Side panel for SAP Business Suite (2) - Adapting S...

former_member197728 · ‎2013 Mar 18

Overview

Adapting SP Content

Building CHIPs

Overview

This blog post is the second part of the SDN series about the Side panel for Business Suite.
For a first overview about the topic please refer to the blog post Side panel for SAP Business Suite - Overview. For a description on how to build a master data and a chart-based CHIP please refer to the blog post Side panel for SAP Business Suite (3) - How to build a master data and a chart-based CHIP?.

This post describes the procedure how to adapt SAP’s Side Panel Content and how to create new Side Panel Content. Therefore the content of this post is the following:

How to adapt SAP’s Side Panel Content?
a) Personalization
b) Customizing
How to create new Side Panel Content?
a) How to tag SAP GUI transactions?
b) How to create new Side Panel Pages?
c) How to assign Side Panel Pages to transactions?

A prerequisite for everything is that you system is set up properly. Detail can be found here: http://help.sap.com/erp2005_ehp_06/helpdata/en/73/d6655577d0421eb022868b4187f5b1/content.htm?framese...

Alternatively you can access this information via the SAP Library for SAP Business Suite on SAP Help Portal at > http://help.sap.com/ > SAP Business Suite > SAP ERP > SAP ERP Central Component > SAP Enhancement Package 6 for SAP ERP 6.0 > Application Help > SAP ERP Cross-Application Functions > SAP ERP Cross-Application Functions > Cross-Application Components > Side Panel for Business Suite > Setting up the Side Panel.

1. How to adapt SAP’s Side Panel Content?

a) Personalization

End users can personalize the side panel according to their personal needs (if they have the authorization for the authorization objects S_PB_CHIP and S_PB_PAGE (with PERS_SCOPE = 1). It is possible to do the following at runtime in SAP NetWeaver Business Client directly in the side panel:

Change the sequence of CHIPs using drag and drop
Add additional CHIPs to a side panel

To do this, proceed as follows:

Choose Personalize Page.
Choose Add CHIP to open the CHIP catalog.
Select a CHIP.
Repeat steps 1 and 2, if you want to add additional CHIPs. You can change the sequence of CHIPs using drag and drop.
Save your changes.

Remove CHIPs from a side panel

To do this, proceed as follows:

Choose Personalize Page.
From the CHIP menu, choose Remove.
Save your changes.

b) Customizing

Administrators can customize the side panel for one client of the SAP system (if they have the authorization for the authorization objects S_WDR_P13N, S_PB_CHIP and S_PB_PAGE (pers_scope = ‘4’)). It is possible to do the following at runtime in SAP NetWeaver Business Client directly in the side panel: In the CHIP menu, you make the following settings in order to change e.g. the fields visible in a master data detail CHIPs or to change the chart type in a reports CHIP or to change the columns shown in the attachment table:

Customize Form
Customize Chart
Customize Table
Customize Link List

More customizing options can be found in the Business Suite Side Panel Documentation.

Example: Adding additional fields to a master data CHIP

At runtime choose “Customize Table” from the CHIP’s menu
Create a new component customizing by pressing on the “New”-Button; enter a description and select a transport request.
In the component customizing you can select via drag & drop additional fields from the field repository and drop them to the Form “UIBB Schema”.
After having done all changes press on “Save”.
The next time when you restart NWBC you will see that the master data CHIP contains the additional fields.

2. How to create new Side Panel Content?

a) How to tag SAP GUI transactions?

By tagging you tell NBWC which screens fields are relevant for the data exchange between the SAP GUI transaction (Web Dynpro application) and the Side Panel.

The tagging of SAP GUI transactions is fairly easy: The standard way for tagging is to use the SAP GUI Property Collector (henceforth referred to as "Alternative 1”) but a dynamic tagging via coding (“Alternative 2”) is in exceptional cases also possible or even necessary.

