A number of companies restrict the execution of function modules in quality, pre-prod and prod environments, for good reason. Therefore you may find you do not have access to the transaction code SE37.  Generally experienced developers may however have access to SE38.

So how do you execute or test a function module in a system/client but wish to get around the authorization issue? Simply use SE38 with program RSFUNCTIONBUILDER.

TIP – You can sometimes use the same technique by using SE93 with the problem transaction and using the program name however do not expect to be able to bypass all authorizations.

You may have a requirement to control your user navigation in SAP, either you may wish to create your own area menus, or you may wish to restrict a user specific menu from being created.

You can deactivate the menus for the entire system by creating or changing records in the global settings table SSM_CUST in the view maintenance transaction SM30.

• To globally deactivate the SAP menu, enter a record “SAP_MENU_OFF” “YES” in upper-case letters.
• To globally deactivate all user menus enter a record “ALL_USER_MENUS_OFF” “YES” in upper-case letters.

(Note the value “CUSTOMER_MENU_OFF” is obsolete and has no effect.)

For more information refer to OSS Note 380029.

–> Dont forget you can use transaction SSM2 to set which area menu in a system is to be used as the SAP menu.

Do you know you can set the default area menu that all users will go to when opening a new session, system wide. This is beneficial should you wish to create a specific area menu for your company. If no setting is made, the standard entry point (area menu S000) is used.

The SAP menu entry point is specified in the transaction SSM2.

Why change the SAP login Screen?

Some companies choose to modifiy the login screen to:

• Give security notice warnings to potential unauthorised access.
• List client numbers and their use within a system.

The history:

Before Release 4.6 the logon screen was modified through program SAPMSYST screen 0020. From release 4.6 onwards it is simply modified using transaction SE61.

Proceed as follows:

Go to Transaction SE61and select the document class ‘General Text’ (selection using F4 help).

Create a text with the name ZLOGIN_SCREEN_INFO in the system language. (If the text does not exist in the system language, no output is made.)

TIP – Check profile parameter “zcsa/system_language” in transaction RZ11 to determine your system language.

Title lines may be used, as well as very basic text formatting. You may also include standard SAP icons within the message. A tip is to change the editor from within SE61 (Goto–>change editor), this will clearly show you the available character and paragraph codes.

Note: Creating/changing this text requires a changeable system. Therefore, for production systems, SAP recommends maintaining the text in the upstream system and then transporting it. To do this, select a transportable (customer) development class when you create the text and save the active version prior to the export.
The transport is done via the transport object R3TR  DOCT  ZLOGIN_SCREEN_INFO

You know of ST05, ST01 and SE30. But do you know why  you would use one transaction code and not the other? What are the main purposes of each one when it comes to performance improvement and measurement?

To measure and improve performance of ABAP programs – Use SE30 to measure:

• Excessive or unnecessary use of modularization units
• CPU-intensive program functions
• User-specific functions that could be replaced with ABAP statements
• Inefficient or redundant database access.

In addition you may want to analyze or fine-tune a program’s database accesses – Use ST05 to measure:

• Database accesses (SQL trace)
• Table buffers
• RFC calls
• Lock operations (client side)

If you wishto fine tune the system – use ST01 to measure:

• Authorization checks
• Kernel functions
• Kernel module

In addition ST01 encompasses the majority of the functionality of ST05.

Scenario – You wish to connect to your SAP system from a remote connection, you require your SAP system IP address and port.

Option 1 – There are a few methods to discover the IP address of a system the easiest being to simply use the menu path:
System–>Status–> then press (SHIFT+F5) –> You will see your current systems IP address under the System Information.

Option 2 –  Alternativly you may use SM59 then select R/3 connections and double click on the system (RFC destination), then select the menu path:
System Information–>Target System –> You will see the target systems IP address under the “Network address”.

Is there any way to check the IDOC number from a sending system, within a receiving system?

Yes there is a way to do this. In the receiving system, execute transaction BD87. Select the node for analysis and select “Trace IDOCS”. You will then see all IDOCS as well as the field, IDOC No. partner. (The external IDOC number).

The number of decimal places varies for currencies. Currencies which do not have two decimal places must be defined in SAP in table TCURX (decimal places for currency codes).

You can maintain this table in the IMG as follows: SAP Customizing Implementation Guide–>SAP NetWeaver–>General Settings–>Currencies–>Set Decimal Places for Currencies. (Transaction code Oy04)

Never delete a currency or change the decimal place value of a currency in SAP.

