How to create table views for all users (e.g. in POWL result list)

Some lists and hierarchies in SAP TM UIs have many columns – to accommodate more common used scenarios. The drawback is: for a certain scenario, there are too many irrelevant columns (I say “too many”, because even one is one too many). Unnecessary columns in lists and hierarchies impact the rendering times on frontend.

TM’s worklists (also called “POWLs”) are a perfect example of what I mean – and the columns that are “first” in the catalogue – aligned to the left – are not always the most important ones the users would like to see.

Luckily, the UI technology we use (WebDynpro) allows the users to personalize the layout of their tables. Luckily again, this is well known – the personalization button is hard to overlook, and even the less curious minds acquaint themselves eventually with this feature.

But a commonly heard requirement is to create one or more layouts, which are available for all users in the system. Luckily, the UI technology we use allows that, but unluckily the procedure is less obvious.

In this article I am going to show how this requirement can be achieved in few steps.

First, start the NWBC in a browser (t-code nwbc from backend). Navigate to the desired worklist (in this example, Overview Freight Orders) and then right click anywhere in the page to call up the famous Technical Help dialog:

From here copy the URL to the application (you can stop at the parameter sap-client) and use it in a new browser tab, or – even simpler – click on the hyperlink Starts the URL of the application):

In the new tab, append a new parameter to the URL: sap-config-mode=X and call the webpage (don’t forget the ampersand!). The yellow “customizing mode” bar should be visible on top of the page. Now create – using the personalization dialog of the result list – one of more layout views, with own column sets, column sequence, sorting and filtering or even aggregation criteria. In the customizing mode, the UI framework creates views valid for all users (called “admin views”).

The views can be transported if needed:

That’s it. Every user will see the newly created table view(s).

When the administrator modifies the settings of such admin vew, all users should be automatically affected.

If a normal user is unhappy with the settings of an admin view, then he or she can modify them, but in this case the view becomes user-specific and is disconnected from any changes the administrator might perform in the future.

The screenshots above are based on a worklist, but the same procedure can be used in the FPM-based single document screens (and of course in transportation cockpit). The personalization dialog of the involved FPM GUIBBs looks slightly different, but the principle is exactly the same.