Enhanced Google Analytics in SAP Portal


If you happened to follow my post on integrating Google Analytics with SAP Portal, and attempted to implement it, you may have found some challenges with the reports. More specifically:

  • If you're using the Light Framework (or derivation), all of your URLs are unreadable. They don't describe what is going on in the page since the Portal uses GUIDs as a URL parameter to gather the appropriate page.
  • If you're using the Default Framework (or derivation), you only show hits on your entry point. Which is great for gathering browser information, but not so much for following user activity.
  • In order to resolve this problem, you decide to add the Analytics iView to other pages in your Portal. Now all of your URLs are really unreadable. In fact, you will find that you receive multiple URLs for the same page, where the only difference is the windowID in the query string. This makes the data flat out unusable.

So, what to do?

There is a single fix that resolves both issues. The fix involves asking Portal where in the Navigation Tree you are. First, add in some imports to your code:

  1. import com.sapportals.portal.navigation.INavigationNode;
  2. import com.sapportals.portal.navigation.NavigationEventsHelperService;
  3. import com.sapportals.portal.prt.runtime.PortalRuntime;
  4. import com.sapportals.portal.prt.pom.IEvent;
import com.sapportals.portal.navigation.INavigationNode;
import com.sapportals.portal.navigation.NavigationEventsHelperService;
import com.sapportals.portal.prt.runtime.PortalRuntime;
import com.sapportals.portal.prt.pom.IEvent;



In order to use these, you'll need to get the following JARs and import them into your project:

  • com.sap.portal.navigation.api_service_api.jar
  • com.sap.portal.navigation.helperservice_api.jar
  • com.sap.portal.navigation.helperservice_core.jar

One of the methods you can override in an AbstractPortalComponent is doOnNodeReady(). This method is called once the PortalNode has been constructed. At this point, the node can ask the Portal for information. The method is implemented as follows:

  1. protected void doOnNodeReady(IPortalComponentRequest request,IEvent arg1) {
  2. // Get the service to access the Navigation information
  3. NavigationEventsHelperService helperService =(NavigationEventsHelperService) PortalRuntime.getRuntimeResources().getService("com.sap.portal.navigation.helperservice.navigation_events_helper");
  4. // Get your current location in the navigation tree
  5. INavigationNode navTargetNode = helperService.getCurrentLaunchNavNode(request);
  6. StringBuffer fullPath = new StringBuffer(navTargetNode.getTitle(Locale.ENGLISH));
  7. // After stashing the title of the node, get the node's parent and loop
  8. // until you've reached the top node. Stash each parent's name and build
  9. // a navigation "path" for use later.
  10. INavigationNode aParent = helperService.getParentNode(navTargetNode, request);
  11. while (aParent != null && !aParent.getTitle(Locale.ENGLISH).equals("")) {
  12. fullPath.insert(0, aParent.getTitle(Locale.ENGLISH) + "/");
  13. aParent = helperService.getParentNode(aParent, request);
  14. }
  15. // store the path in a member variable that can be used inside doContent()
  16. pageTitle = fullPath.toString();
  17. }
    
protected void doOnNodeReady(IPortalComponentRequest request,IEvent arg1) {
// Get the service to access the Navigation information
NavigationEventsHelperService helperService =(NavigationEventsHelperService) PortalRuntime.getRuntimeResources().getService("com.sap.portal.navigation.helperservice.navigation_events_helper");
// Get your current location in the navigation tree
INavigationNode navTargetNode = helperService.getCurrentLaunchNavNode(request);
StringBuffer fullPath = new StringBuffer(navTargetNode.getTitle(Locale.ENGLISH));
// After stashing the title of the node, get the node's parent and loop
// until you've reached the top node. Stash each parent's name and build
// a navigation "path" for use later.
INavigationNode aParent = helperService.getParentNode(navTargetNode, request);
while (aParent != null && !aParent.getTitle(Locale.ENGLISH).equals("")) {
fullPath.insert(0, aParent.getTitle(Locale.ENGLISH) + "/");
aParent = helperService.getParentNode(aParent, request);
}
// store the path in a member variable that can be used inside doContent()
pageTitle = fullPath.toString();
}


Once you've created this path, you can then use it to track the page properly. Inside ga-split-2.js, you should remove the final line which calls pageTracker._trackPageview() Instead, you'll create a set of response.write() calls to use the pageTitle object and write a new snippet of code on each specific page.

How to use the enhancements:

If you're in the light framework, it will just work. You can keep the code at the framework level and it will work on every page in the portal. If you're in the default framework, you'll need to add the code to each page that you want to track. You may want to remove the code from the framework and just track pages. The resulting reports will be far more readable and much better for your business users and portal sponsors who would likely be consuming the data (and pretty graphs) that Google Analytics provides.

Updating Javascript in SAP Portal




Be sure that if you're updating a Javascript file that you take the time to update the version of the file. SAP Portal does this using a query string like construct after the javascript file for its OOTB components.

You can do a similar construct for your files by simply embedding a version into the file name. Following the previous GA example, you can simply update the file name to be ga-split-2.0.1.js

Of course, the next step is to update the PortalComponent to pull in the correct version of the file.

So why do you need to do this? Depending upon how your Portal and Load Balancers are setup with caching and expires headers, you won't push the correct version of the javascript file to the browser unless you update the file name! Why? It's common practice to set Expires headers in the far future and set the browser to cache the javascript file. If your setup is doing that, then any changes you make the the original JS file will not be pulled in unless your users happened to clear their browser cache. Since the chance of your entire user community pulling that off is miniscule, the only way to force them to get the new version of the file is to update the file name!

Also, be sure you head over and look at what Spyvee did to inspire these posts over at NetweaverCentral.

SAP FINAL EXAM


1. You are a Sales Representative for Motor Sports International and work out of the New York Sales office, You sell motor cycles and accessories mainly to retail dealers.

2. You have just located a new potential customer. This customer will be 1342-XX. Use your own names and location for this dealer or make one up. Your new customer had annual sales of about 1,500,000 dollars last year and has 25 employees. The customer is expected to pay either by check or wire transfer from bank key number 234567890 account [make up a five digit number].