Some common Customizing settings for table TCURX:

ISO Currency Decimal places
Code
————————————————————————

ADP Andoran Peseta 0
AFA Afghani Afghani 0
BEF Belgian franc 0
BHD Bahraini dinar 3
BIF Burundi franc 0
BYB Belorussian rubel (old) 0
BYR Belorussian rubel (new) 0
CLP Chilean peso 0
COP Columbian peso 0
DEM3 (Internal) German Mark (3 Dec.) 3
DJF Djibouti franc 0
ECS Ecuadorian sucre 0
ESP Spanish peseta 0
GNF Guinea franc 0
GRD Greek drachma 0
HUF Hungarian forint 0
IDR Indonesian rupiah 0
IQD Iraqui dinar 3
ITL Italian lira 0
JOD Jordan dinar 3
JPY Japanese yen 0
KMF Comoros franc 0
KRW South Korean won 0
KWD Kuwaiti dinar 3
LAK Laos new kip 0
LUF Luxembourg franc 0
LYD Libyan dinar 3
MGF Madagascan franc 0
MZM Mozambique metical 0
OMR Omani rial 3
PTE Portugese escudo 0
PYG Paraguay guarani 0
ROL Roumanian Lei 0
RWF Rwanda franc 0
TJR Tadzhikistani rubel 0
TMM Turkmenistani manat 0
TND Tunesian dinar 3
TPE Timor escudo 0
TRL Turkish lira 0
TWD New Taiwan dollar 0
UGX Uganda shilling 0
USDN (Internal) US Dollar (5 dec.pl.) 5
VND Vietnamese dong 0
VUV Vanuata vatu 0
XAF CFA Franc BEAC 0
XOF CFA Franc BCEAO 0
XPF CFP Franc 0

The contents of this table is only delivered with new installations of SAP and never upgraded.

For upgrade installations, new or changed contents of Table TCURX are not delivered.

Currency codes and decimal places for currency codes are defined in ISO standard 4217. For the specification of decimal places for currency codes, SAP uses this ISO standard.

The SAP Load Generator is executed through transacion code SGEN. SGEN may be required to be executed after a large upgrade or release of functionality in a system. If you don’t run SGEN and try to access specific objects the programs may start to be  compiled as they are individually accessed.

Quick Overview 

• SGEN is used to “compile” ABAP programs.
• It can be used to re-generate all the SAP programs after you change version of your SAP kernel, upgrade your SAP system or apply support packages.
• It is best to execute it during a period of time with very low user activity.
• SGEN is a client independent transaction.
• SGEN can also be used to re-generate objects within a Transport Request from SGEN menu–>Regenerate Existing Load
• If you want to regenerate loads, make sure that there is enough space available in the database. The space required can be several hundred MB. Generation over all components requires around 2 GB of free space.
• The runtime depends on the type of hardware configuration and number of objects being generated. (It would not be uncommon for this to take 5 hours.)
• You can limit the components to be generated, in order to reduce the runtime.
• You can schedule RSGENINVLAS to automatically regenerate invalidated loads. (Note this report has no selection screen)

 Use

1. Select the generation task.

On the initial screen of transaction SGEN you can select the task that suits the purpose of the generation:

Generate all Objects of Selected Software Components

Choose this strategy if you want to generate the loads of all objects of certain software components. This may be the case, for example, if your system has been reinstalled. Here, the loads that are required for operation are not yet available and must be regenerated.

After selecting this task, the Selection of the Generation Set by Software Components screen appears. Here, you can restrict the amount of objects to be generated by selecting software components. Use the pushbuttons to select the software components you require.

Regenerate After an SAP System Upgrade

After an upgrade, you have to regenerate the ABAP object load in the system.

Regenerate the Objects of the Last Run

This task is suitable, for example, in the following cases:

• The generation of objects of the generation set that was used in the previous run was terminated and you want to regenerate the remaining objects.

• You want to regenerate all objects of the generation set that was used in the previous run.

After selecting this task, the following two options are available to you:

• Restart
  The generation set that was used in the previous run in transaction SGEN is used. Only those objects that were not generated in the previous run or whose generation was terminated due to a system error, are generated.

• Generation:
  All objects of the generation set used in the previous run of transaction SGEN are generated.

