Here is one more useful tweak. Program RPCIP_DOCUMENT_ANALYSE shows a report with all payroll postings analytics, filters. This is the unique and most convenient way to see posting runs in ALV report.
It’s a MUST have program.
There is a number of infotypes in SAP which are local to some country. SAP doesn’t provide any standard solution to send these country-specific or custom infotypes over ALE, cause standard IDOC contains only international infotypes. If you develop your infotype and want to send it over ALE there are some tips and tricks to handle. Today I want to tell you how to send custom infotype or country-specific infotype over SAP ALE. It’s going to be a long tutorial with a lot of images. More than I’d like to show you what is a short and long infotype record in terms of SAP integration and IDOC structure. And, of course, ABAP source codes will be provided for your convenience. Take a cup of coffee and join me with this unique tutorial never been shared before.
A short infotype is an infotype, the size of which fits into one IDOC segment. How to check? Open SE11 transaction, find an infotype structure which is PXXXX (XXXX – infotype code), sum all length fields. One IDOC segment can store 1000 symbols. If the infotype structure is longer than 1000 symbols it’s a long infotype and we will need to split it to send over SAP ALE. Will show later how it works.
To add custom infotype to a standard HRMD_A IDOC in WE31 transaction create a new segment to include it into IDOC and send over ALE. Naming rule is Z1PXXXX, 7 symbols. It’s done for prior 4.6C compatibility, so if you work with modern systems you can use longer names. The first three letters ‘Z1P’ is a must. To save time and avoid human mistakes typing all SE11 fields into segment manually you can create a segment from a template. In menu Segment -> Create with template choose DDIC structure and type in PXXXX, where XXXX is your infotype code. When you save segment systems checks its length to comply with 1000 IDOC segment length.
In my scenario, I’ll use country-specific infotype 0293. Here is how it looks like in segment.
New IDOC segment
Don’t forget to release the segment in Edit menu.
So we have standard infotype which is not shown in PPOME transaction. We want to add standard infotype to PPOME tab to help users enter data. Let’s take infotype 1039 “Shift group” for our example. Usually, we use it for shift planning in time management (transaction PP61). It’s recorded for Organizational units (object type “O”). So it’s easier to enter this infotype in PPOME than in PP01 as SAP advise.
There are three steps to make it happen. We need to create a new screen, it’s logic and enter it in customizing tables.
Today we will talk about SAP change pointers. Change pointers are that thing, which registers all object changes, which you need to send over ALE to other SAP or non-SAP system. For example, you have changed SAP HR infotype (let’s say infotype number 0002), the system records these changes internally, creates change pointer object. Then according to your ALE settings it sends updated record immediately or based on the scheduled job. So it sends only that one 0002 infotype record, not every record, not the whole bunch of infotypes. It saves a lot of time, increases SAP performance and decreases network load. Very convenient and smart in other words. There are just four steps to configure SAP change pointers for HCM or any other SAP ECC (Enterprise Central Component) module.
Activate Change Pointers in BD61 transaction
Activate Change Pointers for HRMD_A IDOC
RBDMIDOC
If you want to track specific fields, I mean, when a specific field in infotype is changed, then in SE11 in ABAP Dictionary select needed data element, switch to ‘Further characteristics’ and tick ‘Change document’ checkbox. Now changing this field in any infotype will cause a new change pointer and data change sending through ALE. Configuring change pointers is a one step in a whole SAP ALE configuration procedure.
Don’t forget to setup the whole SAP ALE landscape to send change pointers over. You can find step-by-step SAP ALE configuration guide in my other post here:
We have a task – manage OS level requests from SAP job scheduling tool (SM36 transaction). You know, there are a lot of tools to perform OS level tasks, that are built into OS or some 3rd party tools, which support command line access.
For example, I’ve created a simple executable file with just one command:
echo “SAP running” >> sap.log
We want to run this script from OS level locally on the server where SAP is running. Then, remotely, where no SAP system is installed.
Some time ago we discussed SAP ALE, what it is, how it works. Here is the link. Today I want to share with you how we can change data on-fly when we need to do some conversion during the integration process.
Usually, we need conversion in heterogeneous landscapes, where different systems presented with miscellaneous settings, types, architectures. Let’s say you want to include a new SAP ERP during company acquisition into your landscape. There will be another business unites codes or personnel numbers, which differ from your present system. Or you want to send some flag depending on your conditions in the source system. Here data conversion rules come into place.
