There are some key things in some of the standard SAP transactions which play a vital role if it is not already setup in the underlying SAP environment.
- Let’s take an example of creating a Purchase Order (PO) in SAP via tcode ME21N. I think most of you are aware that in SAP we have several types of PO which is often referred by some keyword (2/3 characters). For example, if you need to create an ‘Intercompany Standard PO’ then it can be referred by the keyword ‘NB’.
- There is always a chance that in the given requirement to automate the process for creating a ‘Intercompany Standard PO’ using transaction ME21N, you may find this keyword ‘NB’ there instead of what it actually meant for, i.e. ‘Intercompany Standard PO’. This is confusing if you are not aware about it and will led you to a place where you would need help from others who knows it. Now let’s have a look at the screen shot below.
- You can see that the keyword ‘NB’ which is basically for creating an ‘Intercompany Standard PO’ is not shown the highlighted drop down. Why – because as I said earlier some setting have not been done.
- To do this setting, From the SAP GUI toolbar, click the ‘Customizing of Local Layout’ button and select Options.
- The SAP GUI Options window appears. Go to ‘Interaction Design and select Visualization 1’, verify that the ‘Show keys within drop down lists’ is checked. Click the Apply button to save the changes and OK button to close the window. Refer the screen shot below.
- Once you are done with this setting, go to the transaction ME21N and you will find that now the keywords is there in the drop down. Refer the below image.
- Let’s take one more example of this kind. You all must be aware of the transaction SE16, it is used basically (on the high level) for some kind of reporting purpose. If you ever find that the field labels for the given transaction code is something which you do not understand or let’s say that there is some technical names displayed for the fields on the given transaction. Refer the below screen shot.
- Now, in the above screen, if you are told to enter the value for ‘Application and Condition Type’, then it would be difficult to know that which field represents what. So if you face any issue of this kind then always do the things which are mentioned below.
- From the SAP GUI menu bar select ‘Settings > User Parameters’.
- Once you navigate to the above mentioned menu path, the screen for ‘User-Specific Settings’ will get displayed. On this screen select the Data Browser tab and refer the Keyword You will notice that Field Name option is selected here. So you need to select the Field Label option and this will anyway unselect the earlier selected Field Name option. After that just press the continue button to close this window and go to transaction SE16 and check what you see there. Refer the below screen shot with two image, the left image is showing that option Field Name is selected and the right image shows that now the option Field Label is selected.
- Refer the below screen which is after selecting the option Field Label.
- Suppose you have built a process considering the fact that that the given screen is a dynamic screen. You have used actions like set reference row, set relative object, etc. This is working fine but after some period of time or in the different environment you noticed that this process is failing and the given object is now a grid where these actions will not work which was working earlier. Let’s look the below screen shot where the above mentioned actions are valid and will always work.
- Later on this screen changed to the below screen.
- To switch between the above two screens, from the SAP GUI menu bar select Settings > User Parameters.
- On the User-Specific Setting window go to Data Browser tab and select an option from the given selection list, i.e. ALV Grid display, ALV List and SE16 standard list. Once you do this selection the go to your transaction and see what you find there. But it is always good to handle this from your process rather than doing this manually. Refer the below screen which is after selecting the option Field Label.
Contribution by Gautam Jha
