Activating scripting in SAP GUI

In order to use scripting within SAP GUI you need to activate several settings. First one is on level of your SAP application server by instance profile parameter:

sapgui/user_scripting = TRUE

This parameter is set to false by default. You can do this modification via TA RZ11. Afterward make sure you have set scripting as enabled in your SAP GUI settings; menu “Customize local layout (ALT+F12)” -> Options -> tab strip: Scripting -> check “Enable scripting”:

 

For system notification of running scripts, set up in your SAP Configuration window in Windows Control panel ->“Notify when script attaches to running GUI”:

To enable GuiXT functionality: SAP GUI settings; menu “Customize local layout (ALT+F12)” ->“Activate GuiXT”:

 

Few interesting facts about SAP as company

 

Despite today’s not very optimistic times caused by financial crises worldwide and recent SAP’s announcement about behaving very costly efficient – means Big Freeze I would like to share some interesting facts about SAP. Basically SAP is world’s largest business application software company and 3^rd largest independent software provider globally and…

Basis facts: //as of Jan-Jun 2008

• 96.400+ installation of SAP software
• 75.000+ companies run SAP
• 51.602 SAP employees:
• According regions:
• EMEA: 26.563
• APAC: 11.143
• NAFTA: 13.896
• According functional areas:
• Software & Services: 6.651
• Professional services: 14.057
• R&D: 15.148
• Sales & Marketing: 10.815
• G & A: 3.367
• Infrastructure: 1.564
• Nationalities represented worldwide: 100
• Nationalities represented at Walldorf: 88
• Top 5 nationalities at Walldorf office: German, British, American, Indian, Russian
• Average age: 37
• Percentage of employee over 50: 5%
• Average length of company affiliation: 5.3 years
• Attrition rate: 1.8%
• Percentage of women: 30%
• Percentage of female people managers: 18%
• Org. structure:
• Office of the co-CEOs: H.KAGERMANN, L. APOTHEKER Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe (as of 7th of Feb 2010)
• Research & Breakthrough Innovation: P. ZENCKE
• Products: no designated person as of S.AGASSI departure
• Production:  C. HEINRICH
• Global Service &  Support: G. OSWALD
• Customer Solutions & Operations (CSO): L. APOTHEKER
• Finance & Administration: W. BRANDT (CFO)
• Human Resources & Processes: C. HEINRICH
• 12 million users in 120+ countries
• 1.600+ Partners
• 180.000 SAP partner certificates
• 10.000 developers within SAP company
• 10 international SAP Labs (Development Sites):
• EMEA: Germany (Walldorf), France (Sophia Antipolis), Bulgaria (Sofia, Hungary (Budapest), Israel (Ra’anana)
• APAC: India (Bangalore), Japan (Tokyo), China (Shanghai)
• NAFTA: USA (Palo Alto), Canada (Montreal)

Furthermore I would not forget mention few words about SAP culture. Within SAP internal there is no exact dress code introduced; it is expected that everybody is dressed mannerly. Formal dress expected within business meetings with customers and for consulting people on-site location of course. SAP is well know for employing people with strong academic backgrounds like PHDs and professors to strengthen their R&D. SAP is famous for its patents as well.

-      Update 02/13/2010 – SAP is returning to co-CEO model as Apotheker stepped down as CEO. Co-CEOs are now Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe. See details here.

- Update 07/22/2013 - Return  back to 1 CEO structure. In May 2014 Bill McDermott will be lifted to sole CEO position while Jim Hagemann Snabe will step down as co-CEO and will serve in supervisory board.

- Update 05/04/2014 - Dr. Vishal Sikka member of SAP executive board left SAP for personal reasons. He will be replaced by Robert Enslin and Bernd Leukert in the executive board. In addition Leukert will be leading SAP global development organization.

- Update 07/07/2014 - Due to driving its global effort SAP changed its  legal form to a European Company (Societas Europaea, SE) from AG.

TA RSRT, RSRT1, RSRT2 difference?

