What are Advanced List Page queries in Sourcing 7.0 and how to take advantage of it?

Introduction

In SAP Sourcing, one of the challenges customers face in the query area is, in order to make an enhancement to a custom query a report developer with SQL experience would have to get involved as it requires updating SQL in most cases. Well, if you are one of those customers, there is good news. SAP has introduced a rich set of reporting enhancements in Sourcing 7.0 and the one I will cover in this blog is –Advanced List Page queries. Advanced List Page queries offer end-users the ability to add new columns to the list page query as well as define new filters, all without having to write any SQL. 

For convenience, I will refer to Advanced List Page queries as ALP in the rest of the blog. In this blog I will explain how ALP queries work and show how to convert a custom list page query to a new ALP query.

What is a ALP query?

ALP queries allows end-user to customize a list page by providing:

1)     Ability to add new columns to the query and delete existing columns

2)     Ability to reorder columns through simple drag and drop

3)     Ability to add new search parameters to query

4)     Ability to save and manage Custom Search

If you are a customer upgrading to Sourcing 7.0 the standard SAP provided list page queries will be converted to ALP queries automatically as part of the upgrade; however custom queries need to be converted manually.

Adding new columns

To add a new column to the list page query, click on the Personalize icon on the query toolbar as shown in the query below.

On the personalization screen select the columns to be added to the query. In the screenshot below, the Document Type column is selected to be added as a new column. Any extension field that belongs to the Default Extension Group will also be listed on the personalization screen. To delete a column, simply uncheck the checkbox next to the column name.

By default, the new columns are added at the end. Column order can be easily changed by simply dragging the column header and dropping it where desired. In the screenshot below, the Document Type column was added by default at the end of the query and I dragged and dropped it next to the Name column.

Adding new search parameters

In ALP queries search parameters are not displayed on the UI by default. To add search parameter, click on Modify Search button and click on Add button as shown below. This action adds a new search parameter. The parameter you want to filter can be changed by simply selecting the filter from the dropdown which contains a predefined list of fields. The list of fields in the dropdown cannot be modified. This list includes Extension fields. The end user can add additional search parameters as desired by clicking on the Add button.

Save Search

The customized query can be saved by entering a name for the saved search in the Save Search As field and saving it. The saved search will appear on the list page dropdown as shown below

A saved search is specific to a user. It is not possible to share a saved search with another user.

Deleting Saved Search

To delete a Saved Search, a special Workbench channel called Saved Search would have to be added to user’s workbench. This workbench channel will display all the saved searches for that user. Saved Search can be deleted by simple clicking on the trash icon next to the Saved Search name as shown in the screenshot below. Note, this workbench channel also shows the list of page personalizations the user has created in the system.

So far we have seen the functional aspects and usage of ALP queries. In part 2 of this series, I will get into the technical details. Stay tuned…