader that you could use? If not, try copying the files from the camera to your hard drive, then try importing from there using the "Add" option.

SEM-Business Consolidation starter question

Hi there,
It`s my first attempt in Business Consolidation, hence I`m trying to first create a Data Basis
I am referring to http://help.sap.com/saphelp_sem40bw/helpdata/en/67/f7e73ac6e7ec28e10000000a114084/frameset.htm and it states that I need to first create the following :-
SEM_BCS_TOTALS
SEM_BCS_DOCS
SEM_BCS_INVDTA
SEM_BCS_SUPDTA
I have checked in my Business Content and it`s not there. Please advice if I need to custom create these InfoCube/Virtual InfoCube ?
Next question would be assignment of the followings :- What exactly do I input ?
InfoProvider for MultiCube reporting
InfoObject Catalog for Characteristics
InfoObject Catalog for Key Figure
Appreciate if someone can guide me through my first steps since I it`s my first time doing Business Consolidation.

Hi,
 I created a new Data Basis named Data_Basis_1.
 Selected 0BCS_C11 as Total Records Stream
 Hit 'Yes', when prompted for "Do you really want to generate the data basis?"
 Selected SEM_BCS_CHA01 as InfoObject Catalog for Characteristic and SEM_BCS_KYF01 as InfoObject Catalog for Key Figure
 and it worked magically!
 So, the next logical thing to do would be to assign the Source to the Data Basis created so far.
 According to the link below, the following needs to be done ...
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_sem40bw/helpdata/en/12/f35e32342c4bbd9b36bd18c0371c47/content.htm
 1. Create a source data basis. Enter system A as the RFC Destination. Then under InfoProvider enter your InfoCube with the planning data.
 2. Assign this new source data basis to your data basis.
 3. Create a Load from Data Stream method and select your system A as the RFC Destination and your InfoCube with the planning data as the InfoProvider. If the structure of the planning data does not match the corresponding fields of your data model, define suitable mapping rules.
 4. Execute the new method.
 My scenario here is SEM and BW both resides in the same box. There is a logical connection to SAP R/3 to SAP BW defined
 Please advice how do I proceed here onwards ?
 Appreciate your help, mate!

Lightroom 5 can't copy files when importing PC catalog

Attempting to merge my old PC catalog into my newer Mac one.
I tidied up both catalogs, then consolidated the PC catalog and media onto an external USB 3 drive (NTFS) - Mac catalog is on an external Firewire drive (Mac OS Extended Journaled). Both separate catalogs were extensively tested and were working, with all media accessible.
I imported as catalog from the Mac catalog, and previews looked fine, and imported catalog looks fine EXCEPT almost none of the media has copied across (about 4500 photos worth!) some did, though, no idea why, or why not, in either case. Got an error message which said Lightroom couldn't copy some files.
I did so much manual cleanup, which took days, to make this painless, I'm pretty gutted such a simple thing didn't work.
Any idea what might be wrong and how to clean up this mess without having to go through it all manually AGAIN, please?

OK, I'll try to give you the info you need. Firstly, I'm not the one doing the copying, I'm asking Lightroom to copy files to a new location while performing an 'import from catalog'. Also, I've just undone the previous import and I was incorrect, Lightroom copied none of the files across at all. This is all being done on the Mac, just so you know.
Exact steps were as follows -
1 - File -> Import from another Catalog (choose PC Catalog on NTFS HDD).
2 - Appropriate files (all of them in fact) selected.
3 - Settings were- File Handling - copy to: (folder on the Mac external HDD). Replace: Nothing (only new files copied). With preview.
2 - Exact error message is "Problem importing from catalog 'Lightroom was unable to copy the files for these images to the folder you selected'." The previews appear in the catalog but with the missing file icons.
I've removed the previous import and tried again, with the same result. In between the tries, I checked read/write permissions on both drives, which have full access, and also tried manually copying one of the folders across between the same two HDDs using the Finder (i.e. outside Lightroom), which worked perfectly, so I can't agree it's not a Lightroom issue at the moment.