3. The unloading point is at 300 Jefferson Ave.

4. The account will be carried as a domestic trade receivable. Payment will due immediately at time of billing for the net amount. Payment history is kept on all accounts and it is expected that monies received will be available in 2 days. Dunning procedure number 1 will be used on this type of account.

5. This customer will have thehighest delivery priority, shipping condition 30 and will normally be serviced from plant 3000. Incoterms are FOB New York. Billings are assigned to domestic revenues for accounting purposes. Sales to this customer are exempt from sales taxes. This customer desires to place an order for the following items:

Model

Material Number

quantity

350cc Dirt slinger [yellow]

1400-510-01

10

350cc Dirt slinger [purple]

1400-510-02

10

350cc Dirt slinrter [white]

1400-510-03

10

6. Record the Order number for later use _____________________.

7. Now assume you are the shipping supervisor preparing to ship to your customer. Create a Deliver for this shipment and record the number_____________________.

8. Pick the order from the warehouse, load it on the carrier, and post goods issued.

9. Prepare the bill from the Accounts Receivable department and record the document number ___________.

10. Check the accounts receivable account for this customer to find the open item.

11. Receive the payment from the customer and clear the open item.

12. Check the accounts receivable and identify the cleared item.

SAP Cross Functionalities


Unit: Cross Functionalities
Topic: Serial Number Management

2-1 You have some technical items that are managed with serial numbers.

2-1-1 Create a new item, T1006 (Treadmill) that is managed with a serial number. The definition of serial numbers has to be carried out with posting goods receipts and goods issues. The price of the item is 100.

2-1-2 You order the new item, T1006, from a new vendor, S1020 TechnicProfi. Create the business partner master record out of the purchase order and enter the data. After you have saved your business partner master record, you can continue to process the document. Order 50 units.

2-1-3 Create a delivery with reference to the purchase order. You assign manually a serial number in addition to the internal one. This is a combination of the vendor number, month and year followed by a number sequence in ascending order (S1020/month/year-1, -2, and so on.). How many serial numbers has the system created for your delivery? ___________________________

Explain why you can not freely distribute the quantities? _________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

2-2 You discover that one of the items T1006 is defective and decide to scrap it. Post a miscellaneous goods issue of one unit with serial number 10. Then display the report for the serial number transactions.

My SAP SD Certification tips


Keep following things in mind when preparing for the exam:

1. Prepare as per the weightage per topics given in the syllabus.

2. Be very confident on sure shot questions from the topics like:
All determination rules - plant, material, pricing procedure, picking location, route, shipping point, tax, item category, account
determination etc. One question on effect of PGI.
35 to 40 % questions will come from control tables like sales doc types, item category , copy control , delivery doc. , del. Item cat. , billing docs , schedule lines etc .

So try and mug up all the imp. Control fields .Your preparation level should be such that once you close your eye and think of TAN or OR you should be able to see all the fields in your mind .

These above, are sure to shot and you cannot afford to do mistakes in this sections.

3. Go through the screens, transaction level screens like sales order, delivery, billing, delivery list, billing due list, even standard reports etc. and check what is possible and what is not possible at each docs. What is defined at header and what is at item Go through the menu path of each docs and check what all is possible and from where it is coming. For example packing proposal and account determination analysis is possible at sales order.

4. Go through all the masters like customer, cust- material, material, > condition records for price, output, etc. Check what is defined at what level, what all is possible etc.

5. Check entire IMG - SD related, it will help you to understand what is defined at what level etc.

6. In exam be very careful with the sap English, particularly with the words like can, only, always, except. Read question very carefully. Sap statements in the exam will be always confusing, so think logically and holistically before exam.

7. Don't take any chance in preparation but always sticks to core basics, they will not ask configuration, but they will ask you what is possible and what is not and where it is defined.

8. Last but not least have confidence, how much a guy who have studied for 5 weeks is suppose to know that standard will be asked . Prepare well you will definitely succeed.

Answers for SAP SD Certification Sample Questions


Question: Cutover strategy
Q: Please explain cut over strategy procedure? Will the system golive 100% at the same time and cut the legacy system or will it be like 20% first day and 50% next day like that ?

A: Cutover strategy depends upon how the organizations design their data load strategies. Normally, you decide the sequence of Data loads for Configuration settings, Master data, Transaction data which follows whom and then you make a copy of the system as a Production system a day before and after checking the successful data loads, you go-live 100% or partial again depending upon organizational setup and policies.

SAP SD Sample Certification Questions in Sales Order Processing


To take the SAP SD certification, contact your local or regional SAP Education training center at this url :

http://www.sap.com/services/education/index.epx

Caution: more than one answer may be correct.
Please mark ALL correct answers.

Question:
Which statements concerning goods issue are true?

A Goods issue reduces requirements in materials planning
B Goods issue posts value changes to the stock account in inventory accounting
C Goods issue posts value changes to the stock account in asset accounting
D Goods issue posts value changes to the tax account
E Goods issue reduces warehouse stocks

Question:
Which of the following statements about billing are correct?

A. Invoice dates for creating invoices at certain times are maintained in the calendar.
B. You cannot carry out pricing again during billing.
C. A transaction-specific requirement, such as "deliveries must be combined in a collective invoice" can be set to control
billing.
D. If there are several payers for one delivery, only one billing document is created for each player.

Question:
How is the schedule line determined?

A. Item category and document type
B. Item category group and strategy group on the material master record
C. Item category and MRP type on the material master record
D. MRP Type and shipping point

Question:
When processing a billing due list, you have the following options:

A. The invoicing run can be started as a simulation run.
B. For performance reasons, the invoicing run via billing due list processing can only be carried out in batch.
C. The invoice run can be carried out for delivery-related and order-related billing documents simultaneously.
D. Order-related billing documents and delivery-related billing documents must always be created separately.

Question:
How does the SAP system enable you to check the reason for documents not being combined in a billing document?

A. Using the Spilt analysis function in the environment menu of the billing document.
B. Control of the document flow.
C. Control of the billing log.

