Integration with Other Applications > Introduction to Windchill ESI > Integrating Windchill ESI with SAP > Supported Business Processes > Part Numbers Over 18 Characters
  
Part Numbers Over 18 Characters
There is a difference in the allowed database character length for the part number attribute in Windchill PDMLink and the material number attribute in SAP to which it is mapped. The Windchill PDMLink part number field limit is 32 characters, whereas the SAP material number field limit is 18 characters. If parts from Windchill PDMLink have part numbers that are greater than 18 characters, an error appears and the middleware processing ends.
To prevent this from happening, you can do one of the following:
Ask your administrator to add validation to the Windchill GUI to prevent part numbers that are over 18 characters. For more information on how to limit attribute lengths in Windchill PDMLink, refer to the section Customizing Column Lengths in the Windchill Customization Guide.
Ask your administrator to modify SAP to allow material masters to be created with material numbers up to 40 characters.
Modify the EAI software components to truncate part numbers to meet the required SAP field length.