Alternative 1: Identify UI elements of the SAP GUI transaction with the SAP GUI Property Collector and create tags in the tag table

You can use SAP GUI Property Collector to identify the UI elements in an SAP GUI transaction (a Dynpro screen) and their properties that are to be extracted and passed to the side panel. SAP GUI Property Collector helps you to determine the field IDs that you need to extract the data. Properties are the basis for defining tags. You need to collect the properties that are to be exposed from a SAP GUI transaction and then used in the side panel before you can define tags. The procedure to identify UI elements with the SAP GUI Property Collector is the following:

Start the SAP GUI Property Collector in one of the following ways:
1. Start SAP GUI Property Collector within NWBC by pressing CTRL and simultaneously choosing Help >Tools >SAP GUI Property Collector.
2. Start SAP GUI Property Collector from one of the following installation folders:
  C:\Program Files\SAP\NWBC35\NwbcPropertyCollector.exe
  C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP\NWBC35\NwbcPropertyCollector.exe
Call the SAP GUI transaction in NWBC for Desktop and display the relevant field
In SAP GUI Property Collector choose the relevant session. Each SAP GUI main window is a session. Sessions with disabled scripting are shown in the dropdown list with a comment.
Choose the Select from Screen pushbutton and keep your mouse button pressed while moving your mouse over UI elements in SAP
GUI.
You can choose the Property Viewer pushbutton to view UI elements and the property list in a separate window. For more information, see below.
If the data from SAP GUI is not up-to-date and grayed out, choose Refresh.
You can select the Program Name, Screen, and Long ID checkboxes.
You can use SAP GUI Property Collector to simulate the extraction and check the extracted value in the Value field.
Choose the Add to Collection pushbutton.
You can use asterisks (*) for the Program Name and Screen fields if the same SAP GUI field is used on multiple screens or in multiple programs. For example, you can use 1* for all screens that start with 1 (100, 101, 110, 120, and so on).
Select the lifetime for the property. You have the following options:
1. Transaction
  The data context stays available as long as the current transaction is running in NWBC. This value should be the default value for most of the use cases.
2. Screen
  The data context stays available as long as you do not leave the main screen.
To see which properties are alive, you can select the Show only properties alive in NWBC’s data context checkbox. If you select this checkbox and you start a new transaction, the tool does not show any of the collected values any longer, since they are not alive any longer. The colors in the Value column have the following meaning:
- Green
  The green properties are all currently read from the screen or they are constants (value: prefix in ID). They are alive in the data context.
- Yellow
  The fields are alive in the data context but not on the current screen.
- Black
  The black properties are not alive in the data context.
Select the relevant properties, and choose the Copy to Clipboard pushbutton.

The next step is to create tags within the tag table for all the screen fields which were extracted from the Property Collector in the latest step.

Note that you must always tag all key fields belonging to a business object (according to the BOR definition). For instance, for the BOR object BKPF (Accounting Document) that would be the three fields Company Code, Document Number and Fiscal Year. On the other hand, for the BOR object KNA1(Customer), you only need to tag the customer number (Customer ID).

Maintain the table view NWBC_VC_GUI_TAG within the transaction SM30.
Choose “New Entries”.
Maintain the maintenance view.
1. First paste the content of the clipboard to the table.
2. Provide tags for the screen fields (starting with “/BSSP/:” and maintained in transaction BSSP_TAGS). Simply choose the F4 help to see all tags delivered by SAP for the Side Panel for Business Suite.
3. For every tag, select a property description, lifetime and a development package.
4. If applicable, also add a data element field for the external-internal conversion.
5. Save the view. Select an existing transport request.

Alternative 2: Setting Tags with Application Programming Interface (API)

You can also set tags with an Application Programming Interface (API). You do this with interface IF_LSAPI_DATA_CONTEXT and the method SET_TAG_VALUE.

Setting tags in the program requires a change in the existing SAP GUI coding, and it is a requirement when not all of the required key fields are visible on the screen layout. Otherwise these fields could not be tagged and the values of the fields could not be extracted at runtime.