ECCS - Adding Profit Center to Company Code Consolidation

Hello Gurus,
We use ECCS for our consolidation. We do only Legal consolidation and we also use Functional Area as a sub-item category for all the IS accounts. We are now trying to add Profit Center as one of the attributes. Initially, we planned to use the sub-item category, however, we can have only one and it's already taken by Functional Area. Is there a way I can
1. Add PC as an attribute
2. Enhance ECMCT to allow additional Sub-item?
Appreciate your advice and guidance.
Regards,
Venkat

The documentation at the menu path: t-code SPRO > Enterprise Controlling > Consolidation > Add Characteristics states:
Add Characteristics
The SAP standard consolidation database includes various preset characteristics, such as the consolidation unit, the financial statement (FS) item, the subitem, etc. If the information requirements of your group demand additional fields, you can define your own socalled custom characteristics.
This step shows you two ways to add characteristics to the consolidation database:
You can add up to five subassignments to the FS item.
You can add navigation attributes to the characteristic consolidation unit. The system then automatically assigns the same attribute to the characteristics partner unit and investee unit as well.
After adding a characteristic, the system generates the associated ABAP Dictionary objects and maintenance views.
To the consolidation database, you can also add characteristics based on structures that already exist in the SAP system (e.g. Region). However, you can also add characteristics, the structures of which still need to be generated.
Recommendation
Since custom characteristics extend the consolidation database, you should carefully examine which characteristics are to be added. SAP recommends, in particular, that you first finish creating the new characteristics, and that you make sure that want to use this set of data, before you activate the new characteristics and start the generation. This way you can avoid time-consuming deletions if a characteristic must be removed. Also, keep in mind that you can no longer delete a characteristic once you have posted data with the characteristic.
Example
Examples of subassignments for FS items are the Product Group and the Geographic Region.
An example of an attribute for consolidation units is the Company Type.
Standard settings
The standard SAP system already includes the following subassignments for FS items:
Partner unit
Subitem category and subitem
Transaction currency
Acquisition year
Acquisition period
Unit of measure
The standard SAP system already includes the following attributes for the consolidation unit:
Country
Company
Consolidation business area
Profit center
Controlling area
The attributes company, cons business area, profit center and controlling area are particularly useful when you use the integrated collection of reported financial data from your consolidation units.
Activities
1. Reorganize the field catalog. When this is done, the system copies the system field catalog into the customer field catalog. Choose Extras -> Field catalog -> Reorganize.
If you use integrated collection of reported data, during the reorganization you should include SAP's standard attributes in the selection. Note that, initially, these attributes are not included in the Reorganization selection screen.
2. If desired, create one or more new characteristics.
Enter the technical name (field name) of the new characteristic. The technical name must begin with the letters "ZZ".
Also set the appropriate indicator to define how the structure of the characteristic is to be built.
Technical Background Information:
Description, type, and length are properties of characteristics that you can enter directly or define by assigning a data element or domain. Data elements and domains are ABAP Dictionary objects that act as a central store of table field properties:
A data element defines the meaning of a field in business terms with texts and a reference to a domain.
A domain describes the technical properties of the field and defines permissible values for the characteristic if either of the following conditions is met:
- There is a list defining fixed values
- There is a reference to a check table
Normally data element and domain assignments are used to refer to check tables. You can, however, create a characteristic without any validation or texts by assigning a standard domain (for example CHAR07, NUM12).
Ways to create a characteristic:
a) Assigning a data element
Activate this indicator and assign a data element. The domain assignment is made by assigning the data element.
Note: If you run the elimination of IU profit/loss in transferred inventory and the system reads the required additional financial data from the totals database, you need to create the characteristic "product group" and assign it to data element FC_PRGRP.
b) Assigning a domain
Activate this indicator, then specify the meaning and assign a domain. By assigning a domain you define the type and length of the characteristic, and possibly you refer to fixed values or a check table.
c) Referencing a characteristic
Activate this indicator, then specify the description and set a reference to another characteristic. This has the effect of assigning the domain of the referenced characteristic.
d) Creating a characteristic with a new data element and check table
