How often have your clients complained to you about long-running reports? What hurts your clients is not the long duration of the report execution, its mainly the lack of information about the progress of execution. If only they have this information, they could utilize their waiting time effectively.

Exactly in these situations, you can make use of Function Module SAPGUI_PROGRESS_INDICATOR to display a progress indicator in status bar of your long-running reports.

Progress Indicator in ABAP

This is how you can make use of function module SAPGUI_PROGRESS_INDICATOR:

Interface of SAPGUI_PROGRESS_INDICATOR:

FUNCTION SAPGUI_PROGRESS_INDICATOR.

*”———————————————————————-

*”*”Lokale Schnittstelle:

*”       IMPORTING

*”             VALUE(PERCENTAGE) DEFAULT 0

*”             VALUE(TEXT) DEFAULT SPACE

*”———————————————————————-

Function Module SAPGUI_PROGRESS_INDICATOR takes only two parameters as input.

• Percentage : Used to form the shaded area of the graphics part of progress indicator.
• Text : Used to form the text part of progress indicator.

Example:

Suppose, you have the following situation where certain processing is happening within a loop on set of items.

LOOP AT lt_items INTO ls_item.

………………….

<Processing…………>

………………….

ENDLOOP.

You can introduce the feature of progress indicator in this situation to display the progress of processing by modifying the code as below:

DATA:

lv_num_of_items TYPE i,

lv_percentage  TYPE i,

lv_progress_text TYPE string.

DESCRIBE TABLE lt_items LINES lv_num_of_items.

LOOP AT lt_items INTO ls_item.

lv_percentage = ( sy-tabix * 100 ) / lv_num_of_items.

lv_progress_text = lv_percentage.

CONCATENATE lv_progress_text ‘% processing completed!!!’ INTO lv_progress_text.

CONDENSE lv_progress_text.

CALL FUNCTION ‘SAPGUI_PROGRESS_INDICATOR’

EXPORTING

percentage = lv_percentage

text                = lv_progress_text.

………………….

<Processing…………>

………………….

ENDLOOP.

This is all you need to do for implementing this very helpful feature. Isn’t it simple!!!!

By default, when you use function module REUSE_ALV_GRID_DISPLAY to display an ALV, it doesn’t come with a Row-Selector. This is fine until you face the need of performing certain task on user-selected rows. Then the user would ask for a Row-Selector. In this post, we would see how can we add this Row-Selector i.e. ‘Row Selection Button’ in an ALV displayed using REUSE_ALV_GRID_DISPLAY and also how to process the selected rows.

First, we would see how to add the Row-Selector / Row selection button to ALV.

Step 1: Add a new character field of length 1 in your output internal table, say ‘SEL’. This field is used by ALV to store the information if a particular row is selected or not selected.

Suppose, earlier, you were using internal table lt_outtab for your ALV display. So, now, you would need a new output table lt_outtab_new with the above mentioned field. This is how you would do it.

DATA:

lt_outtab TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF xyz,

ls_outtab TYPE xyz.

TYPES:

BEGIN OF str_xyz,

sel  TYPE c.

INCLUDE STRUCTURE xyz.

TYPES: END OF str_xyz.

DATA:

lt_outtab_new TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF str_xyz,

ls_outtab_new TYPE str_xyz.

………………………………………………

………………………………………………

* Moving your output data from old output table to new output table.

LOOP AT lt_outtab INTO ls_outtab.

MOVE-CORRESPONDING ls_outtab TO ls_outtab_new.

APPEND ls_outtab_new TO lt_outtab_new.

ENDLOOP.

Step 2: Inform the ALV frameowrk about the name of the newly added field in your output internal table, which ALV should use for storing the information about whether a row is selected or not. You can pass this information to ALV framework by setting attribure BOX_FIELDNAME of the ALV Layout.

DATA: ls_layout TYPE slis_layout_alv.

ls_layout-box_fieldname = ‘SEL’.

Step 3: Use REUSE_ALV_GRID_DISPLAY to display your ALV with the new output internal table and updated ALV layout.

CALL FUNCTION ‘REUSE_ALV_GRID_DISPLAY’

EXPORTING

i_callback_program = sy-repid

i_callback_user_command = ‘USER_COMMAND’

is_layout = ls_layout

………………………………….

………………………………….

TABLES

t_outtab = lt_outtab_new.

This is all you need to do in order to get the Row-Selector displayed.

Next, you need to perform tasks on the selected rows. How to handle this?

You can process the selected rows in the callback user command subroutine (in our example, USER_COMMAND) in the callback program (in our example, sy-repid) which you pass to FM REUSE_ALV_GRID_DISPLAY through parameters i_callback_user_command & i_callback_program.