DATA: ld_tag_value TYPE string.

ld_tag_value = ....

cl_lsapi_manager=>get_instance( )->if_lsapi_data_context~set_tag_value(

EXPORTING name = '/BSSP/:BUKRS'

value = ld_tag_value

EXCEPTIONS OTHERS = 0 ).

Some more information about tagging can be found in the Business Suite Side Panel Documentation.

b) How to create new Side Panel Pages?

Creating new side panel pages is required if you want to create your own side panel pages and not use one of the various side panel pages delivered by SAP; SAP’s side panel pages follow the naming convention BSSP_BS_*. The following needs to be done:

Create (in transaction SE80) a new empty Web Dynpro component configuration for component WDR_CHIP_PAGE:

Now save your component configuration.
Create (in transaction SE80) a new Web Dynpro application configuration for application WDR_CHIP_PAGE:
Assigning to the Web Dynpro application configuration the new component configuration and the CHIP catalog BSSP_CHIP_CATALOG:
Call the application configuration (button
“Test” in the screenshot above) and select the button “Adapt Page”.
Select CHIPs from the CHIP catalog (via “Add CHIP”) and assign them to the side panel.

c) How to assign Side Panel Pages to transactions?

To understand the procedure for the assignment of side panels to transactions, roles are used. Roles are maintained in the transaction PFCG. There are two different folder types within roles:

Side panel folders are used by the NWBC to determine which side panels are available in which transactions.
Transaction folders are used by the NWBC to determine which transactions are available and how the transactions are shown in the NWBC menu path.

How to create a side panel test role?

To create a PFCG role, enter a role name and click on “Single Role”. You have to assign the role to a package and a transport request afterwards.

After you created and saved the role, you can navigate to the “Menu” tab and create a new folder. For a side panel folder, you have to create a folder for every transaction (or bundle of transactions) for which you want to assign a specific set of side panels.

During the next step, you have to select the recently created folder, toggle the “Other Node Details” button and select the folder option “Side Panel”. Fill the “Application Alias” with the transactions for which the side panel shall be available by using the format {TR=FK05;FK06;FK08;XK05;….}. Note: {TR=…} (for transactions) and {WDA=…} (for Web Dynpro applications) apply side panel entries for all nodes that match the specified criteria, irrespective of the roles in which they are used. Therefore, they are global references.

Finally add to the folder your side panel page(s) defined previously.

Now you just successfully created a side panel folder which defines the side panels assigned to a certain set of transactions. As a next step you have to create a transaction folder which defines the transactions which shall be visible in the NWBC menu.

You should normally create a folder hierarchy which represents the actual menu within the Netweaver Business Client. The following picture shows an exemplary folder structure in a PFCG role on the left hand side and the menu as it looks for the user in the NWBC.

To add transactions to folders, just select the folder, click the “Add transaction” button and provide the transaction codes of the transactions. Save the role.

You have now successfully created a transaction folder which defines the NWBC menu.

Finally the role must be assigned to your user master data in order to show the side panel for the transactions (this must be done in the transaction SU01).

The usual approach in test environments is to create roles which include the technical side panel role portion (the “side panel folders”) and the menu role portion (the “menu path”) in one role. This approach is described above and it has the advantage that roles can also be tested without assigning them to your user master data. You can test such a single roles with the transaction NWBC. A browser window opens and here you should enter your role name into the textbox next to “Other” field and click on the small SAP icon next to the role name in order to start NWBC for Desktop with this particular role.

Resources

Business Suite Documentation: http://help.sap.com/erp2005_ehp_06/helpdata/en/58/327666e82b47fd83db69eddce954bd/frameset.htm

SDN Article (Side panel for SAP Business Suite - Overview): http://scn.sap.com/community/erp/blog/2013/02/25/side-panel-for-sap-business-suite