Comparison Terms and SPL Check Logic Applies to: SAP Business Objects Global Trade Services 7.2 and above. For more information, visit the Governance, Risk, and Compliance homepage. Summary This document highlights the importance of comparison terms and how it helps in Sanctioned party0. list (SPL) screening process. It also discusses about the scope of SPL check. As an example, this document covers a step by step procedure to maintain comparison terms which serves as the foundation for screening business partner addresses. With each new version, SAP GTS is enhancing its features and system intelligence to screen SPL more accurately and effectively. Document briefly covers these newly added features and search algorithm. Author: Vivek Nair Company: Intelligroup Inc. Created on: 10 December 2009 Author Bio Vivek Nair is a SCM Business consultant with Intelligroup Asia Pvt. Ltd.. He has around 3 years of work experience in SAP and related modules. He has expertise in GTS, SNC, and MM modules of SAP. 2009 SAP AG 1
Table of Contents Address Comparison Terms as Foundation for SPL Screening... 3 Control procedure for address/text string comparisons... 3 Detailed control comparison parameters... 3 Assignment of address fields to the detailed control comparison parameters... 3 Scope of SPL Check with Comparison Terms... 3 Origin of Search Term... 3 Linking Operator... 3 Relational Operator... 3 Minimal Similarity... 3 Multiple Matches for Origin... 4 Example... 4 Pre-requisites for Setting Up Comparison Terms... 5 Step by step Procedure to Define Address Comparison and Detailed Control... 6 Comparison Terms - Master Data... 9 Steps 9 What s new?... 10 Related Content... 10 Disclaimer and Liability Notice... 11 2009 SAP AG 2
Address Comparison Terms as Foundation for SPL Screening A control procedure is defined to determine the logic according to which the system performs sanctioned party list (SPL) checks. These settings are necessary for the system to perform comparison checks between addresses or text strings in business partner addresses or document partner addresses with the one in SPL list. To enable the system to perform these comparison checks, you must define the following rules: Control Procedure for Address/Text String Comparisons The Control procedure for address/text string comparisons determines the Language in which the addresses are to be compared, Linguistic and phonetic rules used for generating the relevant comparison index, Address elements that are to be compared and the Address elements (if any) that trigger an SPL check Detailed Control Comparison Parameters Detailed control enables to specify the logic by which system will perform SPL check. For e.g.: which address elements are valid in an SPL check and which have to correspond to specific circumstances. Accordingly define a linking and relational operator to specify this. There are other comparison parameters as well to make sure that we get more precise hit in SPL screening. Assignment of Address Fields to the Detailed Control Comparison Parameters We can assign address fields like country, city, street, name etc. to the detailed control configured and can specify that the system performs the SPL check when changes are made in these specific fields in a business partner or document partner address. Scope of SPL Check with Comparison Terms Before you run sanctioned party list (SPL) screening, which is the check you perform for business partner addresses against the names and addresses, defined in the SPL master data records, you have to convert the various partner addresses and SPL addresses into a comparison index. In this process, you define comparison terms - based on the address data - that serve as the foundation for screening business partner addresses. When the system performs the actual SPL screening, it divides the SPL master data and business partner data into search terms. The system only performs a comparison check of the search terms generated, which significantly reduces the runtime of SPL screening. Once these search terms are generated, we can define the basis of comparison of these search terms with the help of detail control settings. The control settings for comparison terms are as follows: Origin of Search Term This indicator is used to define whether the SPL address or the business partner address is the leading value during the check of original terms. I.e. the preferred address would be compared with the other one. Linking Operator Link operators are used to control in which combination of parts of two addresses that are to be compared there should be a match to be able to evaluate the address as negative. The AND operator defines that a part of an address must match in the SPL check and the OR operator defines that at least one of the parts of the address that were activated with the OR operator must match in the SPL check. Relational Operator The relational operator lets you control whether the search terms in a partner address are joined or considered to be separate terms in sanctioned party list screening. Minimal Similarity This indicator controls to what extent the original term from the address and the original search term from the comparison index have to match each ther as a minimum so that the system recognizes the match as a hit. 2009 SAP AG 3
