Materials and Customers Synchronization

Sana Commerce Cloud is the ERP-integrated e-commerce solution. Thus, it uses a single source of data - your ERP system. All products, customers, and orders are stored and managed in SAP S/4HANA.

Sana Commerce Cloud uses scheduled tasks to synchronize data with SAP S/4HANA and to apply any changes made in SAP S/4HANA to your webstore.

  • The Product import task retrieves all materials from SAP S/4HANA to build the catalog for your webstore. It also updates material data shown in the webstore if something has been changed in SAP S/4HANA.

  • The Customer import task retrieves all customers, contacts, and sales agents from SAP S/4HANA. Those customers and sales agents who have shop accounts can purchase online using the Sana webstore. It also updates customer, contact, and sales agent data used in the webstore if something has been changed in SAP S/4HANA.

When you change material, customer, contact, or sales agent data in SAP S/4HANA, the value of the Last Date/Time Modified field will be updated with the current date and time. Based on this, when you run the Product import or Customer import task, Sana will check whether some material or customer data has been changed since the last indexing, then it will update the index and apply the changes to the webstore.

The Catalog Overview app displays the last modified date for materials, while the Customer Overview app shows when customer data was last updated.

When to Update vs. Rebuild the Index

Use update index for standard SAP master data changes. Use rebuild index for setup changes that affect the full indexed scope, such as webstore filters, validation rules, product category additions, default currency changes, company assignments, upgrades, BOM component changes, and material listing/exclusion changes. For SAP S/4HANA customer assortments, update index is sufficient, as creating, modifying, or deleting an assortment rule automatically refreshes the last modified date of all affected items.

The customers, contacts, and sales agents imported by Sana are determined by customer account groups and partner functions in the Webstore Configuration app. Additionally, the SAP S/4HANA connector filters contacts to include only those linked to webstore-relevant customers. These configurations define the import scope and should be treated as rebuild-style synchronization scenarios rather than regular master data updates.

The list below presents all Sana related data in SAP S/4HANA influenced by the Last Date/Time Modified field.

Products

When you manage the following catalog data in SAP S/4HANA, the value of the Last Date/Time Modified field is updated, and the Product import task should be used to synchronize the changes:

  • Material data used by the webstore, including general material changes that affect the indexed product record.

  • Material visibility in the webstore, including making a material visible or invisible in the Catalog Overview app.

  • Material visibility by date, controlled in the Catalog Overview app.

  • Customer assortment rules that add, edit, or delete visibility rules for materials or product hierarchies. When a rule is changed, SAP S/4HANA automatically updates the last modified date of all affected items.

Customers

When you manage the following customer data in SAP S/4HANA, the value of the Last Date/Time Modified field is updated, and the Customer import task should be used to synchronize the changes:

  • Create, edit, or delete a customer record.

  • Change customer master data, such as name or address.

  • Make changes in the Customer Overview app, such as enabling or disabling the Price Including Tax or B2C Customer, or other configuration settings.

Contacts

  • Create, edit, or delete a contact.

Sales Agents

  • Create, edit, or delete a sales agent.