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SAP – Preparing your Code for S/4

I recently listened to a presentation from some developers that talked about preparing your development objects to move to S/4.  This obviously got my attention, since I want to move my add-ons to be on S/4.  Here’s what I learned.

Apply OSS Note:  2185390

For me, this was a bit more time consuming that I expected.  Because my system is behind the times, it means I had to apply a lot of notes before I could finally apply this one.  So it took me a few hours to gather up all the notes I needed, get them applied.

Next up, you need to create an index.  Here’s what the OSS note tells you:

Before Custom Code Analyzer (program SYCM_DOWNLOAD_REPOSITORY_INFO) can analyze your custom code, an up-to-date where-used index for customer objects as well as SAP objects is required in your system. Custom Code Analyzer will check whether the where-used index is up to date as first processing step and will raise an error log entry if it has to be updated.

In order to update the where-used-index for customer and SAP objects, run program SAPRSEUB as background job in the system to be analyzed.

Currently, in my system, I’m running the index.  It’s been going for almost 12 hours now.  Certainly due to my hardware, but regardless, give it some time.  Once that’s done, you can run the download repository (listed above).  It will give you a zip file listing the areas you need to look at.  I’ll be doing a follow up post on some of the common things I need to fix once I can run the program.

Thanks for reading,

 

SAP – Finding a transport from an object

I recently had the challenge of trying to figure out what transport made a particular change.  Normally, I can count on some sort of naming convention, or even who might have made the change.  In this case, I had nothing to go on except the object.  Well, I did a little searching and found something that I didn’t know about.

Transaction SE03 has an option to Search for Objects in Requests/Tasks

within that you can even specify the IMG activity you want to track.  Saved me a lot of effort.

Thanks for reading,

Service Management – Translating Item Categories

I just learned a new trick.  This is rather surprising to me, but you cannot translate an item category into multiple languages from the standard screen.  For some reason, it is grayed out, so you are stuck with blank descriptions if you live in a multiple language SAP system.  Here is how to correct that.

Go to SM30:

V_OIISOCVP

Now, don’t let the description fool you.  We aren’t really changing anything directly about this table, but from here, you can select your item categories, and use goto->translation.

and magically, you can translate your item categories into all the languages you care about.

Thanks for reading,

Service Management – Finding Enhancements

I’ve recently been hunting through code that isn’t my own to try to figure out how something works.  Since it was another developer, it often means a lot of hunting to figure out exactly where their code may have been entered.  I love using the where-used program:  RPR_ABAP_SOURCE_SCAN but it doesn’t always find everything.  I believe one of the areas it doesn’t cover is the enhancements (and possible class objects, but I’m still testing that theory).  Regardless, I know that this program doesn’t find everything, so I’m resorting to alternate methods to find some code.  Here’s one I’ve been trying.

SE16n:

Table TADIR

OBJECT: ENHO

AUTHOR <> SAP.

This gave a list of all enhancement in system made by anyone and not SAP.

Now, the fun part is that you still need to manually go look through all of these to see if it hits the area you need, and then checks to see if the code is in there.  It’s still a work in progress, but I’m trying to expand my bag of tricks.  if you have any other cool tricks for finding code, I’d love to hear about them.

Thanks for reading,

Service Management – Troubleshooting the DIP Profile

Recently, I’ve been playing with the DIP (Dynamic Item Processing) Profile.  The first thing I quickly came to remember is to start slowly.  The thing with the DIP profile is that it takes a lot of inputs, and then spits out some materials with their costs.  But if you don’t have everything setup properly, you will only get the dreaded message of no items found.  So, here are some good guidelines for testing your DIP profile and getting it working the way you need.

  1. Find the cost elements you care about.  The easiest way to do this is to find a few sample service orders.  Looking at the cost tab, and then press the rep/plan cost button.  This will show you the cost elements that are being hit.  With a few examples, you should be able to see the initial costs elements you will need to track.
  2. Create Cost Element Groups – KAH1.  Why?  this is a nice easy way to quickly add more elements to the list of what you want to track.  In general, I usually have one for labor, one for materials, and one for subcontracts/third party stuff.  You can assign these to the material determination screen in txn ODP1.  Then, you can just update the master data as you find elements you missed.
  3. Keep the source simple.  For me, especially in the early phases, do not add any conditions to the sources.  Simply setup one with 100%, either planned values or actual values.
  4. Create your service materials for the material determination.  Make sure that the materials are setup in the correct plant/orgs.  Be sure that the item category determination (SEIN/SENI) are setup for your materials and item category groups.  If you can’t add the materials to the sales orders, you will never get the DIP working.
  5. In the material determination, add your service materials (keep it simple).  one line for labor, one for materials, one for third party/subcontract costs.  You can always add more later after it’s working.  Be sure not to check any boxes for service materials that should be added to the sales order.  For example, I tend to create a DIEN called labor.  Make sure that material direct is NOT checked.  This checkbox should only be checked for actual materials that are both issued to your service order AND should be placed on your sales order.  Be sure that you assign your cost element groups to the criteria below material determination.

If you follow these guidelines, you should be able to get a working model in no time.  Once it’s working, then you can begin to fine tune it.

Thanks for reading,

Service Management – Merging Services and Products into one Document

I’ve recently run into something that I never used.  It’s a new way to use the service contract.  The concept is simple, a single document that can provide a single invoice for both a deliverable product as well as the extended warranty that goes with it.  I became intrigued because it’s often been something that has been fancifully wished for.  Why can’t we do it on a single document?

Now, the concept is still not ideal.  Here is how it works.  The configuration should be relatively standard once you see the concept.  You start with a service contract.  You probably only need an item category for service and another with configuration (if you use VC products).  You don’t explode any BOM on this contract.  It’s purely to drive pricing/invoicing.  Now, the work comes in building all the copy control.  Because you will still need to create an order to do the shipping of the product (be sure it’s Free of Charge).  You create it with reference to your original contract.  The service item can work like normal.