Regenerate Existing Loads

This task allows you to regenerate all ABAP loads and invalidated loads that exist in your system, and to generate loads for objects of a Support Package queue. You have the following options:

• Generate all Objects with Existing Load

• Generate Objects with Invalidated Load Only

An object load is invalidated if, since the time the load was generated, activated changes were made to the object or to objects used by this object, such as includes or tables. This may occur by importing a Support Package (SPAM) or a kernel patch.

If you want to generate loads for objects from a Support Package queue, start the task after importing the queue. The task determines the generation set using the invalidated loads in the system. Unlike the Generate objects of a transport request task, this task also takes into account ABAP loads that were invalidated by modified Dictionary objects.

Note: You can also periodically schedule an automatic regeneration of invalidated loads (every night, or at other times when the system load is low, for example). To do this, schedule the RSGENINVLAS report for the relevant time and period. The report then determines the invalidated loads for every type of host in your system at the specified time, and regenerates them.

Generate Objects from a Transport Request

You can use this generation task to regenerate the ABAP load for all objects in a transport request that can be generated. However, this task does not take into consideration ABAP loads that were invalidated by modified Dictionary objects. To include these loads, choose Regenerate Existing Loads -> Generate Objects with Invalidated Load Only.

After choosing this task, a screen appears that allows you to search for the name of the transport request using the selection button, or to specify it directly.

Generation of BSP Applications

This task enables you to generate BSP applications of selected software components.

Each Business Server Page is realized technically by an ABAP object class. When BSP applications are generated, these classes and their ABAP loads are generated. BSP applications are not included in the generation sets of the Generate All Objects of Selected Software Components, Regenerate After an SAP System Upgrade and Regenerate All Existing Loads tasks, since they are optional. You can use this task to deal with these.

After selecting this task, the Selection of the Generation Set by Software Components screen appears. Here you can restrict the amount of BSP applications to be generated by selecting software components. Use the pushbuttons to select the software components you require.

If you quit the generation of BSP applications before it has finished, or if the system terminates generation, the Regenerate the Objects of the Last Run task allows you to resume the generation.

2. Select the servers for parallel generation.

The generation is based on a method where the generation set is divided into small subsets that are processed by parallel processes. Depending on resources, available servers are included in the parallel processing, whereby multiple parallel processes run on one server.

From the Selection of Servers for Parallel Generation screen, you can select the servers that are to be used in the parallel processing. Note that loads depend on the machine type (MT) of a host. This means that it only makes sense to parallel process the generation set of servers of the same machine type.

The default selection uses the server that you are logged on to. It corresponds to your logon server and all servers on your system that have the same machine type. If you want to use the default selection, choose Continue.

If you want to exclude individual servers from the generation, or if you want to generate the load for a particular machine type that is different to that of the logon server, then use the pushbutton to select the corresponding servers and choose Continue.

Note: The parallel servers are depicted via the logon groups in transaction RZ12. For transaction SGEN, logon group ‘parallel_generators‘ is created. Do not use this group for your own purposes, as transaction SGEN uses and continually redefines this group.

After you have selected the servers, the system starts to define the generation set dynamically, and stores it in the database (database table GENSETC). This can take several minutes.

Job Monitor Pushbutton

This function allows you to call the job process control directly, without redefining the generation set. By choosing Job Monitor -> Job Overview ->  Spool or Job Log, you can display logs from previous generation jobs.

Most people know about SE30 which can be used to do an ABAP runtime analysis. However did you know that you are able to dynamically call the runtime analysis for a portion of source code for example a section of a user exit, or for a specific function module?

This is easily done by changing the user variant as follows:

1. Open SE30
2. On Measurement restrictions (1/2 way down the page) create/change your user defined variant.
1. Within the variant under program parts, select the “particular Units” check box and save.

Now from within SE38 for the code you wish to measure – set your breakpoint for the position from which you  wish to measure and another for the position to which you wish to measure.

Go back to SE30 and execute your code when you reach the breakpoint activate the runtime analysis from System–>Utilities–>Runtime Analysis –> Switch On.

Run through the code by selecting F8.

When you reach your end point de-activate the analysis by selecting System–>Utilities–>Runtime Analysis –> Switch Off.

TIP: You can activate the runtime performance analysis start by entering the command prompt code /RON in the transaction box. You can de-activate the analysis by using the command prompt code /ROFF.

NOTE: If you get the message “The Particular “units” option is not selected – S7100.  It means you are not using your new changed default user variant for the execution.