Multiple Matches for Origin If the system finds multiple identical matches within an originating feature and this indicator is set, the system allows these identical matches; that is, it uses them to determine the percentage match. Example Let us illustrate these controls with the help of an example: Suppose, Name of SPL Address is Al Musaid and the Name of partner address is Al Musad Origin of search term is set as Basis for Comparison Exclusively from SPL Linking Operator is set as AND Relational Operator is set as Comparison index and terms from address are identical Minimal similarity is 90% And multiple matches indicator is not set Now, As the search term origin is set as Basis for Comparison Exclusively from SPL the system would consider SPL address as leading address and AL Musaid will be compared against AL Musad. Because of Linking Operator AND a part of the address must match with the partner address string, which is matching. As we chose "Comparison index and term from address are identical", the two search terms AL and Musaid are considered to be separate search terms in sanctioned party list screening. Field Minimal Similarity - Search Term is set to 90% as above. Now, considering all above cases, the system would calculate a match rate of 87.5 % in this case as 7of 8 letters match. Hence, No hits will be returned for SPL Check as the defined 90% is not met. Similarly, we can change the % of accuracy to tighten or loosen the check. 2009 SAP AG 4
Pre-requisites for Setting Up Comparison Terms 1. Defined Legal regulation is activated and relevant partner roles assigned. 2. SPL screenings settings done for change in business partner address IMG path: SAP Compliance Management "Sanctioned Party List Screening" Service Activate Business Partner at Business Partner Function Level. 3. SPL screenings settings done for change in document partner address IMG path: SAP Global Trade Services SAP Compliance Management General Settings Document Structure Activate Item Categories. Double-click a line in the list to select it. In the screen that follows, chose the time of the SPL check. SPL screening time controls the check pattern in case of change in address strings. While in synchronous it screens the partner or document in runtime, in asynchronous, it initially assigns a Not Checked-Blocked Status and later based on the screening result updates the status. 2009 SAP AG 5
Step-by-Step Procedure to Define Address Comparison and Detailed Control As an example, the steps below describe limited configuration steps related to setting up Control Procedure for Address Comparison. For a more comprehensive list, please refer to the SAP GTS configuration guides. 1. Enter a comparison procedure and a description IMG path: SAP Global Trade Services SAP Compliance Management "Sanctioned Party List Screening" Service Define Control Procedure for Address Comparison. 2. Select the language using the input help in which the system should compare the business partner or document partner address with the SPL master data address. 3. Select one of the following search term origins: Basis for Comparison Is String from Partner Address Basis for Comparison Is String from Comparison Index Basis for Comparison Is String from Comparison Index and Address This indicator is used to define whether the SPL address or the business partner address is the leading value during the check of original terms. We can also set the conditional elimination of duplicate characters. 4. Decide whether to set the indicator Phonetic Search Option or not. Here we define the conditions for text replacement with input help. For example, you want particular letters or combinations of letters to be replaced under the following conditions, depending on which characters precede or come after them. 2009 SAP AG 6
5. Activate TREX This indicator activates SAP TREX for sanctioned party list screening. 6. Create detailed rule sets for address and text string comparisons. Select the search term origin from the dropdown box. 7. If you want the system to check a specific object in the address during the SPL check, set the Check Object indicator. This indicator is set to define whether the SPL address or the business partner address is the considered value during the check of original terms. For example if search term origin is set as Basis for Comparison Exclusively from SPL than the Keyword generated for address strings like name, country, city etc. will be checked against the SPL. 8. Select one of these rules for the linking operator: Logical OR (at least one or operation satisfied): OR operator is used to define that at least one of the parts of the address that were activated with the OR operator must match in the SPL check. Logical AND: AND operator is used to define that a part of an address must match in the SPL check. 9. Select one of these rules for the relational operator: The relational operator lets you control whether the search terms in a partner address are joined or considered to be separate terms in sanctioned party list screening. 2009 SAP AG 7