All the rows which have been selected by user will have the newly added box-field (in our example, SEL) marked as ‘X’.

You can then have the a logic to perform various tasks on the selected rows based on your needs.

FORM user_command

USING

r_ucomm LIKE sy-ucomm

rs_selfield TYPE slis_selfield.

LOOP AT lt_outtab_new INTO ls_outtab_new WHERE sel = ‘X’.

…………………………………………….

…………………………………………….

ENDLOOP.

ENDFORM.

This is how you add a Row-Selector to your ALV and handle the selected rows in your user command callback.

One of the ways of enhancing SAP standard transparent tables & structures is through Append Structure. In this post, we will plunge into the concept and usage of Append Structure.

Append Structure is used to add new customer fields to SAP Standard tables and structures without undergoing a modification. Other than its creation process and some special properties, it can be treated exactly similar to normal include structures in programs.

So, lets dive to see how does Append Structure technique works?

How does SAP creates an Enhancement Provision?

SAP Application Developers make an enhancement provision in standard transparent table or structure by setting Enhancement Category attribute in the table/structure. Using the value of ‘Enhancement Category’ attribute, SAP controls the extent to which a table / structure is allowed to be enhanced.

Attribute ‘Enhancement Category’ can take one of the following values:

• Can be enhanced (deep) – Fields of any data type (includes tabletypes, object references and strings) can be added to the table/ structure.
• Can be enhanced (character-type or numeric) – Fields of any data type except tabletypes, object references and strings can be added to the table/ structure.
• Can be enhanced (character-type) - Only character type fields (data type C, N, D, or T) can be added to tables / structures.
• Cannot be enhanced – Customers are not allowed to add any fields.

Enhancement category of a table/structure can be accessed by following the below mentioned steps:

1. Go to transaction SE11 & display the specific table / structure.
2. Navigate in the menu bar to ‘Extras -> Enhancement Category’ to find assigned enhancement category.

How does Customer creates an Append Structure to add new fields?

Customers create Append Structures to add their fields in the following manner:

1. Go to transaction SE11 and display the table / structure to be enhanced.
2. Press the button ‘Append Structure’ in the application toolbar.
3. Enter the name of the ‘Append Structure’.
4. Add the customer fields.
5. Save & activate the append structure and go back to original table / structure to find the newly added fields.

What Naming Convention is used in Append Structures?

Append Structures & their fields are named in customer namespace in order to avoid conflicts e.g. SAP adding new fields with the same name in future releases, during SAP upgrades.

Append Structures follow the naming pattern as Z* or Y*. (Note: Underscores ‘_’ are not allowed in the name at 2^nd & 3^rd character.)

Fields of append structures follow the naming pattern as ZZ* or YY*.

Some Prerequisites:

• The table to be enhanced should not be a pool or cluster table.
• The enhancement category of the table / structure should allow adding customer fields i.e. Enhancement category should not be set to ‘Cannot be enhanced’. Moreover, even if the enhancements are allowed, the newly added customer fields should be in accordance with the enhancement category of table / structure.
• In case of tables, it’s not allowed to create append structure if the table contains long fields (i.e. fields with data type VARC, LCHR, LRAW). However, it’s allowed in case of structures.

Salient Features:

• Append structures appear in original table / structure with .APPEND key word.
• An append structure can be used exactly for one table or structure. However, it’s possible to add more than one append structures to one table or structure.
• When an append structure is changed and activated, the original table / structure also gets activated automatically.
• The append structure can be used in programs exactly similar to the way fields of a normal structure is used.
• When a table / structure containing append structure is copied, the target table / structure contains the fields in append structures as normal fields.

Hello Friends!!! You would have already noticed, that we have decided to continue our efforts in sharing SAP knowledge from our new Website http://www.saptraininghouse.com.

I am highly honored to have you as one of my readers.

At SAP Training House, we have started a new course which aims to cover the everything about ‘Changing SAP Standard‘. For your ease of access, I am creating this post which will act as the cockpit for all articles published under this course (i.e. Changing SAP Standard )at SAP Training House.

Course Cockpit:

• Ways of Adjusting SAP Standard
• Overview of Enhancements in SAP
• Enhancing Data Elements Using CMOD
• Enhancing Tables / Structures using Append Structure
• Enhancing Tables / Structures using Customizing Includes / Customer Includes

About IDoc

If you are dealing with transfer of data between SAP or non-SAP systems, you would have certainly come across the term IDoc. In this post, lets get an overview about IDoc.