So this works, but again, it does still require multiple contracts/orders, but at least it can be merged into a single billing plan/invoice.  If you’d like more details, let me know.

Thanks for reading,

Service Management – Basic Order View Functionality

I recently got to play with something new to me.  The Basic View functionality make the service order a little more like the service notification in terms of it’s screen design.  The premise is that you can build your own tabs, add your own segments, etc.  Awesome.  In reality, it is still lacking in my opinion.  Here’s how to configure it.  I’ll explain what is missing as I go.

First, this is where you find it.  This IMG path is only available in newer versions.  I don’t remember when it became available.

First, we define the view profile.

This is pretty straightforward.  Create a entry, give it a name and a description.  Then, double click into the tabs folder.

Here, you create a row for each tab you want to show up.  Keep in mind, once you activate this functionality, all the original tabs disappear for this order type.  You will only display what is shown here.

This is my biggest complaint with the functionality.  You only get these sections to add to the service order.  You lose the objects tab, which is one of my go-to views in service.

Each tab can have up to 8 sections.

Once you finish the tabs, you can go to the Navigation area.

Here you get the opportunity to add buttons.  This sounds great, but in my testing, they never showed up.  If they were working, here are the options you can do.

In theory, you get the additional data and control tabs back, but still no objects.

In general, the sections look a little nicer than the original IW32, but overall, not much of a change.  I like the functionality, but it still seems limited from the original.  I configured this, then deleted it all.

Thanks for reading,

Service Management – Install Base going away in S/4???

I recently heard that SAP has plans to get rid of the IBase in S/4.  I found this rather interesting since the IBase has done almost nothing in ECC for it’s entire existence.  I hear that SAP has a new web based product AIS, I think, that is around managing assets particularly geared toward internet of things.  I know nothing about this new product, but I’m hoping to learn more about it at SAPPHIRE this year.

The thing I find most interesting is that SAP is saying the IBase is going away, but what does that really mean?  I have to imagine there are customers using it.  If that is the case, they can’t just remove the transactions and tables.  But to say that SAP won’t support it is a bit of a joke.  The install base in ECC has almost no functionality.  There is no configuration available (if you want a new category, you need to maintain a table).  There are no BAPI’s or API’s to populate the IBase.  There isn’t even a history record created out of the box.  And there is NO integration with anything else.  Say if you wanted to look at your serial number history and see that it is attached to an IBase, well good luck.  You will need to design that yourself.

I know the IBase has a lot more functionality in CRM, but since none of that functionality has been copied to ECC, seems like SAP isn’t about to stop supporting it, but rather they never supported it in the first place.  To me, this is sad, since I prefer the layout of the IBase compared to a serial number hierarchy or functional location.  But the lack of integration is disappointing.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.  Do you use the Ibase?  Have you built any custom logic to support it?

Thanks for reading,

Service Management – The Exchange Process Continued

Well, this has turned out to be more of a challenge than I originally hoped.  Nothing new in the world of service.  ha ha.  I originally started off looking for a way to automatically generate the service order for an advanced exchange (if you do an in-house repair it works great, but if you send out an exchange unit before you receive in the original, it breaks the process).  The standard program SDREPA01 gave me a clue about the item status.  However, it turned out to be a false hope.  I was able to change the status and SDREPA01 ran…  but still did nothing.  The reason was because the repair line still wasn’t defaulting in the order.  Without going into a bunch of boring details of my debugging expedition, let me skip ahead and let you know what I did find.

Getting the item to default would most likely involve lots of user-exits or possible system mods…  neither of these met my goal (to be able to build a program that any client could use without doing any system modifications).  What I found is that I could use a BAPI to add a line to the sale order, but it still wasn’t pulling in all the details I needed.  After more digging, I think the reason had to do with the serial number (or lack of) in my newly created line.  AFter more digging, I located records I had previously not noticed in the tables SER02 & OBJK.  I’m currently experimenting with a few functions that will reserve a number and populate these tables for me.  If I can pull together the right combination I think I will have my method handle Advanced Exchange.

For anyone that is curious, here are the functions that I need to execute (along with a bunch of other logic to populate them).

  • BAPI_SALESORDER_CHANGE – to add the new line item to my sales order
  • OBJECTLIST_NUMBER – this will pull a new OBKNR for table SER02
  • IWOU_POST_SER02 – to create the OBJK & SER02 entries

As soon as I finish pulling it all together, you may be seeing a very excited post 🙂  otherwise, it’s back to the next round of debugging.

Thanks for reading,

Service Management – Adding a Department Responsible

Since I was already playing around in HR, I thought I might as well show this one too.  Since the notification allows you to enter a person responsible, which we demonstrated earlier this week (note, you don’t even need to add it to the work center to make it available in the notification).  Now, let’s show you how to make your own departments.

Please note, if your company is using HR, you most likely will have to follow a more structured process, or someone may have already done this for you.  If not, here’s how to do it.

Transaction:  PPOCE

If this comes up, I suggest backdating it.  Either to the date you turned on SAP or the date your company was founded.  I like 1/1/2010.

Press Green Check

This will bring up a template.  New org unit.

Change the Organizational unit and description.

Press Save.

Now, it might be possible, but for me, I found I needed to back out and come back into the transaction in order to create more departments.  I believe this is because the transaction expects a structure.  So if you wanted, you could first create your company name, then in the top right pane, press create.

Select Is line supervisor of

Then again, you can fill in the short name, and description and press save.

if you use this method, you can enter in multiple without leaving the transaction.  That’s all there is to it.

Thanks for reading,