The Service Management Experts
Menu

SAP

Home / Archive by category "SAP" (Page 31)

Variant Configuration – using CS_BOM_EXPL_KND_V1 for VC BOM Explosion

Here’s a fun little tidbit.  A recent client was looking for ways to get the BOM from a sales order line item before if hits the planned order/production order phase.  Particularly when you deal with large or expensive manufacturing, you planning/procurement groups might need a heads up on what components will be needed long before it hits MRP.  In that case, you can use the ABAP Function:  CS_BOM_EXPL_KND_V1  This function with a few inputs will provide you the complete BOM for the sales order configuration.  Here’s what you need to enter to make CS_BOM_EXPL_KND_V1 work:

VBELN & VBPOS…  easy one here.  the sales order & line item you want to explode.
WERKS – the plant it should be exploded in
MTNRV – this is your configurable material (KMAT)
EMENG – the quantity of the line item
DAVTUV – the explosion date you want to use (important if you use ECM on the BOM)
CUOBJ – this is the configuration to use ( you can find this in VBAP)
CAPID – this is your BOM type.  PP01 or SD01 are the most popular
MMory – set this to 0 (not sure if this is required)
MEHRS – set this to X (again, not sure what this is for)

If you set these values, BAM, you get your VC BOM before MRP does.  Hope you find this useful.

 

Variant Configuration – Using the PMEVC for Dependencies

Well, since I was talking about the PMEVC the other day, I thought I’d throw out the other biggest piece of functionality that I found helpful.  That’s the improved editor for object dependencies and constraints.  There are 2 big pieces that are absolutely a hit in my book.

The first piece is the editor.  It’s finally a text based editor that is easy to use.  You can use standard copy and paste, no longer do you need to to use the cryptic I9 command into the line number to add more lines.  You can just hit enter.  It’s also very easy to use the find and replace, copy and paste, etc.

The second part is that you can actually use a nice little Input help button.  It’s a hand/question mark looking button.  If you start a statement, it will tell you the options of what you enter next.  This is especially nice for constraints if you forget the key words (like I often do.  ha ha ha).

Short story, if you have access, I recommend doing your PMEVC to do your dependency coding.

Happy Modeling,

 

Variant Configuration – Using the PMEVC for the Interface Design

Well, I’m still rolling on the variant configuration track.  Today is a new revelation that I recently discovered.  In some of my previous contracts I’ve had to set up some rather large interface design tabs.  Often consisting of 20 – 50 characteristics.  If you’re at all familiar with the original tool for creating/updating the interface design, you know how clunky it is.  You have to manually page through the list of characteristics, and even click the checkbox in the appropriate sequence so they show up where you want them.  It’s not challenging, but it certainly is tedious.

What I found is that the PMEVC actually has a great tool for creating and updating the interface design.  Instead of doing the hunt and click method of adding characteristics, you can just type them in.  You still have the option to select a bunch of characteristics in a method similar to the old method.

On top of everything, you can even easily change if it’s a tab or a sequence, or flag it as Sales or Engineering, just by flipping a tab.  So much easier than hunting through a cryptic menu to find the characteristic grouping.

All in all, I’m pretty excited about this.  I was thinking about writing a utility to upload the interface design from an excel sheet, but after finding this functionality, I don’t really need a need for that.  Hope you’ve already found this trick, if not, enjoy the nice interface =)

 

Project Management – Redesigning your baby

Well, lately I’ve been spending a lot of time on the rework of Rapier.  I’m sure you’ve noticed some of my posts in the past.  My original baby, Rapier, started as a crazy idea I came up with on a plane ride  home from my project in Boston.  Rapier started as a BSP application, then when I realized that BSP was a dying technology, I moved to ABAP Web Dynpro.  Now, I’m moving to add a ton of new functionality to the application that started it all.

Now, with all of these new ideas, it forces you to revisit what you originally designed, and come at it from a new perspective.  While that sounds obvious to any developer, it comes with a price that I’m not sure everyone realizes (I didn’t at the time).  When I first converted to Web Dynpro, I left most of the original structure intact, and focused on the web dynpro conversion and understanding that new coding.  Now that I’m full blown into version 2 functionality, I’m realizing there are a lot of pieces that could be designed better.

This post is to remind you that a simply adding new functionality comes with a lot of additional work.  For example, I’m looking at adding a new product designed around the field service engineer.  There is a lot of shared functionality between the 2 products.  So that required me to reevaluate all of my tables and classes, so they could easily shared.  Suddenly, this meant that all of my tables, classes, etc. needed to be created under a new shared namespace.  All of those items then needed to be swapped out of the existing code, etc.  Get the picture?  simply letting my code be reused, caused a huge chain reaction that took almost a week to reconcile.  And all of this wasn’t changing any functionality.  Just renaming things.