Question:
How is the schedule line determined?

A. Item category and document type.
B. Item category group and strategy group on the material master record.
C. Item category and MRP type on the material master record.
D. MRP Type and shipping point.

SD Questions on Corporate Structure


In R/3 you can represent a company's structure by defining and assigning corporate structure elements. What is the purpose of doing that?

Enterprise organization diagram. Chart showing the organizational structure of an enterprise, its organization units and how they are related. A combined structure can be created from the point of view of accounting, MM, SD. This structure forms a framework in which all business transactions can be processed.

Which three organizational elements make up a sales area and briefly explain their function?

Sales organization: An organizational unit that sells and distributes products, negotiates terms of sale, and is responsible for these transactions.

Distribution channel: Channel through which salable materials or services reach customers. Typical distribution channels include wholesale, retail and direct sales. You can assign a distribution channel to one or more sales organizations.

Division: Product groups can be defined for a wide-ranging spectrum of products. For every division you can make customer-specific agreements on, for example, partial deliveries, pricing and terms of payment. Within a division you can carry out statistical analyses or set up separate marketing.

Name the three internal organizational elements within a sales organization and briefly explain their function.

Sales Office. Geographical aspects of the organization in business development and sales are defined using the term sales office. A sales office can be considered as a subsidiary.

Sales offices are assigned to sales areas. If you enter a sales order for a sales office within a certain sales area, the sales office must be assigned to that area.

Sales Group. The staff of a sales office may be subdivided into sales groups. For example, sales groups can be defined for individual divisions.

Salespersons. Individual personnel master records are used to manage data about salespersons. You can assign a sales person to a sales group in the personnel master record.

What does the term "business area" refer to and how can it be used?

Business Area. The system posts costs and revenue according to the business area. The business area can be equivalent to the:
- sales area (if the accounts are to be posted according to sales)
- plant/division (if the accounts are to be posted according to products)

The business area is defined in Customizing for Sales.

o Business area. A unit in an enterprise, grouping product and market combinations as homogeneously as possible for the purpose of developing unified business policy.

o Financial Accounting (FI). A business area is an organizational unit within financial accounting which represents a separate area of operations or responsibilities within an organization. Financial accounting transactions can be allocated to a specific business area.

Briefly explain the relationship between sales organizations and company codes.

Many to One.

What is the central organizational element in purchasing?

Purchasing Organization.

Explain the relationship between sales organizations and plants.

Many to Many.

Explain the relationship between sales organizations, plants and company codes.

Many to Many to One.

Can one business area be assigned to several company codes? Which (sub) module of SAP could make business areas obsolete?

Yes in CO .

What is a credit control area? What relationship exists between credit control areas and company codes?

Credit control area. Organizational unit in an organization that specifies and checks credit limits for customers. A credit control area can include one or more company codes. It is not possible to assign a company code to more than one credit control areas.

Which organizational element is central in shipping? Give a definition of it.

Shipping Point: Organizational unit at a fixed location that carries out shipping activities. A shipping point could, for example, be a company's mail department or a plant's rail depot. Each delivery is processed by only one shipping point.

Give a definition of plant (in SAP).

Organizational unit within Logistics, serving to subdivide an enterprise according to production, procurement, maintenance, and materials planning aspects.

A plant is a place where either materials are produced or goods and services provided.

Classification: Business object

Structure: A plant can assume a variety of roles:

As a maintenance plant, it includes the maintenance objects that are spatially located within this plant. The maintenance tasks that are to be performed are specified within a maintenance planning plant.

As a retail or wholesale site, it makes merchandise available for distribution and sale.

As a rule, the plant is the organizational unit for material valuation.

The preferred shipping point for a plant is defined as the default shipping point, which depends on the shipping condition and the loading condition.

For the placement of materials in storage (stock put-away), a storage location is assigned to a plant. The storage location depends on the storage condition and the stock placement situation.

The business area that is responsible for a valuation area is determined as a function of the division. As a rule, a valuation area corresponds to a plant.

Can you assign two different sales organization to the same company code?

Yes.

To what do you assign distribution channels and divisions?

Sales Organizations.

What are the highest organizational units in SD, MM.PP,FI,CO?

SD: Sales Organizations.
M: Plant
PP: Plant
FI: Company Code
CO: Controlling Area

Can you further subdivide a plant? If yes into what?

A plant can be subdivided into storage locations, allowing stocks of materials to be broken down according to predefined criteria (e.g., location and materials planning aspects).

A plant can be subdivided into locations and operational areas. Subdivision into locations takes geographical criteria into account, whereas subdivision into operational areas reflects responsibilities for production.

Can a sales organization sell from a plant belonging to a different company code?

Yes.

How many shipping points can you assign to a plant?

Many.

How many shipping points can you assign to a sales organization?

None.

If you have a warehouse management system active, to what would you assign the warehouse number?

Plant & Storage Location.

Short SAP SD Questions 2

1. What is change request and task? What was your task no.? I need an example or a task no. that is being
used in your project to clear few things in my mind?

The Change Request is that request when you do some thing new in customizing or configuration in the system. The system will automatically pop with the change request pop box , when you can give request name as defined by the system or can give your own request name with heading of what changes you have made while customization. The system will generate a request number and you save it. (e.g.:- VEDK-2785467) VEDK- means the Clients System name then followed by the system generated request number.

Now when you want to release the request you have to use the T-code SE10 where you can see the requests under the heading modifiable or released. Go to the modifiable option. Each request will have again an internal request number. First you have to release the internal request and then release the external request number. This will in turn released by the basis guys thru the T-code SM64 in a group when all the requests are pooled from different users.

The task which you have mentioned in your question is nothing but the what task you have performed while customizing the client system and the heading name which have given it for that task and generated a request for that task.

