Simple massprocessing in COHV / COOIS using navigationprofile with class

Background

This blog-post describes how to add customer-specific massprocessing functions to production-orders  using navigation-profiles with classes.

SAP provides certain functions in COHV massprocessing (e.g. Mass-Release, Mass-Print, etc.). However the available functions are limited.

Many users are asking for a custom-specific functions as you can see in https://answers.sap.com/questions/11613055/additional-functions-in-cohv.html or
https://answers.sap.com/questions/35234/add-new-mass-function-in-cohv.html

But – there seems to be no way to add customer-functions to COHV.

Idea

A navigationprofile combined with class-usage might be a “good-enough” workaround. In my case, that is the case as i’ve been looking for a mass-processing for transaction LP10 “WM-Staging”.

Guilherme Frisoni describes in his article
https://blogs.sap.com/2013/04/23/how-to-use-navigation-profiles-with-classes/
the general usage. It ends up with the generic access to all ALV-table-entries – and it needs few more abap-development to access the selected rows only.

As this is finally quite easy i wanted to share my approach (also based on a quite old answer from former member Yannik https://answers.sap.com/answers/7726483/view.html )

Steps

1. Create a customer-class implememting the interface IF_NAVIGATION_PROFILE
2. Use following Coding for method USER_COMMAND

   METHOD if_navigation_profile~user_command.
   
     DATA: lr_grid TYPE REF TO cl_gui_alv_grid.
     FIELD-SYMBOLS: <lt_table> TYPE STANDARD TABLE,   "to be able to do READ ... INDEX
                    <ls_table> TYPE ANY.
     DATA: lt_row TYPE         lvc_t_row.
     FIELD-SYMBOLS <ls_row> TYPE LINE OF lvc_t_row.
     FIELD-SYMBOLS <lv_aufnr> TYPE afko-aufnr.
   
     TRY.
         lr_grid ?= io_alv.
       CATCH cx_sy_move_cast_error.
         MESSAGE i888(navigation_profile) WITH 'CAST-Error. ABAP-Developer should check'.
     ENDTRY.
   
     lr_grid->get_selected_rows( IMPORTING et_index_rows = lt_row ).
     IF lt_row IS INITIAL.
       MESSAGE i017(navigation_profile).   "select at least a single line...
     ELSE.
       ASSIGN id_table->* TO <lt_table>.
       IF sy-subrc <> 0.
         MESSAGE i888(navigation_profile) WITH 'ASSIGN-Error. ABAP-Developer should check'.
       ELSE.
         LOOP AT lt_row ASSIGNING <ls_row>.
           READ TABLE <lt_table> ASSIGNING <ls_table> INDEX <ls_row>-index.
           ASSIGN COMPONENT 'AUFNR' OF STRUCTURE <ls_table> TO <lv_aufnr>.
           IF <lv_aufnr> IS ASSIGNED and <lv_aufnr> is not INITIAL.
             SET PARAMETER ID 'ANR' FIELD <lv_aufnr>.
             CALL TRANSACTION iv_parameter AND SKIP FIRST SCREEN.
           ELSE.
             MESSAGE i888(navigation_profile) WITH 'Strange... no AUFNR in structure?'.
           ENDIF.
         ENDLOOP.
       ENDIF.
     ENDIF.
   ENDMETHOD.​

3. Maintain the Navigation-Profile
   Trick: The function-parameter is used as the tcode for the mass-processing.
   This way you can use the same class for different tcodes.

Result

Each selected line gets processed by transaction LP10 in this example.

Comparison of Navigation-profile with class vs. COHV

• COHV is using application-log for all kind of messages / errorhandling.Above idea does a simple CALL-TRANSACTION – each error will be shown to the user.
  The called transaction has to be a “single-screen” transaction, that can be used in a “fire & forget”-mode
• Navigation-Profiles are really powerful to integrate customer-specific functions / tcodes
  (compared to “closed shop” COHV)

Summary

The perfect solution (with errorhandling, etc.) would need a much more complex Z-program  which would reinvent the existing COHV plus the missing function (in my case LP10).

This approach is quite easy, flexible and provides a lot of benefit.