• IDoc stands for Intermediate Documents. It’s a data container used to exchange data between two software processes. It’s created by an outbound ALE (Application link enabling)/EDI (Electronic data interchange) process and acts as input to an inbound ALE/EDI process.
• Data in IDoc are stored on database in different database tables instead of flat files.
• Every IDoc has a unique number.
• IDocs are independent of sending and receiving systems.
• IDocs are based on EDI standards, but is closest to EDIFACT standard.
• Different outbound and inbound processes can use the same IDoc e.g. IDoc type ORDERS01 is used by MM module for purchase order as well as by SD module for accepting sales order.
• IDocs contain data in character format (no binary data) i.e. can be viewed in simple text viewer.

IDoc Definition Components

Basic IDoc Type

• Name:

Before release 4.0           – 8 characters

Since release 4.0              – 30 characters

Last 2 characters represent the version number. After a basic IDoc type is released and you move to a newer version of SAP, any change to basic IDoc type would create a new version of basic IDoc type e.g. ORDERS01, ORDERS02, ORDERS03 etc.

• List of permitted segments
• Hierarchy of permitted segments – Parent child relationship
• Mandatory vs. Optional segments – Which segment is mandatory and which one is optional?
• Minimum/maximum range for each segment – What is the minimum and maximum number of data records corresponding to a particular segment in an IDoc?

Segments

Segments define the structure and format of data records. These are reusable components i.e. could be used in more than one IDoc types.

Three parts:

• Segment type : Version independent name of a segment. Begin with E1/Z1.
• Segment definition :

Version dependent definition of a segment where the data fields are specified. Can not be more than 1000 characters.

Segment definition name : Upto 30 characters. Start with E2/Z2 and last 3 characters for version. E.g. Z2TEST, Z2TEST001, Z2TEST002 etc.

• Segment Documentation : Each segment has only one documentation with name starting from E3/Z3. It contains description about each field.

Data Fields

It represents a single data item in a segment. Can be only alphanumeric e.g. CHAR, CLNT, CUKY, DATS, LANG, and NUMC.

IDoc Runtime Components

An IDoc is a instance of IDoc type. At runtime, the IDoc contains several records which can be classified into following broad categories:

• Control record
• Data record
• Status record

IDoc number is the element which ties the control record, data records and status records together.

Control record

Control record contains the control information about an IDoc e.g. IDoc number, sender & receiver information, IDoc type etc.

There’s only one control record per IDoc.

• DDIC structure :

Before release 4.0           -              EDI_DC

Since release 4.0              -              EDI_DC40

• Transparent table : Stored in client dependent table EDIDC. Key field of this table is IDoc number.

Data record

Data records contain application data.

• Each data record has 2 parts:

Administrative section : Segment name, Client, IDoc number, segment number and hierarchy level information.

Data section : 1000 bytes of application data.

• DDIC structure :

Before release 4.0           -              EDI_DD

Since release 4.0              –              EDI_DD40

• Transparent table : Stored in client dependent table with key field as IDoc number, Counter in cluster table and Segment number.

Before release 4.0           -              EDID2

Since release 4.0              –              EDID4

Status record

During the lifecycle of IDocs, various status records are attached to an IDoc.

Multiple status records could be attached to an IDoc.

Latest status code is also maintained in the control record.

• Status codes:

For outbound process :  01           -              49

For inbound process    :  50           and above.

• Transparent table:           Stored in table EDIDS.

List of status codes can be viewed using transaction WE47.

Hope that the above content brings you to talking terms about IDoc. In my future posts, I would throw more light on working with IDocs. Until then, GoodBye.

 1. What is a User Exit?

• User exits allow you to add additional functions to the SAP standard.
• Programs with user exits contain Subroutine (Form Routines) calls at certain points in their syntax that are identified by the prefix USEREXIT.
• The actual User Exits Form Routines are located in an Include Program that has been assigned to a Module Pool Program.. The following diagram explains this:

• In the User Exits Form Routines customers can include any changes (enhancements) that they want to make to the system. These includes are always processed during program flow
• So the SAP developer creates a special include in a module pool. These includes contain one or more subroutines routines that satisfy the naming convention USEREXIT_<name>. The calls for these subroutines have already been implemented in the R/3 program.
• A user exit is considered a modification, since technically objects in the SAP namespace are being modified.
• After delivering them, SAP never alters includes created in this manner; if new user exits must be delivered in a new release, they are placed in a new include program.

2. In which SAP component User Exits are primarily used?

User exits are primarily used in the Sales and Distribution component.

3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of User Exit?

