How to Manage Non Managed fields of MDG in the Replication process

**Hello Community.

I wanted to share my thoughts on managing the Non Managed fields of Source .**

Managing non-managed fields (often custom fields or fields not governed by MDG) during the MDG replication process using IDocs requires enhancement of the standard Data Replication Framework (DRF) configuration and IDoc structures.

Key Steps for Replication of Non-Managed Fields
Since MDG primarily manages data fields in its data model, fields that are not managed by the MDG Change Request process but still exist in the underlying tables (like a custom field added to MARA or LFA1 in a reuse area scenario) need explicit handling during replication.

That is a very common and critical issue in a Decentralized Management scenario where a field is managed in the MDG Hub but locally managed in one or more client systems. Your analysis is correct: the default IDoc behavior will often overwrite the target system's local value with the blank value sent from MDG.

Use case :

In this case due to the business reasons if the Non managed fields are managed directly in Target system.

Ex: If one field in General data is not managed in MDG and being managed directly in Target system
Each time when the replication happens the data will be erased .

Ex : If the vendor 1000 has general data with field Zone ABCD.
Each time when the replication happens from MDG the value will be overwritten with Blank.

As in the IDOC we send Blank value .

Solution :

On the MDG Hub (Outbound)
You need to tell the Data Replication Framework (DRF) to send the no-data indicator (/) instead of a blank space ( ) for the unmanaged field.
• Implement a BAdI: You will need to implement a Business Add-In (BAdI) within the DRF outbound processing (e.g., BADI_DRF_REPLICATION).
• Custom Logic: Within your custom code, check the field value as it is prepared for the IDoc segment. Since the field is not managed in MDG, the value coming from the MDG active area for that field will be blank.
o IF the field in the IDoc structure is blank (IF - IS INITIAL),
o THEN populate that field with the no-data indicator: - = '/'.

1. On the Target System (Inbound) The standard SAP ALE Inbound Processing function modules (like IDOC_INPUT_MATMAS for Material, or IDOC_INPUT_CREMAS for Vendor/BP) are designed to recognize the / as a signal to keep the existing value in the database. • When the inbound process sees a blank value in the IDoc field, it interprets it as an instruction to update the master data field to blank. • When the inbound process sees a forward slash (/) in the IDoc field, it interprets it as an instruction to ignore the field and leave the existing value in the target master data record (e.g., the Zone ABCD value).