Update on 10.9.2019

Query Monitor is very useful tool used to analyzing problems with BI queries. You can very quickly find out how healthy your queries are and so on. Tool is accessible with transaction RSRT but there are 2 more transactions: RSRT1 and RSRT2. Difference between RSRT and RSRT1 is that via RSRT1 you can run Query views as well. What differentiate RSRT2 against two others is not clear to me. Only visible difference is that in RSRT2 it is possible to create/get variant (see corresponding buttons). Somebody got an idea?

RSRT:


RSRT1:


RSRT2:

To complete this post I’m adding some more TAs related to Query Monitor:

RSRT Start of the report monitor

RSRT1 Start of the Report Monitor

RSRT2 Start of the Report Monitor

RSRTQ BWT: Query Definition (check of query definition)

RSRTRACE Set trace configuration

RSRTRACETEST Trace tool configuration
MDXTEST MDX Test Panel
MDXTEST_OLD MDX Test Panel
RSFLAT Flat MDX
RSTT_EXECUTE_TRACE - t-code doesn't exits anymore

RSTT_EXCECUTE_TRACE- t-code doesn't exits anymore, perhaps it was deleted as there is a typo error in its name, however last 2 t-codes are still present in source code of BW programs

Read more on thsi topic in 2nd part of this article:
TA RSRT, RSRT1, RSRT2 differences? (Part 2)

ST05 – SAP trace, what seconds?

Why you trying to figure out what database access takes too much time; you can you transaction ST05 called Performance Analyses tool. On Display Trace screen there is information about runtime of the individual SQL statements in microseconds. Since this is not mentioned nowhere in this transaction it may lead to doubts in what seconds is this information stored. So do not get confused it is in microseconds.

BTW: 1 microsecond = 1.0 × 10E-6 seconds :-)

SAP system behavior while debugging

In one of my previous posts I stated several possibilities how to start ABAP debugger tool. Here comes some debugging specialties discussed.

Debugging is often activity of skilled users or key users and I don’t know a lot of consultants who can avoid usage of debugging as well. Several possibilities are in place: remote debugging; tRFC/ /qRFC/bgRFC debugging; HTTP/external debugging etc. Normally we debug while logged in SAP GUI in SAP system. Basically you can switch processing of any transaction or report to debug mode via entering /h code to transaction field of SAP GUI. There are some other possibilities how to enter debug mode for e.g. job – this is possible via TA SM37 -> menu Job -> “Capture: active job” etc. SAP system based on NetWeaver ABAP stack application server has special functionality dedicated to debugging. A work process which is processing your task is set into a DEBUG mode. Debugging in general does requesting a huge memory consumption and system resources as well. This means that system is moving data to its extended memory in PRIV mode. In this mode normal request being processed by other work processes are located in local memory instead of extended. Extended memory is occupied by data for debugging user exclusively. However this cannot persist in system for a long time. So since you are not active in debugging session for some time system is canceling whole debugging with following messages:

Transaction from "PRIV" session reset after timeout (Message no. 14048)

Transaction from "DEBUG" mode (after timeout) reset (Message no. 14056)

From basis point of view for production system there should not be a necessity to adjust profile parameters in order to allow debugging for a long time and for a so much users. If you wish to avoid this message anyway or you want to make debugging more comfortable on development or test system you need to consider following profile parameters:

• rdisp/max_priv_time # Standard value: 600
• rdisp/wppriv_max_no # Standard value: MAX(1, Anzahl Dialog-WPs)
• rdisp/max_debug_lazy_time # Standard value: 600

Other very common obstacle is that there is not debugging possible at the moment; you can experience it while a system is issuing message like:

You cannot debug ABAP programs at this time

While there are a few more users doing debugging in system other than you; you can experience following message:

Max. number of debugging mode users reached (Message no. 14111)

In this case you need to check out entry in table T000-CCATEGORY. This field is describing a role of client that you are logged in. If there is a value of P it is a production system/client. In such a clients number of work processes that can change to debug mode is limited to half of the DIALOG processes in system. Therefore setup number of dialog processes accordingly.