Advantage: In principle, customers can modify anything they want that is found in the include (tables, structures, and so forth).

Disadvantage: SAP cannot check the individual enhancements themselves which often leads to errors in the enhancement process.

4. How can we find overview of User Exits as well as a description of those user exits that exist in SD?

We can find overview of User Exits as well as a description of those user exits that exist in SD in the SAP Reference IMG under Sales and Distribution -> System Modification -> User exits.

Steps:

• Go to transaction : SPRO
• Go to Sales and Distribution -> System Modification -> User exits

5. How do you find User Exit in any transaction say VA01 – Create Sales Order?

Step 1: Find the Module Pool Program

Go to the transaction – VA01 – Create Sales Order.

Then Go to SYSTEM in the Menu bar and then to STATUS from where we can find the ‘Program (screen)’.

Step 2: Find the Includes Program that contains User-Exits

Double click that ‘Program (screen)’. Generally user-exits are always at the start of the standard SAP program

Step 3: Find the User Exit Subroutines

Double click on any of these Includes that contains User-Exits. You can see various subroutines with prefix USEREXIT.

Customers can insert their standard code inside these form routines.

Customers can create their own form routines but should begin with ‘ZZ’.

A more faster way to search is to search the string ‘PERFORM USEREXIT’ inside the program.

Hi Friends… In this post, we will begin discussion on Unit I – SAP Solutions of ABAP Workbench Fundamentals (TAW10_1). This unit is just a preface to newbies in SAP to give them a brief idea about the offerings of SAP to the customers. Though important, its not the most important topic to focus from ABAP certification point of view. But its always good to know about the context where you are going to work.

SAP offers a wide variety of enterprise solutions catering to different business areas for large, mid-size and small enterprises.

SAP Solutions can be broadly classified into following elements:

SAP Netweaver

SAP NetWeaver is the technological infrastructure for all SAP solutions. All other SAP solutions are built upon it. ABAP workbench and runtime are also part of this element. This can very well independently be used to develop customer applications also. This element will be dealt more in my next post.

SAP Business Suite

SAP Business Suite bundles all cross-industry, SAP NetWeaver-based SAP solutions. For example, SAP ERP (consisting of Material management – MM, Production planning – PP, Sales & distribution – SD, Financial accounting and Controlling – FICO, Financial supply chain management – FSCM, Human capital management – HCM, Human resource management – HR etc.), SAP CRM, SAP SRM, SAP SCM etc.

SAP Smart Business Solutions

SAP Smart Business Solutions are the solutions provided by SAP to small and mid-size customers which reuse certain functionalities from the SAP Business Suite solutions. However, SAP haven’t got enough success in this market segment yet.

SAP Solutions Portfolio

SAP xApps (SAP Collaborative Cross Applications)

SAP xApps (Collaborative Cross Applications) allow you to integrate existing applications with each other by accessing existing datasets and functions using open interfaces. This means that you can implement new applications based on an existing infrastructure.

Industry Solutions

Each industry segment works in different manner. In order to cater the needs of different industry segments, along with SAP Business Suite containing cross-industry solutions, SAP provides various industry add-ons. These add-ons are called industry solutions.

Thanks for visiting How2SAP.com!! We have decided to carry on our work from our new website SAPTrainingHouse.COM. Please visit our SAP ABAP Certification Course here.

Hello Friends!!!! Welcome to the SAP ABAP Certification Online Training & Tutorial series presented by How2SAP.com. Some of you would be wondering, what has inspired me to start this series of posts. You would be thinking, why am I starting this series, when there are already well defined ABAP certification course materials provided by SAP.

The reason lies behind my own experiences during preparing for SAP ABAP certification examination. Any book or study material is successful only if it perfectly knows its readers, their level of knowledge in the area being dealt. Though, ABAP certification materials provided by SAP is very comprehensive and exhaustive, it just seems to be a huge bulk of information put in front of you. When you start reading it, very often you would find repetitive information at some places and on the other hand, not even doing justice to many important topics. Above all this, the study material consists more than 2500 pages, good enough to test a normal human being’s patience.

Having said this all, I would also like to remind you that these study materials provided by SAP still hold good when it comes to gaining detailed knowledge at times. They can become a really good supplement if you have a teacher to explain the concepts to you. In the series of posts to follow, I have tried exactly to fill this role. I have tried to explain the gist of each topic both in writing and in form of video. After going through each of these posts and understanding them, you can refer the corresponding section in SAP ABAP certification study material and make your understanding air-tight.

