SAP ABAP Report Programming Questions 1

SAP TERMINOLOGY

Master data is a collection of information about a person or an object, e.g. a cost object, vendor, or G/L account. For example, a vendor master record contains not only general information such as the vendor’s name and address, but also specific information, such as payment terms and delivery instructions. Generally for end users, master data is reference data that you will look up and use, but not create or change.

Transactional data is data related to a single business event such as a purchase requisition or a request for payment. When you create a requisition, for example, SAP creates an electronic document for that particular transaction. SAP gives the transaction a document number and adds the document to the transaction data that is already in the system. Whenever you complete a transaction in SAP, that is, when you create, change, or print a document in SAP, this document number appears at the bottom of the screen.

Workflow

A routing tool in SAP that forwards documents for review or approval. For example, a requisition that needs to be approved is sent to the appropriate approver's inbox. Workflow is also used to route journal vouchers, credit card charges, and other documents in SAP.

Cost Object:

A Cost Object collects expenses and revenues for a particular purpose, such as a research project. In SAP there are three types of cost objects: Cost Center, Internal Order, and WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) Element (see below for definition).

Cost Center:

General or operating Cost Objects are known in SAP as Cost Centers. Cost Centers are budgeted on the fiscal year.

Internal Order:

A non-sponsored Cost Object (for example, funding from the MIT Provost) used to track costs over periods other than fiscal years. Internal Orders are often created to track gifts or endowments at MIT.

WBS Element: WBS Elements are funded by outside sponsors and are used to track costs of a particular research project over the entire span of its activity. They may also be created to track other sponsored activities, such as gifts.

G/L Account:

G/L accounts are also called Cost Elements in SAP. They are a classification by expense or revenue type. In the CO (Controlling) module of SAP, the term Cost Element is used. In the FI

(Financial) module, the term G/L Account is used. These terms are used interchangeably for reporting, requisitions, and journal vouchers.

Database tables and open SQL

Add a single record to a database table

insert into values

Inserting all lines from an internal table into a database table:

insert from table

Delete all records

Select * from zmellemtab.

delete zmellemtab.

endselect.

Deleting records using records from an internal table

delete employees from table itab.

Q & A

BASIS LAYER

What are the central interfaces of the R/3 system ?

- Presentation interface

Database interface

Operating system interface

Which interface controls what is shown on the p.c. ?

1. - Presentation interface

Which interface converts SQL requirements in the SAP development system to those of the database ?

1. - Database interface

What is SAP dispatcher ?

- SAP dispatcher is the control agent which manages the

resources for the R/3 applications.

What are the functions of dispatcher ?

- Equal distribution of transaction load to the work processes

Management of buffer areas in main memory

Integration of the presentation levels

Organization of communication activies

What is a work process ?

- A work process is where individual dialog steps are actually processed and the work is done. Each work process handles one type of request.

Name various work processes of R/3 system ?

1) Dialog or Online ( processes only one request at a time )

2) Background ( started at a specified time )

3) Update ( primary or secondary )

4) Enque( lock mechanism )

5) Spool ( generated online or during back ground processing For printing )

What are the types of Update requests ?

- An update request can be divided into one primary (V1) and several Secondary update components (V2). Time-critical operations are placed in V1 component and those whose timing are less critical are placed in V2 components. If a V1 update fails, V2 components will not be processed.

What are the roll and page areas ?

- Roll and page areas are SAP R/3 buffers used to store

user contexts ( process requests ) . The SAP dispatcher assigns

process requests to work processes as they are received. If

the work process is unavailable the process requests are queued in the roll and page areas.

Paging area holds data from the application programs.

Roll area holds data from previous dialog steps and data that characterizes user.

What is a Spool request ?

- Spool requests are generated during dialog or background processing and placed in the spool database with information about the printer and print format. The actual data is placed in the Tem Se (Temporary Sequential objects).

What are the different database integrities ?

1. - Semantic integrity

- Relational integrity

- Primary key integrity

- Value set integrity

- Foreign key integrity and

- Operational integrity.

DATA DICTIONARY .

Type of a table or structure

The table type determines how the logical table description defined in

the ABAP/4 Dictionary is reproduced on the database.

There are the following table types:

o transparent table

o structure

o append structure

For internal purposes, such as storing control data or update texts,

there are in addition the following table types:

o pooled table

o cluster table

o generated view structure

Transparent table

There is a physical table on the database for each transparent table. The

names of the physical tables and the logical table definition in the

ABAP/4 Dictionary correspond.

All business data and application data are stored in transparent tables.

Structure

No data records exist in the database for a structure. Structures are

used for the interface definition between programs or between screens and

programs.

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