2. What is your client Number in the project? Like how we have 800 for IDES?

Generally like IDES client, when you are in the project, the client is also given a number called client number. So while implementing a project The entire implementation is done under phases and in different Client no Servers.

e.g.:-take a company called ABC which is implementing SAP.
So the Client is given a number in the following manner by the SAP Implementers at the site

291- Sand Box server (Initial Testing scenarios Server)
292- Development Sever (With client data of minimum 15 days transactions)
294- Testing Server (the scenarios developed in development server is tested here)
295- Golden Master Server (Quality cum Testing Server) - checked finally before transferring to production server
296- Production Server (where the clients live data is stored and daily business transactions are done)

3. Few client requirements for customer master, material master, Organization and Transactions.

The client requirements may be in the form of customized reports and queries which are supposed to be suited according to their business process. Generally the requirements would be coming from the BPO's (Business Process Owners) who will deputed for each module e.g.:- SD, PP QM FI) by the client as they would be expert in their areas and module who under the business processes as they clients Project Team members. They are whole and sole responsible to get the implementation done and meet the requirements raised by them and the other users from the client’s side.

Generally before starting the implementation the entire organization structure and the organizational elements are freezed and a skeleton structure is prepared and then along with BPO's requirements the system is 1st configured and then the customization is started to suit the Clients specified requirements.

Now as far as the transactions are concerned not all the users are allowed to run all the transactions. Here the user roles are defined as per the BPO's (i.e., the user is given authorization only to run certain transactions depending on the levels and stages in his area of specialization like in SD module the entry level user is only allowed to enter the data like creation of Sales orders or delivery and billing and the next level is give the authorization for changes to be made for that same data that is entered by the entry level users. The next higher level -Supervisor is given a few more transaction authorization which will be above these mentioned users)

Here the reports are segregated like Higher Management Reports, Middle Management Reports where by again authorization is given those heads(Head of the Depts. or the Plants heads or GM etc.,) to run certain transactions which allow to view reports that are needed daily by the management.

SAP SD Tips by : Moyin

4. How to restrict users for not changing some fields in T-code va02?

There are two ways to do this:
- Make a transaction variant thru SHD0 and assign it to your sales doc. While creating the variant you can place non-changeability ticks on specific fields. Next allow those users only to work with your transaction variant but not with the original transaction.
- You could make use of user-exit FORM USEREXIT_FIELD_MODIFICATION in include MV45AFZZ (via authorization objects, which you can assign in role customizing).
The latter is more flexible but it is not feasible if you want to place restrictions to a large amount of fields. *-- Sabir

5. How can we delete the Sales Orders?
How can an invoices be cancelled or deleted?

You can very well delete sales order using transaction VA02, but with a constraint that no subsequent document is created against it.

Invoice can be cancelled using T cose VF11 and then you can reverse the Goods Issue using VL09 and making the picking quantity zero in the deivery document and delete the delivery order using VL02n . You can then delete the sales order then.
*-- Vaibhav

You cannot delete an Invoice. You can only cancel it with (VF11) if the relevant accounting document is not been generated. Ask your FI guy to reverse the accounting doc. Only after the accounting doc is reversed and/or deleted, you can cancel your invoice. You also need to check if any TAX documents are generated with your Invoice. You need to reverse/delete those documents also.

Short SAP SD Questions


1. How can we know whether the customer is one-time or regular?

One can maintain Account Group for One-time customers. By which we can identify one-time customers.

2. What happens when you do not enter a value for a manual and mandatory condition type?

The pricing procedure will reject the conditions in the sales order

3. Do header condition type have an access sequence?

No

4. Org structure:
Relation between Company - Sales org
One-to-Many
Sales Org - Plants & company vs. Plants

Company - sales org - credit control area

What are sales area and its components?

Sales area consists of Sales Organisation, Distribution Channel and Division.

5. What are legacy systems?

The Existing system on which current system is working, from which the current system will be migrated to SAP system

6. What is cut over strategy?

Cutover strategy depends upon how the organizations design their data load strategies. Normally, you decide the sequence of Data loads for Configuration settings, Master data, Transaction data which follows whom and then you make a copy of the system as a Production system a day before and after checking the successful data loads, you go-live 100% or partial again depending upon organizational setup and policies.

Cutover planning is highly site specific. There's no thumb rule. The stock data as on the date of going live should be correctly entered. But stock being a highly dynamic quantity, the strategy for loading should be crystal clear. Then you have to load all the back dated transaction on the stock. Some stock comes into your plant/storage location as return and some stock is actually delivered to your customer through sales orders of various kinds.

7. What are Cumulative Condition Records?

There is a field:- "condition update" during configuration for a condition type (at v/06)... has it anything to do with cumulative condn. Records?

8. IF you have 3 different access sequences for one condition record then in a pricing procedure in what hierarchy will you maintain the three accesses?

In Condition Records (T Code VK11), you would be putting values to corresponding Condition Types. Now one Condition Type can be assigned to one access sequence. In Access Sequence, you can assign whichever tables and fields are required.
So in my opinion, you cannot have one condition record for 3 access sequences.

9. What happens in the access sequence when you put all the ticks in the exclusive field?

When you put tick in exclusive field of all access sequences, in my opinion, it will try to get available data from the first. Only in case, data is not available, will it move on to the next one.

10. What is meant by delivery group?

Delivery Group is basically grouping all individual deliveries for Billing. It should have the same Ship to Party, Shipping Point, etc.

SAP SD Tips by : Moyin

11. What triggers the automatic creation of PR or PO in case of third party sales?

In item category we can set "automatic PO" so that PO and PR will automatically generate after saving the order.

You never change the item category configuration to "automatic PO". It is the schedule line category type which triggers the automatic PR creation. - Evilboy

12. What are the steps that are required to include sales person as a partner function in the partner determination?

Partner function sales represenative or person responsible these two we can add through partner funtion in partner procedure.

13. What is z transaction?

We copied standard TC or object and rename it by Z its basically stnd name which will start from Z (User defined)

14. Can you create sales order for 40 items if the quotation is sent for 30 items?

Yes.

15. What is the importance of requirment field in access sequence?

System will not go to asscess condition type system will reply through formula.

16. What makes the immediate delivery in cash sales?

Order type immediate delivery switch on.