So, the word of advise for today is to remember that when you redesign, add plenty of time to your schedule.  If you choose to do it right, it’s gonna take longer than expected.  It’s worth it in the long run, but everything comes with a price.

 

Web Dynpro – Testing a Dynamic Table

Now, since I always learn things the hard way, and if you’ve been reading my posts for any length of time, you’ll know that I can be a bonehead when it comes to things…  but I’m too stubborn to give up (hence why I’m writing this post.  ha ha ha).  Anyway, my latest discovery was in the testing of my new dynamic table.  I really needed a table with some editable fields, but in the creation of my table, the context node was empty.  So the table was being created, but there were no lines in the table.  Well, maybe it was the lack of sleep, but my brain was moving a little slow, so I didn’t grasp that the dynamic table was empty…  thus, impossible to see if there were any fields editable.

So, short story, you need to populate at least one row in the table, even if it’s empty.  Here’s an example:

* navigate from <CONTEXT> to <NOT_ITEM> via lead selection
lo_nd = wd_context->get_child_node( name = wd_this->wdctx_item ).
lo_nd->get_static_attributes_table( importing table = lt ).
IF lt IS INITIAL.
APPEND wa to lt.
lo_nd->bind_table( new_items = lt set_initial_elements = abap_true ).
ENDIF.

this simple addition, and suddenly I could see my editable fields in my dynamic table.  Probably obvious to a lot of folks, but yet another lesson learned in my never ending journey.

Thanks for reading.

 

ABAP – Web Dynpro Dynamic Table, again

Well, as it turns out, I didn’t figure out everything I needed for a dynamic table.  =)  The dynamic table code that I previously talked about works great, until you want to control the read only vs. editable aspects of the table.  I found a great way of creating a Dynamic Table in ABAP Web Dynpro that gives me the control that I needed to do allow for editing.

First things first, you need to create a context node and the attributes for to define the table.  You could do this dynamically, but I’m finding it’s cleaner to build it normally.  Either way, once it exists, here how to build the dynamic table.

*** create dynamic table for Notification – Items
cl_wd_table=>new_table(
exporting
id = ‘TB_TABLE’
bind_data_source = ‘CONTEXT_NODE’
visible_row_count = 5
read_only  = abap_false
receiving
control = l_table ).

*** build table columns
loop at <cols> into wa_config.
wa_cols = cl_wd_table_column=>new_table_column( ).

*For Dynamically creating Input Field
CASE type.
when ‘TEXT’ OR ‘TIME’ or ‘DATE’ or ‘DROPDOWN’.
CALL METHOD cl_wd_input_field=>new_input_field
EXPORTING
bind_value = lv_bind
id         = lv_id
state      = lv_state
read_only  = abap_false
on_enter   = ‘ON_ENTER’
RECEIVING
control    = lr_input.
wa_cols->set_table_cell_editor( lr_input ).
when ‘CHECK’.
CALL METHOD cl_wd_checkbox=>new_checkbox
EXPORTING
bind_checked = lv_bind
id           = lv_id
state        = lv_state
RECEIVING
control      = lr_check.
wa_cols->set_table_cell_editor( lr_check ).
ENDCASE.
ELSE.
CALL METHOD cl_wd_text_view=>new_text_view
EXPORTING
bind_text  = lv_bind
id         = lv_id
RECEIVING
control    = lr_textview.
wa_cols->set_table_cell_editor( lr_textview ).
ENDIF.

l_col_hdr = cl_wd_caption=>new_caption( ).
l_col_hdr->set_text( lv_col_text ).
wa_cols->set_header( l_col_hdr ).

l_table->add_column( wa_cols ).
endloop.

l_root ?= view->get_element( ‘TC_XXX’ ).
grid_data = cl_wd_grid_data=>new_grid_data( l_table ).
l_table->set_layout_data( grid_data ).
l_root->add_child( l_table ).
Now this code obviously won’t work out of the box, but you should be able to get the idea of how to use it.  If you have questions on this let me know and I can expand on the code provided.  Thanks for reading.

 

Variant Configuration – Set_Default

If you’ve ever had to use the SET_DEFAULT statement in variant configuration, you grasp just how cryptic the syntax can be.  That’s why I wanted to point out this little trick that you might not yet be aware of.  You can replace the SET_DEFAULT syntax with a nice little operator.  Take a look below to see for yourself.