10. Enter the minimal similarity in percentage that you want the system to permit in an SPL check for both the search term and the original form. 11. Select the detailed control procedure you created form the table and assign address fields to the rule set using the input help. By assigning address fields you can specify that the system performs the SPL check when changes are made in specific fields in a business partner or document partner address. 2009 SAP AG 8
Comparison Terms - Master Data Now that all the detailed settings are being configured, there is one last task to be performed before running the Sanctioned party List Screening and i.e. to generate the comparison strings or terms. This is important because we have to convert the various partner addresses and SPL addresses into comparison indexes. Comparison checks are performed on these search terms generated, which significantly reduces the runtime of SPL screening. Steps The following steps are needed to be performed in SAP Compliance Management>Sanctioned Party List Screening>Mast. Data tab: Generate comparison terms Evaluate comparison terms Aggregate comparison terms Transferring Comparison Terms to SAP TREX We need to generate and aggregate comparison terms. Evaluate comparison terms is optional. Generate comparison terms System will pick all selected address elements based on the linguistic and phonetic rules that we have defined in the general settings. Based on these comparison terms system performs the SPL screening. Aggregate comparison terms In this process, system will then aggregate the results from generation of the comparison terms. Transferring Comparison Terms to SAP TREX Once we generate and aggregate comparison terms, we can use these for comparisons between sanctioned party list (SPL) entries and address components. We need to transfer these comparison terms to TREX search mechanisms. In addition to the standard search mechanisms in sanctioned party list screening, we can use TREX for comparing addresses in sanctioned party list screening. 2009 SAP AG 9
What s new? Overview of what features are new and changed in recent releases More precise number of hits in the screening results with TREX. SAP TREX search engine is a central search tool. In addition to the standard search mechanisms in sanctioned party list screening, we can use this central search engine in SAP Netweaver for comparing addresses in sanctioned party list screening. Audit trail functionality helps in providing vital information regarding screening of business partners and documents for external auditors. We can also have Audit trail for simulated SPL screening. We can maintain a catalog for reasons for release of documents and business partners. This will make it mandatory for selecting a reason from the catalog before manually releasing business partner or documents. Enhanced Monitoring functions in sanctioned party list screening contain more detailed information. For example, the reasons for blocking partners or documents. They also show existing comments from previous SPL screenings. Apart from this, there is a clear visual difference between documents and partners that were blocked by the current run and those that were blocked in past runs, which makes it easier to verify and check the newly blocked entries. We can also configure a notification function which informs the responsible employee directly when a business partner or document is blocked. We can even screen the job applicants by integrating the personnel management systems with SAP GTS and screen them against the SPL list. We can configure the system to consider partner address validity during SPL screening. Since a given business partner can have different addresses with different validity periods in their master data, you can ignore addresses that are not valid at screening time. With an improved search algorithm we can now consider initials in names or titles of a search term for a master record. This would help in achieving more precise hits. For more information on new features check SAP release notes: http://service.sap.com/releasenotes Related Content http://help.sap.com/saphelp_gts72/helpdata/en/b1/8dc5c62c885046ab71fdcddc6ad2c2/frameset.htm http://help.sap.com/content/bobj/sbu/docu_sbs_grcgts_design.htm 2009 SAP AG 10
Disclaimer and Liability Notice This document may discuss sample coding or other information that does not include SAP official interfaces and therefore is not supported by SAP. Changes made based on this information are not supported and can be overwritten during an upgrade. SAP will not be held liable for any damages caused by using or misusing the information, code or methods suggested in this document, and anyone using these methods does so at his/her own risk. SAP offers no guarantees and assumes no responsibility or liability of any type with respect to the content of this technical article or code sample, including any liability resulting from incompatibility between the content within this document and the materials and services offered by SAP. You agree that you will not hold, or seek to hold, SAP responsible or liable with respect to the content of this document. 2009 SAP AG 11