Rebate Agreement


1. Which agreement type I should consider, is this custmer rebate(0003), material rebate(0002) or Rebate on the basis of sales volume(0005), because here client is not offering rebate on Sales volume in rupees or dollar. He is only concerned with totat sales in kiloleter(Quantity). As per rebate agreement concern rebate is offered in percentage. Please guide me for my scenario.

If your distributors are fewer (far less than 900 materials) then you should go for only customer rebate.

2. Guide me for conditions types and scale basis for maintaining condition records.

When creating customer rebates (T:VB01) select customer rebate, there you will see a header tab: Conditions , click it add how many customers you want. For each customer you can create scale based conditions (under the heading tab :Scales).

3. Is it necesary to maintain condition record for every material and every customer defining the scale? Because in this scennario client is going for incentives scheme for each material and each customer (distrbutor).

No need to create condition record for every material if you create customer rebate.

Customer Master


How to create the customer master?

The following are the T-codes for central creation of customer master.

XD01 Create Customer (Centrally)
XD02 Change Customer (Centrally)
XD03 Display Customer (Centrally)
XD04 Customer Changes (Centrally)
XD05 Block customer (centrally)
XD06 Mark customer for deletion (centr.)
XD07 Change Customer Account Group
XD99 Customer master mass maintenance
XDN1 Maintain Number Ranges (Customer)

You need to identify various parameters within each Account group based on which the reco account is identified within the customer master.

Customer master is basically divided into 3 tabs.
- General - General master details, Juristiction codes, Region, Transportation zone, export data, etc.
- Company data - payment terms, account management, reco account, insurance etc.
- Sales data - Sales product attributes, sales office, sales group, customer pricing procedure, Cust. Statistical grp,
- Shipping data
- Billing data
- Partner functions.

You can create a customer based on 3 views:
1. For Account purpose
FD01/FD02/FD03 etc
2. Sales purpose
XD01/XD02/XD03 etc.
3. Centrally
VD01/VD02/VD03 etc.

What is the Function of item category and item category group?
Item Category determines the processing of any Item/material that we enter in a sales order and in this way it also effects the procesing of any sales doc in which it is used.

Item Category Group is one of the component which along with the Sales Doc Type, The Item Usage and Higher Level Item Category decide about the Item Category in a sales doc.

Mass Maintenance processing - tcode MASS


Introduction:

Mass maintenance is used to make make mass changes to master data such as materials, vendors, purchase orders, purchase requisitions, etc.

The full list of possible "objects" that can be changed are:
BUS0015 Profit center
BUS1001 Materials (industry)
BUS1001001 Materials (retail)
BUS1133 Rental units
BUS2012 Purchase orders
BUS2032 Sales orders
BUS2104 Appropriation reqs
BUS2105 Purchase requisition
BUS3003 Purchasing info recs
BUS3006 G/L accounts
KNA1 Customers
LFA1 Vendors

It is typically used by support staff to maintain / update master data. If your requirement is to complex for Mass Maintenance, then rather use LSMW, it can do even more -- but is more complex to use.

Summary of how the process works:

Run transaction MASS

  • Select what master data element you want to change

  • Select fields for selection and what will be changed

  • Select master data to be changed

  • Indicate what the new value is

  • Save (Run)

For example: for all materials of type RAW1, make the material group 1012. Lets step through this example to show you how easy it is to use.

Running the transaction

SAP Menu: Logistics > Central Functions > Mass Maintenance > Mass Maintenance > Dialog Processing

Transaction MASS

Select the tables for the selection screen. In our case, material type = MARA.









The materials selected will be listed.Now indicate which field must be change. In our example the material group field.

Enter what the new value (Material Group) must be.

Select the column and copy to all the materials listed below. If you don't want to change all objects -- unselect them at this point

Hit Save -- this will start the action to change the object (material)

A log will be displayed on if it was successful

SAP HR Q & A



Deviating from the question and answers, I would like to highlight a
story from the Indian mythology. A teacher teaching his student
archers asked them all to shoot an arrow at a clay bird perched on the
top of a tree and hit the eye of the bird. All the archers shot at the
bird but only one of them managed to hit the eye of the bird. When the
teacher asked all the student archers what did they see when they shot
the clay bird,some said they saw the bird on a tree,some said they saw
the bird perched on the branch. The archer who shot the bird was
quiet. When he was asked by the teacher as to what he saw , prompt
came his reply “I saw the eye of the bird”.What I am trying to
highlight here is that it is very important for an SAP HR consultant
to understand what the customer requirements are and be focused on
those requirements only.

[edit]PROJECT SCOPING
All projects are time defined based upon agreed business requirements.
Delivering what has been agreed upon is what the consultants need to
focus upon. Do not try to deviate from what is defined unless agreed
upon by the customer and the project team. Save the frills, fancies
and anything extra for the enhancements.SAP projects cost a lot of
money and the estimation is based on work to be done. A project's
success depends on meeting the objectives, goals and requirements for
what the project endeavor was carried out within the defined time
lines. If the project deviates in cost, quality and time , it
indicates that what was defined as required by the customer is not
being met. Deviations to projects makes the project team loose
motivation and interest, disturbes human resource planning for other
projects when they are to be released from the existing projects and
begin work on the other projects. In short it creates a chaos besides
financial losses.Many of us are in consulting and we need to
understand the bottomline- time is money. If your projects make
profit, your company makes profit and you too profit. This should be
your motto.

So remember and drill this in your mind that requirements for an sap
hr project are to meet the company’s goals and objectives in
initiating the project and clearly not what the sap hr user or even
for that matter the sap configurator fancies or wants.The success of
the sap hr project is only when the project sponsor states that it is
a success.

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[edit]QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

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[edit]INFOTYPES
I have decided to answer all the questions directly to begin with now
that you have some fundamentals explained and then go ahead with more
discussions

1.What are info types ?

Infotypes, known as information types are units of human resources
information formed by grouping related data fields together. These are
represented in the sap hr system by a unique 4 digit number eg.
Personal Data (0002), Address (0006) etc. All customer infotypes fall
in the number range from 9000 to 9999. The fields in the infotype
would vary based on the country grouping for eg. if any employee
belongs to country grouping 10 then he would have the SSN no field in
the Personal Data infotype which would not be seen in same infotype
for country grouping 99.

*Infotype no SAP HR sub module

0000-0999 Personal Administration (HR Master Data)
1000-1999 PD Infotypes ( OM etc)
2000-2999 Time Infotypes
4000-4999 Recruitment Infotypes
[edit]PERSONNEL ACTIONS& HIRING ACTION

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2.What are personnel actions? What is the transaction for executing
personnel actions? Personnel Actions are the events of an employee’s
employment history within the organization beginning from hiring an
employee to termination of the employee.Each of these events need
specific information to be captured. This is achieved in sap hr by
grouping together infotypes called as infogroup which appear one after
another in sequence to capture/change information in the infotypes
whenever the personnel action is executed. Personnel Actions are
executed by transaction pa40.

3.What are the important info types for a hiring action? The important
infotypes for executing a hiring action are.

0000- Actions
0001- Organizational Assignment
0002- Personal Data
0003- Payroll Status ( this is automatically maintained by the sap
system and not required to be maintained in the info group for
hiring)
0006-Address
0007-Planned Working Time ( This should always be maintained before
infotype 0008 Basic Pay)
0008- Basic Pay
0009- Bank Details
0016-Contract Elements
0041- Date Specifications
2006- ( For annual leave & sick leave)
Note that it is the hiring action that allows you to assign an
employee to the hr structures.

[edit]IMG & PROJECT IMG

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4.5 & 6 What is IMG? What is its importance? What are the functions
you can execute using IMG? What is customizing? What does customizing
support? How do you create a Project IMG? What are project views?

IMG means the implementation guide. The configurators would customize
the sap hr system as per the customer requirements in the img. In the
img you can create project img’s which limit the customizing nodes to
the requirement of the projects and for each project img you can
create multiple views like MM,SD,HR etc to get more specific. To go to
the implementation guide or img from the sap easy access menu ,you
have to enter transaction spro in the command line.

[edit]ENTERPRISE & PERSONNEL STRUCTURE

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5.What is an enterprise structure?

The enterprise structure is one of the HR structures. The HR
enterprise structure composition depends upon the hr administrative,
time and payroll functions for that company. It comprises the client,
company code, personal area, personnel subarea and the organization
key. The hiring action assign an employee via infotype 0001-
Organizational Assignment to the enterprise structure. The enterprise
structure is the enterprise perspective of an employee.

6.What is a personnel structure?

The organizational personnel structure describes how the employee is
positioned in the organization. This is an individual perspective of
an employee in an organization. It comprises of the employee group,
the employee sub group and the organization plan (org unit, position,
job) for that employee. The hiring action assigns an employee via
infotype 0001- Organizational Assignment to the personnel structure.


7.What is the highest level of the enterprise structure?

The client is the highest level of the enterprise structure.

8.What is company code? Is it defined in HR? If not where is it
defined?

The company code is an organization unit(this is different from the hr
organization unit. Different modules like SD, MM, etc have their own
organization structures with their own organization units) which has
its own balance sheet and profit and loss account and is defined in
the FI module.

9.What are personnel areas and its functions?

Personnel (( Please note the spelling -> its Personnel (group of
people)and not Personal(Individual)) Area is the sub division
(understand these two words) of the company code and can represent a
functional area or geographical location.These play a very important
role in the time and payroll configurations. Each personnel area is
unique to a company code (mark these words) and is represented by a 4
character code.

10.What are personnel sub areas and its functions?

The further divisions (understand this word) of a personnel area are
defined as personnel subareas. The functions are similar to the
personnel area. Each personnel subarea too is unique to a personal
area (mark these words) and is represented by a 4 character code.

Hi everyone, i would be continuing with the answers to the rest of the
questions as an when i get the time and try to keep this going till
completion.

11.How is an employee in the HR Master data linked to a company to
which he belongs?

EMPLOYEE--->PERSONNEL AREA--->COMPANY CODE--->COUNTRY GROUPING--
>CLIENT

12.Can a personnel area be assigned to many company codes?

No. A Personnel Area can be only assigned to one company code. Many
personnel areas can be assigned to the same company code but the vice
versa is not true.

13.What are the indicators defined by personnel sub areas?

The indicators are all personnel sub area groupings for hr, time,
payroll which are very critical to the sap hr implementation. They are
also used tolimit HR authorizations.

14.How do you categorize the employee groups?

Employee groups are categorized based on employee/staff regulations of
work and pay such as

Active
Retiree/Pensioner ….. and so on.
These are also used to limit HR authorizations.

15.What are employee subgroups and what are the indicators set up
using employee subgroups?

Further division of the employee groups are called the employee
subgroups such as under employee group 1-Active you could have
employee subgroups such as AA–Hourly wage earner, AH–Salaried Employee
…. And so on.The indicators are all employee sub area groupings for
hr, time, payroll which are very critical to the sap hr
implementation. They are also used to limit HR authorizations.

16.Employee groups are two character and employee subgroup are two
character representations in the IMG. Do you support this statement?

False. Employee groups are one character and employee subgroups are
two character representations.

17.In the HR Master data where are planned working times for an
employee seen?

IT 0007- Planned Working Time using transaction pa51 – Display time
data

18.Do I need to give country assignment to personnel sub areas in
customizing? If true support the statement and if not what’s true?

No. You do not need to give country assignment to personnel sub areas.
You need to give country assignments to the employee subgroups on
assigning to employee groups in the enterprise structure.

SAP Organizational Management Q and A

1 ) What is the Difference between "Evaluation Paths and relationships "

An evaluation path describes a relationship chain that exist in a hierarchical structure between the objects (eg: O-S-P ). Relationship(1001) is an infotype generally applicable between two objects.

2) How many cost centers can we assign to a org unit ?
Generally we can assign only one cost center. It always refers to parent cost center.

3) What is difference between - Simple maintainence and Expert Mode?
Both the interfaces are used to create Org structure. If the company needs to create a huge structure, we will use Simple maintenance, because it is user friendly that is it is easy to create a structure, the system automatically relationship between the objects. Using Infotypes we can create Objects in Expert mode and we have to use different transactions to create various types of objects.

4) What could be a possible structure of a org unit, exg - if a organisation has branches in 34 countries and head quarters being in london, and having a work center or branch in bangalore, how do we relate sitting in banglaore to London mother company?
This can be done by Enterprise structure that is Personnel Area and Various Personnel Sub areas.

5) How many Company codes can a company can have at a time?
Any number.

6) How can one know if a position is vacant or occupied in a company?
We can identify the vacancy position in IT1007.

7) Can a junior employee report to 4 different supervisors, if yes, how?
There will be only one supervisor for a employee to report. In case of concurrent employement the employee can report to corresponding Administrator.

8) What is the difference between " Job and Position"?
Job is not a concrete, it is General holding various task to perform.(Eg: Manager, GM).
Position is concrete and specific which are occupied by Persons. (Eg: Manager - Hr, GM - Hr).

9) What are the infotypes in OM - Please this is important
From 1000 to 1999.

10) What can a end user do in OM - if he can face a problem where can he face a problem ?? In regular intervals?
Creation of various objects like O,S,P,C,A. Creation of Org Structure.

11) How do you assign a single person for two roles, Can we assign or not?
Roles is the combination of transactions, reports and other files. We can assign any number of roles to a person.

12) How do you report level 4 person to level 1 person?
By creating relationship between the objects.

13) What do you mean my a Task and where do you assign and How?
Task are the work to be peroformed by the employee. We can assign task to job or position which finally inherit to the holder that is employee.

14) What is an Org's assignment and Org'l Plan, what is the diff between them?
Org assig defines the PA,PSA,EE group, EE subgroup, Cost Center, Payroll area all the default assignment of the person.
Org plan is the structure of the Org.

15) How many structures are there in OM?
Be specific, if you want to know the various structures in HR, it is Org Structure, Enterprise Struc., Personnel Structure. If it is OM, We can create Org structure by using Org and Staffing interface, Expert mode, Simple Maintenance. We can create General Structure, Matrix.

16) What do you mean by reporting Structure?
Reporting structure is to view the reporting objects, that is who is reporting to whom.

17) What is the difff between Simple Maintenance and Detailed Maintenance? and which one you used in your project?
As already explained. Usage depends on the Company.

18) What are the buliding blocks in OM and where do you assign them?
There are totally five objects in building blocks of OM, that is O,C,S,P and Cost center. Using relationship we can assign them.

19) What do you mean by work centre and Cost center? Where do you assign them. And how many Cost centres can we assign?
Cost center which controls and maintain the cost relevant activities of the company. It is controlled by FICO peoples. Work centers are the exact work location of the employee where the company doing the daily transactions.

20) How do you transfer Org'l Assignment from PA to PD(Answer for this is a bit diff, try it) you can maintain Org Assign using the IT0001.

21) What are the infotypes you used in OM?
As already explained from 1000 to 1999.

22) What is the Tcode to maintain the Standard roles?
Tcode: PFCG

23) What is the Tcode to Change the Standard roles?
Same Tcode : PFCG

24)What is the Tcode to Manintain the Org'l Plan.
It is depend on the interface you are using that is PPOME,PO10,PPOC_OLD, PP01.

SAP HR Interview Questions - Set 1

Q: We have this problem at work, on the org. side the new jobs are there but when we check in infotype 1 it does not pull through. We've tried doing the updates using the LSMW and also a programme but nothing helped. We've tried to run RHINTE30 but still it does not update infotype 1 record. The PLOGI ORGA switch is on. Where can we check or what can we do to fix this problem

A: Hope that is to facilitate the workflow process.That is if you need the flow either up ward only or downward only. Also it may be useful in ESS, MDT/MSSfor leave and attendance, appraisals, HR info of the employee and updation, etc.,see the switches if it is related to jobs on the switches not only orga textc,texto,texts switch on and try it it will come it wont work out onlywith orga


Q: Where can we see the integrations is switch on, is there a table?

A: Use T77s0 for PLOGI ORGA.


Q: Can u tell me how to find the UGR of an country?

A: To find User Group, Go to System -> User Profile -> > Own Data ->> Parameters -> UGR
IMG > Personnel Management > Personnel Admin > BasicSettings > User Parameters


Q: How can we give abscence quota's for a group of employees.

A: I known that by running the report RPTQTA00 we can give but what are the customizations we have to do in IMG


Q: Creation of wage type

A: See you can create wage type in> PM----PA----Payroll dat----basic> pay----wagetypes---create Wt catalogue./
Wage> type group>
For running a payroll you need to create a payroll areas and that you need to fine with client about his requirement.


Q: I want the T-code of that window where it asks for evaluation path. I want to generate the report in OM.

A: Transaction S_AHR_61016529 or program RHNAVIG0.


Q: How to find the UGR of an country?

A: An UGR would be only to users, as thename indicates is a User Group and is not related to a country.If you want to find the user group of a person, then you can go to:
System->User Profile->Own Data-> Parameters.Here you can find the UGR settings for the user.


Q: Do you want to know the country grouping (molga)

A: Then see "Mol" in *System->User Profile->Own Data-> Parameters screen
If you are looking for Usergroup then See UGR
An UGR would be only to users, as the name indicates is a User Group and is not related to a country.If you want to find the user group of a person, then you can go toSystem->User Profile->Own Data-> Parameters.Here you can find the UGR settings for the user.


Q: I have to create a root organisation unit in Development system. Now I want to transport the changes to Test and production system. The Transport settings in The IMG is 'X' that no transport request should be generated. So, is it advisable to change the settings to blank and then develop the transport request and arrange the settings back to normal once the transport request is generated for PPOCE.

A: If you only need to create one root object, it's simpler to do it manuallly in all three systems. Don't forget to check the range number in all the systems, though.


Q: Or is there any other way to transport the changes made in PPOCE or shall I do that manually in every system. I have to only create a Root organisational unit with same object Id in all the systems.

A: Just find with the basis consultant he will make it for you. Give sugestion becoz generally we release the transport request in dev. server from there the basis consutlant will transport to QAS and production server. There are so many transport request goes to system. So if it get jam. You can tell your basis consultant to restart server. Then it will be clear.


Q: I need to execute one scenario. "Coordinators will try to book one employee for one business event, but on that day he will be on leave", what should be the process incase I need to see that the person is not booked.

A: For checking whether the person is booked or not, go to transaction psv1


Q: Can somebody explain me with examples about the following terms?
- Staffing Status
- Staffing Percent
- Percentage Approved
- Percentage Reserved

A: This is reg your 4 terminologies staffing status is related to "position" in OM as vacancy, or no vacancy or obselete etcstaffing percentage is related to a particular personnel no . Its stored in Relationship table HRP1001. You can understand that some % of working time is spent in specified position.the other 3 terminologies "percentage approved and "percentage reserved" to be explored.


Q: First of all we wanna tell you what we are doing step by step. After logon process, we entered the transaction code PM01 to access "Create InfoType" screen. Then we selected the tab "SingleScrn" to generate new objects into existing infotype. To do this, we entered "0005" as infotype no and "YU" as infotype version for Serbia. And then we just clicked on the button "Generate Objects" which exists right hand side of the screen.We got the error message "HCMT_BSP_PA_YU_R0005 does not exist".

A: IT0005 is a standard IT and already exists, you cannot CREATE it. If you want to create a customer infotype, it has to start with 9*.

SAP HR Interview Questions - Set 2

Q: We are in the service industry and have employees working in multiple cities on the same day. The system seems to allow one taxing authority per day. But the taxing authority needs to be picked up from the Service Order ideally . Can we achieve this?

A: You can create multiple infotypes 0208 (work tax area) for the same employee and the same day. Use the 'allocation percent' field . There is no integration however between time management and the work tax area. You may copy infotype 0208 to IT 9208. Infotype 0208 may be used to store the default work tax area and IT 9208 may be used to store the multiple work tax area. Create IT 9208 based on data from your external time management system.


Q: We use clocking machine for recording employee clock-in/out . All the data is stored in a 'flat' file which is supposed to be uploaded into SAP. When tried to open and read the flat file using OPEN DATASET and READ DATASET commands, the Sy-subrc value returned is 8 and the error message 'the specified file not found' is displayed. We checked the path and the file is in the correct location. What is missing?

A: Check the path once again. Check the upper and lower cases. Define you parameter file name like filename-fileextern. Depending on the place where the flat file resides, the procedure varies. OPEN DATASET is used for upload of file from the host system. If your flat (text) file is on the PC, you can use the function WS_UPLOAD which will upload your text file into an internal table. This internal table data can be loaded into SAP. The syntax is as follows:

CALL FUNCTION 'WS_UPLOAD'
EXPORTING
FILENAME = pcfile
IMPORTING
FILELENGTH = fileleng
TABLES
DATA_TAB = internal table name
Please note that you have to specify the pcfile of length 128.


Q: We want to make a copy of an organizational structure from one plan variant to another. This copy should include all assignments like purchasing groups to organizational units made in PFOM . Can we do this?

A: Make sure that the plan number is established through the IMG. (And that it is not the active plan.)
Go Human Resources -> Organizational Management Tools -> Plan version -> Copy.
It runs RHCOPL00. All or any portion of the plan maybe copied and manipulated and then copied back in to the active plan.


Q: We have a requirement to calculate leave entitlement at the anniversary year not calendar year. The leaves have both paid and unpaid components. The paid component is based on time worked. The unpaid component is based on years of service. Leave taken is reduced from both entitlements depending on employee's request. We are using a Schema based on TM04 which calls Cycles TS15, TS10. What is th ebest way to handle this?

A: You can use field 'DAUER' for seniority based vacation entitlement in the VAC01->VAC99 features. Time worked is not part of the feature structure (PME03). However you may create your own source code to make a decision on any field even if it does not belong to the feature structure. Check feature VAC01.


Q: We have multiple ORGs as we have many subsidiaries of our Parent company. These subsidiaries are defined as ORG and are assigned an ORG-ID. Within each ORG, we have Divisions (e.g. Human Resources, Finance, Materials etc.) and within each division we have Departments (e.g. Payroll, Labor Relations, etc.). We plan to use Personnel Development( PD). What is that we have to consider in this case?

A: You have to consider how the company wants to see its reports while designing the HR organizational structure in PD. You have address the question: for headcount or regulatory reports to which level does the company need to report, to the division, department, group or team level. You have to design the SAP organizational structure to support the lowest level required. Lower the more levels of detail, the more maintenance required.


Q: How can we configure the options for the Assgn Form. No. field on Infotype 210. It is the alternate formula to assign tax field and we have been unable to locate the table in the IMG to edit the options.

A: Options for the BSI Tax Formula can not be configured.
Possible entries are available in BTXFORM, and they depend on the 'tax authority' ( BTXAUTH) and the 'tax type' (BTXTAXT). Use data dictionary to check existing entries. This data comes from BSI. Tax calculations are done in the
BSI programs (via RFC from the USTAX function in the payroll schema).


Q: We are using the US HR/PAYROLL module. We are able to create the entry to credit the accrued payroll account. But our check writing process does not produce any accounting entries when we create a pay check or run our EFT process(RFFOUS_T). Should RFFOUS_C produce an accounting entry to debit the payroll payable account and credit the cash account ?

A: RFFOCUS_C does not produce any accounting entries. During the FI/CO interface run , 559 wage types may be posted to your cash account


Q: We have approximately 10000 zip codes. We want to relate the eligibility group to the zip code. We do not want to create 20000 eligibility groups. Which is the best way to configure basing eligibility for HMO's on zip codes?

A: Try to group the zip codes by the HMO's they belong to. Then create benefit groups and programs for the unique combinations. You can create as many benefit groups as required and use the employee zipcode to select the benefit group the employee is eligible for. You may also look at user exit 2.


Q: We are using the PAI user exit in MP000800 screen 2000 to modify the BET01 field. After modifying the value, the value is not re displayed. However the updated value is saved on commit. Why the value is not displayed after modification?

A: Yes. It is True. You may have to apply OSS.