If system is running out of memory and it cannot allocate enough memory for data processes in your transaction you may get message like:

Memory low. Leave the transaction before taking a break!

From user’s point of view you really need to at least restart transaction or better to log off and on to system. Basis team would need to re-setup a dialog timeout and/or work process timeout of profile parameters, memory parameters, increase physical of machine, etc.

BTW: Notice that ABAP debugger is completely written in C programming language and not in ABAP. On other world of JAVA stack – in NetWeaver Developer Studio debugging is completely different but this is another story…

Starting up ABAP debugger

There are following different option of starting ABAP debugger via transaction field (also known as ok-codes or command fields) of SAP GUI:

 

• "/h"               a very common way, it start ABAP and classic dynpro debugging

 

• "/hs"             starts ABAP, system and dynpro debugging

 

• "/ha"             starts ABAP Debugging only

 

• "/hx"             end of debugging

 

• "/hmusa"      creates memory snapshot

 

• jdbg              in TA SM37 restart of a finished or crashed background job for debugging

 

• /ron              start ABAP Runtime Analysis measurement (transaction SE30)

 

• /roff              stop ABAP Runtime Analysis measurement (transaction SE30)
•  
• /$st              Switch on and off Memory Consumption Display (it ia available in menu "System -> Utilities -> Resource Usage"

 

 

A letter "h" in command like /h /hs /ha /hx comes from a word "hoppeln" which is German word that means something like lollop.

 

Other posts related to transaction field of SAP GUI:

Resetting buffers: t-codes $*

Not very known transaction codes for lists

 

Other posts on ABAP debugger topic:

Remote ABAP Debugging and more

Starting up ABAP debugger

SAP system behavior while debugging

Endless loops in ABAP

Debugging of BW IP's planning functions

Debugging of BEx's text variables

BW370 training

I’ve recently attended SAP’s BW370 training. It is Integrated Planning training. Just briefly in general by planning we understood BW application that allows users to enter data in BW system. SAP BW/BI platform provides several planning tools in that matter:

1. BW-BPS (Business Planning and Simulation, formerly know as SEM-BPS Strategic Enterprise Management) – it was a solution provided strategic planning capabilities for management.

It had 5 components:

• SEM-BPS (Business Planning and Simulation)


• SEM-SRM (Stakeholder Relationship Management)


• SEM-CPM (Corporate Performance Monitor)


• BIC (Business Information Collection)


• SEM-BCS (Business Consolidation)

From BI point of view BW-BPS was moved from SAP SEM to SAP BI within SAP NetWeaver ’04, but SAP is still offering SAP SEM as part of mySAP Financials which means part of mySAP ERP).

Difference between SEM-BPS and BW-BPS is no quite significant, they are mostly same. However some financial planning functions (like offsetting entry, accumulated balances, depreciation, net present value, internal rate of return, time lag, valuation, allocation, rounding, and account-based currency translation) remain with SEM-BPS. Only available in BW-BPS are following function: formula extensions (FoX formulas) and ABAP. Some other functionality like Status and Tracking System (STS) have been enhanced in BW-BPS only. Target for SAP is combine functions of both in BI-IP.

2. BI-IP (Integrated Planning) a solution that is completely integrated into the BI system and it is based on JAVA Stack of NetWeaver.

Both solutions (BPS & IP) can be used in parallel just SAP recommends IP for new development and BPS for enhancement of existing solution based on it.

Major differences between BPS & IP:

- For developing of data models, planning scenarios etc there is a new tool called Planning Modeler.

- Instead of Web Interface Builder in BPS “BEx Query/(Web Application) Designer (called all together as Business Explorer Suite, a tool Visual Composer is used for developing of BI cockpit, dashboards..)” is used for input-query development.

- BPS Planning objects like Planning area, Planning level, Planning package, Parameter Group in IP there are following objects: Aggregation level, Filter, Planning functions, Planning sequence.

For further details refer to online docu.

It will be interesting how all this tools plus tools coming from acquisition of OutlookSoft; SAP tackles into their solutions.

