Answer:
If you want to change the Valid-from date for equipment in retrospect, start report by choosing System -> Services -> Reporting (tcode SA38 /SE38)
Program:
/SAPCEM/CHANGE_EQUI_DATE
What is the significance of 'Valid To' date in equipment master and the difference between the date of deactivation and valid to date?
Answer:
The "valid to" date is (as the word signifies) the date of validity, the equipment will exist in the system, i.e., you can process upon (create orders/notifications etc.) it without any problem. Normally we give this date as something very far in the future. (say 9999 years).
Deactivation means that you have temporarily deactivated
this equipment. May be your equipment has gone outside for repair and you
don't have any suitable status to define that, then you can deactivate
it temporarily so that accidental processing upon equipment by other users
can be prevented.
Can the Expiration Date on the Equipment master data be changed once the Equipment is created?
How is the expiration date of xx/xx/xxxx determined by the system because we don't enter this date when the master data is created?
Answer:
There is not any functionality to change this.
The valid-to date on the equipment’s current (active) time segment should always be 31-12-9999. I cannot think of any way that it would not. Maybe it’s the valid-from date that is now bothering your user ?
Only way of adjusting these dates is to adjust the EQUZ records for this equipment. Possibly change the equipment data back to as it was. Look at the EQUZ records, adjust valid-from date on the current active one (with date 31-12-9999). Delete the earlier EQUZ records. Your equipment then shows a 'original' valid-from date. Action log and change log will still show the data changes but equipment usage history will be gone.
It is really easy to make a mess by manually changing this data so NOT recommended.
Alternative might be to archive the Equipment
Master record and recreate again with same name.
Whatever you decide to do, you need to test on a non-productive system?
Notes:
Normally, equipment is not having the expiry date as in case of chemical, pharmaceutical industrial materials. It is defined in terms of performance for its life span. So the functionality of Performance and its cycle is there in the system.
If you use the material number and serial number, at certain performance, you want to declare that equipment is discarded/not usable (expiry), then you can do it by means of dismantling it through IE4N and then with quality views extend to this material you can create inspection lot and then scrap by proper movement as per your business need and logic with proper history and usage decision in the inspection lot.
Finally, mark the deletion flag to the equipment which you presume that discarded abounded not useful in future (expired) not require further any transactions in the system.
A work around for your case may be there if you are not using warranty/guarantee period fields in your system. So by using these fields you can presume that the equipment is having this expiry date. (Instead of warrant). This is not standard practice but I am suggesting some workarounds.