In this series of posts, I plan to cover each topic consisting ABAP certification syllabus in almost the same sequence in which they appear in SAP ABAP certification material. This would help you to refer the corresponding section in SAP ABAP certification material easily. In these posts, I would try to keep myself as precise and sufficient in imparting the information about each topic, as possible.

Without wasting any more time of yours, I would list below the table of contents in this series of posts.

Table of contents – SAP ABAP Certification Online Training & Tutorial

Hi friends!!!

Have you ever felt the need of compressing large text or binary data in ABAP. I am sure whether or not you have come across it till now, it would prove to be very handy knowing how to do it. I can mention few example situations where you could use it. Suppose, you have large amount of text e.g. comments, notes etc. which need to be persisted in the database tables. Another example could be a case where you need to save a serialized object(instance) in the database which you later want to use.

Netweaver ABAP provides a service class CL_ABAP_GZIP to achieve this. This class has methods to compress as well as decompress text as well as binary data. I am briefly describing the methods of this class.

COMPRESS_TEXT:

This method is used to compress text data and get the compressed binary data. This method takes a character sequence (CHAR of any length, STRING etc.) input – TEXT_IN and returns compressed binary (XSTRING, RAW) output – GZIP_OUT.

DECOMPRESS_TEXT:

This method is used to de-compress compressed binary data and retrieve the text data back. This method takes a binary (XSTRING, RAW) input – GZIP_IN and returns character sequence (CHAR of any length, STRING etc.) output – TEXT_OUT.

COMPRESS_BINARY:

This method is used to compress binary data. This method takes a binary (XSTRING, RAW) input – RAW_IN and returns compressed binary (XSTRING, RAW) output – GZIP_OUT.

DECOMPRESS_BINARY:

This method is used to de-compress compressed binary data and retrieve the original binary data back. This method takes a binary (XSTRING, RAW) input – GZIP_IN and returns binary (XSTRING, RAW) output – RAW_OUT.

Soon, I will come back with more utilities in ABAP which make our lives easier. Till then, Cheers

Does you business requirement needs single line item in ALV to be displayed in multiple rows/lines for better readability? You then surely need a multi-line ALV, which can be implemented by just a simple tweaking in your ALV field catalog.

You can achieve this objective using property ROW_POS of Field catalog. Just assign a value between 1 to 3 to each of the records (denoting output internal table’s columns/fields) in field catalog. That’s it. Value is restricted between 1 and 3 since ALV can handle maximum of 3 rows for 1 ALV line item.
The example followed will completely clear the usage.

Here is the code to build the field catalog of an ALV.

FORM e01_fieldcat_init USING e01_lt_fieldcat TYPE slis_t_fieldcat_alv.

DATA: ls_fieldcat TYPE slis_fieldcat_alv.

ls_fieldcat-fieldname = ‘CARRID’.

ls_fieldcat-key       = ‘X’.

ls_fieldcat-ref_fieldname = ‘CARRID’.

ls_fieldcat-ref_tabname = ‘SFLIGHT’.

ls_fieldcat-row_pos = 1.

APPEND ls_fieldcat TO e01_lt_fieldcat.

CLEAR ls_fieldcat.

ls_fieldcat-fieldname = ‘CONNID’.

ls_fieldcat-key       = ‘X’.

ls_fieldcat-ref_fieldname = ‘CONNID’.

ls_fieldcat-ref_tabname = ‘SFLIGHT’.

ls_fieldcat-row_pos = 1.

APPEND ls_fieldcat TO e01_lt_fieldcat.

CLEAR ls_fieldcat.

ls_fieldcat-fieldname = ‘FLDATE’.

ls_fieldcat-key       = ‘X’.

ls_fieldcat-ref_fieldname = ‘FLDATE’.

ls_fieldcat-ref_tabname = ‘SFLIGHT’.

ls_fieldcat-row_pos = 1.

APPEND ls_fieldcat TO e01_lt_fieldcat.

CLEAR ls_fieldcat.

ls_fieldcat-fieldname = ‘PRICE’.

ls_fieldcat-ref_fieldname = ‘PRICE’.

ls_fieldcat-ref_tabname = ‘SFLIGHT’.

ls_fieldcat-row_pos = 2.

APPEND ls_fieldcat TO e01_lt_fieldcat.

CLEAR ls_fieldcat.

ls_fieldcat-fieldname = ‘CURRENCY’.

ls_fieldcat-ref_fieldname = ‘CURRENCY’.

ls_fieldcat-ref_tabname = ‘SFLIGHT’.

ls_fieldcat-row_pos = 2.

APPEND ls_fieldcat TO e01_lt_fieldcat.

ENDFORM.

Multi-lined ALV using ROW_POS specified in Field catalog