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Author's profile photo Dragos Mihai Florescu

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:

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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):

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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”).

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The views can be transported if needed:

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

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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.

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      Author's profile photo Cesar Quintero
      Cesar Quintero

      Great write up Dragos, very helpful. Have you successfully been able to modify the Transportation Cockpit: Profile and Layout Sets page? I am in customizing mode following your instructions but have not been able to successfully create "admin profiles/views" as you called them in the above article, that will be available to all and maintained by an "admin". I can save and name a profile and have it appear to all, but the tables are blank below it and only appear so my local sap user. Hope to hear back and again, thanks for a great write up.

       

      Author's profile photo Iñigo Sánchez-Ostiz Chivite
      Iñigo Sánchez-Ostiz Chivite

      Hi Dragos!

      Thanks for the post. It is very interested.

      question ... is it posible also for queries, I want all user have the same queries at the begining of the go-live. Is it posible?

      Author's profile photo Dragos Mihai Florescu
      Dragos Mihai Florescu
      Blog Post Author

      If you mean worklist queries, than yes, you can create so-called "admin queries" - by calling transaction POWL_QUERY, defining it as you wish, then assign it to the POWL application using transaction POWL_QUERYR (here you can leave the field "role" empty, meanning that this assignment is valid for all roles).