SAP: COPA: Defining new characteristics

You can also manually define new characteristics that you only want to use in Profitability Analysis. Since these characteristics have no table of origin, their values are not automatically derived from other characteristics. You therefore need to define derivation steps for them. The name of new characteristics must begin with "WW" and consist of 4 or 5 characters. Depending on the desired attributes, you must choose one of the following variants:

With own value maintenance - In most cases, you will define new characteristics with their own value maintenance. In this case, the system creates a check table and text table. In the Customizing activity Maintain characteristic values , you can then enter characteristic values and texts for these. Only those values maintained here are permitted values for that characteristic.

Without value maintenance - This option lets you define characteristics with no check table. This means that there is no set of allowed characteristic values and texts. Consequently, no validity check takes place for values of these characteristics. These characteristics cannot be used as receiver characteristics for period-based allocations.

With reference to existing values - This type of characteristic is only required in special cases. Here you assign the characteristic to a data element that already exists in the system. The characteristic takes on the attributes of that data element (texts, length, check table, text table).

source: help.sap