Activate this indicator, the specify the description, type (character or numeric), and length (1-32). The system generates a new check table for the characteristic.
e) Creating a characteristic without a check table (using a standard domain)
Activate this indicator and specify the description, type (character or numeric), and length (1-32). The system does not generate a check table.
Caution: Assigning data elements or domains does not itself ensure that validation, reading characteristic value texts, and Possible Entries Help will work as expected. The following conditions must be given:
The domain must have a check table or fixed values.
There must be either a text table with references to the check table, or the texts must be in the check table itself.
These conditions are always fulfilled by fields in the standard field catalog.
3. If needed, define compound relationships between characteristics in the detail screen of Characteristic Maintenance.
Some characteristics are dependent on other characteristics; that is, the values of dependent characteristics are meaningless in theabsence of values for independent characteristics. Such a relationship is called a characteristic compound. Technically, a check table then contains a key that consists of two parts.
Example: The Region, a dependent characteristic (check table T005S), forms a compound characteristic with the Country, an independent characteristic, because a region can be maintained or interpreted only if a country is specified.
Note the following restrictions when defining compounds:
Compounds can only be defined for characteristics that have a check table.
When a data element/domain is assigned, a compound is predefined by the existing check table.
Compounds can only be defined while creating a dependent characteristic. You do this by specifying the independent characteristic in the detail screen.
Only single compounds are permitted. Multiple compounds cannot be made.
The compound must be defined while creating a new characteristic, and before the new characteristic is saved. This is because the save process generates the check table for the characteristic.
Note: You do not use characteristic compounds to create regular assignments between two fields (such as, consolidation unit A having the local currency USD). Rather, a compound characteristic describes the structural dependency of one field on another (as in FS item 1111 in cons chart of accounts 01 being a different item than FS item 1111 in cons chart of accounts 02).
4. Specify further properties of the characteristic:
Define the display options and the sequence number of the characteristic for reports and so forth.
Activate the Subassignment indicator for all characteristics used as subassignments for FS items.
Activate the Fixed value in breakdown category indicator for all subassignments whose value is determined by the breakdown category (e.g., as with the characteristic subitem category).
Activate the Default value indicator if applicable. Then the characteristic appears in the implementation step Define Default Values. A default value is not necessary and cannot be set if you activate the Fixed value in breakdown category indicator
5. Enhance the checking specifications if needed:
For characteristics without a standard check table, you can enter a text table, a text field, and a long text field. The text fields must use the field type character. You can also specify a view name, usually a view of the check table and text table.
If the system fails to automatically determine the transaction codes for displaying and changing the master data, you can specify them manually.
6. To the characteristic consolidation unit assign any newly created characteristics as an attribute. Only independent characteristics can be assigned as attributes to consolidation units.
These attributes are used for sorting your consolidation units.
Note: Prerequisite for assigning attributes is the reorganization of the field catalog, that is, you need to have copied the field catalog into the customer field catalog. To do this, choose Extras -> Field catalog -> Reorganize.
7. Save and activate the new characteristic.
The Save process stores the new data and, if applicable, creates new tables and views in the ABAP Dictionary.
The Activation process sets the status of the tables, views, data elements, etc. to "active". It also generates the objects that are necessary to enable the consolidation functions to process the new characteristics.
You can activate several characteristics in one step by choosing characteristic maintenance of all characteristics in the initial screen, selecting and activating the inactive characteristics.
8. After activating the characteristic, you are asked whether to generate the view modules. Confirm the generation.
If you exit Characteristic Maintenance and want to ensure that all view modules were generated correctly, choose Environment -> View maintenance modules -> Reorganize.
9. Assign the new characteristics to field groups, if applicable.
Field groups are groupings of characteristics. These let you structure the fields in the field catalog. Individual fields may belong to multiple field groups.
Further notes
Choose Extras -> Log display to display the logs for the activities Save, Activate and Delete.
Edited by: Dan Sullivan on Oct 6, 2011 9:38 AM

Consolidating catalogs

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