Example of the old way to set a default:
TABLE TEST( INPUT1 = INPUT1,
OUTPUT1 = $SELF.CHAR ),
$SET_DEFAULT( $SELF, OUTPUT1, $SELF.CHAR)

With this:
TABLE TEST( INPUT1 = INPUT1,
OUTPUT1 ?= $SELF.OUTPUT1 )

It doesn’t have to be used in a table, but can be most anywhere you use the = statement.  So in my opinion, why would you ever use the cryptic SET_DEFAULT statement again =)

 

Variant Configuration – IS Invisible

Hello everyone, it’s funny, I’ve been doing a lot more Variant Configuration work lately, and it reminds me of all the fun tricks I’ve either heard about or have used in the past.  The most recent one I was reminded of was the new IS INVISIBLE syntax.  So, as a reminder:

Old method:  $SELF.SCREEN_DEP_INVISIBLE = ‘CHAR1’

Cool new Way:$SELF.CHAR1 IS INVISIBLE

Now, either method you still need a reference characteristic that is attached to SCREEN_DEP-INVISIBLE.

Benefits include no persistent data storage, where used checking, and syntax checking of characteristic name.  Why does this matter?  for example, the biggest issue with the old method in my mind is that you have to enter the characteristic into quotes?  this means, it’s just a text string, and if you spell it wrong, you don’t get an error, it just doesn’t work.  Using the IS INVISIBLE, it will give you a syntax error if you enter in the wrong name.  The same goes for conducting a where used of a characteristic, in the event you tried to rename it or remove it.  the IS INVISIBLE syntax will show you it’s been used there.

It’s also much cleaner.  Anyway, hope you enjoyed this tidbit.

 

Variant Configuration – SSC Eclipse Editor

Well, I wanted to pass on my most recent and valuable discovery about the SSC Eclipse Editor.  That is prototyping a new model is so much easier in this editor.  Now, the VC purest in me still knows that at the end of the day, the VC rules must still be adhered to, and best practices in modeling don’t change.  But here’s the value of the SSC Eclipse Editor.

If you model like I do, you work best by just jumping in and starting to put things together.  Well, this is great up to the point of enter in master/transactional data.  If you know SAP, you know that deleting things, renaming things, or going in a whole new direction is a royal PITA once you create a sales orders or production orders, etc.  because at that point, you have to jump through a lot of hoops to do some renaming…

The SSC Eclipse Editor is not locked into the same issues.  Because it’s text based, you put everything together, do your initial testing, and if you don’t like the way something is working… or more commonly, you find out new information half way through your model, you can quickly adapt, change names, restructure tables etc.  With very little pain.

Now don’t get me wrong, you’ll still have these pains because at some point you need to connect the SSC Model to either ECC or CRM, once that happens, you’ll be back to the same pain, but when you prototype the model, it sure is nice (for me) to have that flexibility to change my design on the fly without a lot of headaches (in fact, something a simple find and replace everywhere gets me where I need to be).  This is certainly not possible in the standard ECC Variant Configuration…  Food for thought…

Thanks for reading,

 

ABAP – How to Spool SD Output Documents

Well, this is a continuation of my post from yesterday, so if you missed it, I talked about using the ABAP Web Dynpro Download element to display documents on your web application.  What I talked about yesterday was completely based on having a spool job to convert.  So…  today I’ll talk about how you can Spool SD Output Documents again and again, and easily retrieve them.

SUBMIT RSNAST00
WITH S_KAPPL = i_kappl
WITH S_OBJKY = i_objky
WITH S_KSCHL = i_kschl
WITH P_AGAIN = ‘X’
WITH P_SUFF2 = lv_suff2
AND RETURN.

You might already be familiar with the program RSNAST00, but who knew you could use it for this (I didn’t…  =>  ).  You’ll notice, it’s a pretty simple program.  You give the Output type, the document key, and you can even using define a special key field (SUFF2) that makes it easier to retrieve.

After you run the program, simply go to table TSP01 and enter in the enough criteria to pull out the spool. Then you simply assign this to a context element, and link it to your download element.  And by doing this it will give you another popup window in your favorite web browser showing your output.

Now for my shameless plug.  I’ve done this all in Rapier now (it’ll be released in version 2 this fall), but thanks to this technique, I’ve been able to output Order Confirmations, invoices, etc…  directly onto the customer website, so they pull their own documents anytime they want.  If you’re interested in seeing this in action, let me know and I’ll be happy to setup a demo to show you.  Rapier 2.0 is gonna be really cool.  I’ve been putting a lot of hours into this recently, so you’ll want to check it out.  And, remember, if you’re in the market and you buy now, you get the charter customer price, and the ability to influence functionality that will be officially released this fall.    Ok… commercial over… =)

Thanks for reading,