When you do SAP ALE configuration, you usually use IDOC conversion rules. So to start with conversions, have a look at these three IMG paths. Run SALE transaction and scroll down to our menu.
SAP ALE – Application Link Enabling – data exchange technology, developed by SAP AG. It’s a technology because it has a set of tools, protocols, formats which allow exchanging data in real-time or offline between SAP or non-SAP systems. It’s a huge layer of settings, functionality, and opportunities which we rarely use. Let’s have a look at this stack and short SAP ALE configuration guide.
CPIC – Common Programming Interface for Communication – low level communication protocol. You can read further here https://www-01.ibm.com/software/network/commserver/windows/library/cpic.htm
RFC – Remote Function Call – high level communication protocol to call remote functions
tRFC (transaction RFC) / qRFC (queued RFC) / aRFC (asynchronous RFC) / sRFC (synchronous RFC) – a way to deliver messages to the receiver with confirmation
IDOC – Intermediate DOCument / BAPI (Business Application Programming Interface) – message format
EDI – Electronic Data Interchange – data exchange procedure between SAP-nonSAP systems. International standard by chance.
ALE – Application Link Enabling – data exchange procedure between SAP-SAP.
Here is what I suggest you to discuss.
RFC – Remote Function Call, is a mechanism to call functions remotely. The idea is simple and works this way. We know some functionality exists on the remote server. ‘Hey, server, I know you have this function, I know the parameters. I want you to run it on my behalf but on your side Here is my authorization. Give me the result.’ Server spins hard drives and once it makes sure I’m not a little theft, it runs the requested function with my login. Any other program can run the same function on that same server locally. A checkbox in SE37 transaction makes the difference if it could be run remotely.
I like to embellish events when it comes to SAP, business, and future, but usually, it comes true in a while. Everything goes simple and complex simultaneously. Business rules go to ease, underlying systems and mechanisms go to complexity. I’m looking at SAP SuccessFactors and wondering how business discards their on-premise strong and robust solutions for SAP SF, which is that simple, like a child and adult. It’s not about reliability, user experiences, but more about processes, that business know-how, and best practices which make you unique on the market. The lyrics are over. The trend to SF dictates new rules for classic SAP consultants and developers. There is almost no ABAP, custom reports, SmartForms, and user-exits. New functional paradigm is to become a technical support and developer guy in a one person, who supports already made up decision by vendor, and develops extentions for business customers. Open-source techniques came to SAP world in terms on clouds, Angular, WebIDE, Splash, Build, jScript, jQuery, REST, LESS, etc. These are the commons we need to learn to be able to serve customers.
I spent some hours to understand my future and here is what I see. This is a microprototype for my microunderstanding what I was trying to say in the paragraph above.
Hello, my friends.
I’m quite confident you have met this situation quite a lot when somebody has changed something and there is no trace. SAP data audit in SAP HCM can help you a lot with this. HR data audit will track all data changes made by end-users to help you easily find what had happened. As an experienced professional I personally setup data audition the first-day end-users start working with the system. Right after HR data migration is over.
Customizing is performed in T77CDOC_CUST view
To view data use report RHCDOC_DISPLAY
Customizing is performed in views:
V_T585A – include infotype into audit
V_T585B – include specific fields into audit
V_T585C – define field groups for audit. There is a checkbox to define storage period. It allows defining for what reason we store data changes history. If it’s ‘L’ then this information works best for audit and Long-term storage. If ‘S’ – short-term – SAP recommends using this data to transfer to other systems. Some sort of IDOC, frankly speaking, but very cheap and lazy.
Audit data can be viewed in the RPUAUD00_PNPCE report.
If you want to develop your own change doc use transaction SCDO.
Detailed explanation could be found at http://help.sap.com
Hello, everyone.
Most of you know about archiving HR data, that there are a number of layers to backup your information system. For ERP class systems there is operating system level backup, database backup and sometimes ERP itself can do a backup.
In SAP functional consultants usually, mix backuping and data archiving. Backups stand for system copy and data copy that basis guys do regularly to prevent data loss in case of crash or incident. In my 15 years career, I’ve not met even one consultant who was about data archiving. They think it’s a basis scope of work and don’t want to dive into it. But actually archiving is not only about archiving itself, it’s more about data management, performance management, data integration. Who knows if you want to use data archiving technology to transfer data to another SAP or other system.
Let’s setup data archiving for HR change docs. Assume change docs themselves are set already and we can see data changes in S_AHR_61016380 transaction.
Everything could be setup in SARA transaction in 3 steps:
