topic Re: What is ALV and advantages of ALV in Application Development and Automation Discussions

What is ALV and advantages of ALV

Former Member — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 07:46:39 GMT

hi everybody

can anybody tell me

1)What is ALV

2) what are the advantages of ALV over conventional reporting????????

Re: What is ALV and advantages of ALV

Former Member — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 08:04:27 GMT

Hi,

ALV is Application List viewer. Sap provides a set of ALV (ABAP LIST VIEWER) function modules which can be put into use to embellish the output of a report. This set of ALV functions is used to enhance the readability and functionality of any report output. Cases arise in sap when the output of a report contains columns extending more than 255 characters in length. In such cases, this set of ALV functions can help choose selected columns and arrange the different columns from a report output and also save different variants for report display. This is a very efficient tool for dynamically sorting and arranging the columns from a report output. The report output can contain up to 90 columns in the display with the wide array of display options.

advantages.

Collapse multiple reports into one, drastically cutting down your report development time

Save many hours using built-in ALV sorting, subtotaling and filtering capabilities

Add conditional structures into your ALV report: No programming required!

Combine ALV with display variants to meet a wide range of reporting requirements more easily

Dynamically reorder column layouts and add/subtract fields

Enable users and analysts to save their own personalized variants

Regards,

Sruthi

Re: What is ALV and advantages of ALV

TMNielsen — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 09:01:04 GMT

Hi Gaurav

The advantages is many - Shruti mentions some of them.

The keyword is flexibility. In the past I have sometimes programmed more programs that was basically the same report with minor variations - in one case i programmed 10 very similar reports for pp evaluation.

With ALV the users can define their own display variants without changing the program.

The display variant covers sorting, summarizing, filtering, hiding fields. The users can also make variants that show only total lines or subtotal lines or both - and by one click in the report they can expand one total line to display the underlying item lines.

The users can also choose to let the report show directly in excel. This is a very powerful option. You can upload excel templates with predefined formulas and macros. This can make you very popular - especially with Finance people that already have a lot of excel files, they populate with SAP data to make al kind of voodoo calculations that will help them see into the future.

With ALV you can give them an ABAP report that automatic popup with their own favorite excel book - without having to do a lot of troublesome and time consuming work to download the data and fit it into the excel sheet.

If you are new to ALV you can very quick make a simple ALV report. Basically it has 3 steps.

1) build an internal table with the data you want do display

2) build a field catalog table (each record in this table describes one column in the list)

3) call the ALV function

Later you can make use of more complicated functions like call back routines.

You have both functions modules and ABAP OO classes to help you with step 2 and 3. I have used the function modules for many years so its hard for me to change, but if I should start all over today I would forget about the function modules and go for the OO approach.

best regards

Thomas Madsen Nielsen

Re: What is ALV and advantages of ALV

TMNielsen — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 09:07:11 GMT

PS.

I know that some of the functionality I mention can also be obtained with basic ABAP, but then you have to program it.

With ALV its all ready with a powerful uniform user interface.

Best regards

Thomas

Re: What is ALV and advantages of ALV

Former Member — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 09:21:44 GMT

you can go through the tutorials on ALV available at:

http://www.saptechnical.com/Tutorials/ALV/ALVMainPage.htm

Re: What is ALV and advantages of ALV

Former Member — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 09:36:31 GMT

Hi,

advantages.

Collapse multiple reports into one, drastically cutting down your report development time

Save many hours using built-in ALV sorting, subtotaling and filtering capabilities

Add conditional structures into your ALV report: No programming required!

Combine ALV with display variants to meet a wide range of reporting requirements more easily

Dynamically reorder column layouts and add/subtract fields

Enable users and analysts to save their own personalized variants

For abap related programs refer to BCALV*

Please reward if useful.

Re: What is ALV and advantages of ALV

Former Member — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 10:14:51 GMT

thanks dear for your help. now my doubt is cleared

Re: What is ALV and advantages of ALV

Former Member — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 10:19:58 GMT

It is simply another way for displaying the ouput.

Advantages: 1. You can download the output to an excel file from ALV screen

2. User can hide/unhide the coloumns he wishes.

Re: What is ALV and advantages of ALV

Former Member — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 03:35:33 GMT

Thanks everybody my question is answered