Text Enhancement of any Data Element F1 Help from Functional Perspective!

[Former Member]

Many times being at Functional side having some technical knowledge is a great way to make a big skills move in SAP. When you've a real passion for some particular area then I believe it’s equally important to start focusing on development efforts against your particular module along with functional role so sharing this document which I’m sure will be helpful for many of us.

WHY SUCH REQUIREMENT??

Question arises that why there’s a need to modify F1 documentation for any Data Element/Keyword and the answer is sometimes you need to display a Custom message for that particular field, sometimes you want to display the F1 help in Multi-languages and sometimes it’s just that more Documentation is required according to the user level.

SAP provides its own documentation for each of the data elements which we can view as an F1 help for screen fields based on the particular Data Element. This documentation can be enhanced via T-code CMOD.

STEPS:

First we need to get the data element of the corresponding field for which we want to change F1 Help and the 1^st step is knowing the data element. Suppose in Customer Master, I want to change the F1 help for ‘Data Line’ Text box and in order to get the Data Element the same press F1 and then click on Technical Information Icon.

Execute T-code CMOD

Now click on Goto --> Text Enhancements --> Data Elements --> New DE cust. docu.

You’ll get the below mentioned screen, copy the data element that you've got after clicking Customer Master ‘Data Line’ field.

Click on the Mark icon or press enter, following screen will appear.

Give unique name in Modification Name Text box while creating the same. It depends upon you as if what starting point you want will it be the Original Text or as a Template. This will be copied into the modification screen which can further be changed accordingly.

In below mentioned screen I've defined customized usage of this field as I don’t want other fields to be displayed so deleted them. Moreover, you can use other features like formatting, paragraph style etc. Don’t forget to activate this Modification after saving.

After activating it, click on F1 help of ‘Data Line’ field in Customer Master and you can see the changes in below mentioned screen.

Now this ‘Data Line’ field name might be confusion for many of the End users who are responsible for maintaining Customer Master Record hence we can also change the keyword as per our requirement using CMOD once again.

Click on Goto --> Text Enhancements --> Keywords --> Change; mention the Data Element once again as shown in below screenshot.

This is the default description that you will be going to see after clicking on the Mark icon.

You can make the changes in above mentioned text fields as per your requirement.

Go to XD02/XD03 and you will see the changes that you've made are reflecting against that particular field.

We can cross verify the done changes in SE11 by entering the structure name as ADDR1_DATA, press F7 for the view and you can clearly see the changed short description like in below mentioned screen shot.

WHERE TO USE CMOD:

This enhancement technique mentioned above can be used to fulfill business requirements however before applying such changes we need to be careful as changes made through CMOD are directly linked to the dictionary object and the same will be reflected at all those places wherever that particular field is available.

I hope it will be helpful for those who always are ready to meet client's requirement at any cost or where there's a Top Management demand to fulfill wishes like that for their reporting purpose. Fruitful comments of all valuable members are most welcome. Thanks.