Further checking of broken BEx queries

From time to time it is usual that there is an error of query while checking it (button Check Query in toolbar) in BEx Query Designer. This function is checking the query definition for errors. It is the same whenever you use Quit or Use Query function system is doing same check function automatically.

If there is an error like:

Unable to generate query XYZ without errors

Message no. BRAIN125

You need to check ABAP report which is behind your broken query. Query has a ABAPs called like GP* (GP means Generated Program) followed by some hash string e.g. GP44ZX6QULYHYDO4R27HWIHRIQ8. Once there is an error system copies GP* to ABAP report called RSR_BAD_CODING. Afterwards you need to investigate this ABAP report. You can use transaction SE38 (ABAP Editor) for that. Once you reach this transaction hit Display button to display source code of report. Then check syntax of report by Check button on toolbar (CTRL+F2). This functionality tells you exactly the line of report there error is. Using the type of syntax error returned you need to realize if you need to adjust your query back in BEx Query Designer or you can apply an SAP Note to correct this problem. 


This story continues in second part here: Further checking of broken BEx queries 2

No clue between: mySAP BS, ERP, ECC, BBD, A1S, AIO, SBO?

Here are some key differences between several SAP’s solutions:

1. SAP Bussiness Suite (former mySAP Business Suite (BS)) is a new platform of former SAP flagship system SAP R/3. This system covers needs of big enterprises of diverse industries in variety of managing. Speaking in marketing language it is a suite of adaptable business solution for optimization of key business processes. mySAP BS is built on NetWeaver platform and is integrated to other SAP/non SAP solutions. This product fits to horizontal enterprise’s solution. Following see mySAP BS applications (former term in R/3 terminology was module and in terms of mySAP.com there was a term called component):

CRM - Customer Relationship Management

ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning covers core business software requirements like:

Financials (FI), Human Capital anagement Resources (HCM, former HR module of R/3), etc. ERP is basically successor of what we know as SAP R/3. ERP consists of ERP Central Component (ECC) and its EnHancement Packages (EHP).

PLM – Product Lifecycle Management

SCM - Supply Chain Management

SRM - Supplier Relationship Management

Some renaming within mySAP BS/ERP applications occurs as follows:

Old name:                                             New name:

mySAP ERP                              ->          SAP ERP

mySAP ERP 2005                      ->          SAP ERP 6.0

mySAP ERP Financials                ->          SAP ERP Financials

mySAP ERP HCM                       ->          SAP ERP HCM

mySAP ERP Operations               ->          SAP ERP Operations

mySAP ERP Corporate Services    ->          SAP ERP Corporate Services

For more information see official SAP BS pages.

2. Business ByDesign (BBD) is former SAP All-in-One (A1S) product. It is kind of software as service (SaaS) product. SAP trying to pursuit fast growing market while customers is subscribing for this software according real needs. BBD is hosted by SAP by providing technology infrastructure and services. It is targeting middle size companies. For more information see my previous posts on BBD topic or official SAP pages.

3. SAP Business All-in-One (AIO) is targeting small enterprises (SME or SMB). Solution is surrounded by 60 best practices (sometimes called baseline packages) available for SAP partners to build products on top of them. Other bundled staff is configuration tools, accelerators, product documentation and pre-sales demonstration scripts. It can be considered that AIO is SAP Business Suite (see point no.1 - above) delivered with preconfigured content for industry specific areas. SAP Business All-in-One includes:

Enterprise resource planning (ERP)

Customer relationship management (CRM)

Business analytics

SAP Best Practices

SAP NetWeaver technology platform

For more information see official SAP Business All-in-One pages.

4. SAP Business One (SBO) is solution for small enterprises (SME or SMB) market built from scratch on MS Windows platform. It has following functional areas:

Financials

Sales opportunity management

Sales – A/R

Purchasing – A/P

Business partner management

Banking

Inventory

Production

Material requirements planning (MRP)

Service management

Human resources management

Reporting

For more information see official SAP SME pages.

-  update 22/01/2010 -
Here’s picture with SAP software portfolio approximately as of year 2008: