SAP functional consultants need to generate reports which should require less time but ABAP reports take lots of time as it has to move from dev to quality and production system.
Relevant queries faced are:
- Can we generate reports without any ABAP coding?
- What type of Reports can be build?
- If yes, than what type of outputs we can have.
- How much time we need to do this.
The Solution for the above queries is ABAP/4 query or SAP queries.
Definition
The SAP Query is used to create lists that are not available in the SAP standard. It has been designed for users with little or no knowledge of the SAP programming language ABAP. SAP Query offers users a broad range of ways to define reporting programs and create different types of reports such as basic , statistics, and ranked lists.
Type of Reports
It is always recommened to decide the list type needed before creating the SAP query. Once it is decided, following options are present:
- Basic List Simple report
- Statistics Report containing statistical functions like Average & Percentage
- Ranked List Report written for analytical purpose
The order of all 3 lists is as follows:
- Basic List,
- Statistics &
- Ranked List
Note: One SAP query can have one basic list, maximum of 9 statistics and maximum of 9 ranked lists.
Types of Output
ABAP/4 query is a tool provided by SAP for generating reports which are easier to build and can be generated in the following formats:
- SAP List Viewer
- ABAP List
- Graphic
- ABC analysis
- Output can be stored as a File
- Display as a table
- Word processing
- Spreadsheet
Approach/Steps for Creating SAP Query
To create a SAP query, one can proceed as follows: -
- Creation of a functional area(Infoset)
- Creation of a user group and assignment
- Creation of the query based on functional area (SAP Query)
The transactions involved to achieve the above steps are: -:
SQ01 ABAP/4 Query or SAP Query
SQ02 Functional Area
SQ03 User group
Step I - Create Functional Area
Creation of functional area is nothing but recognition of tables from the dabase which are involved in the query. One can assign single functional area to many users /user groups. Secondly,A functional area can be created with or without a logical database. To create a functional area with a logical database, one has to mention the name of the database and then select the fields from the tables that form the logical database. This is achieved using transaction SQ02.
Step 2 User groups
To generate query, the user must be a part of at least one user group to run the corresponding ABAP query. This automatically restricts the access of the user to specific functional areas, and thus the corresponding underlying logical databases. This is the best part one can restrict others to execute the query by de-assigning him from the user group or query area.This is achieved by Transaction SQ03 where a Work area cna be created for queries and user is assigned to same.Also, here the functional needs to be assigned to the query area.
Step 3: ABAP/4 Query
One can create an ABAP query once the functional area is created and users are assigned to it. Thus, We can create a simple Basic list etc with having several output options as mentioned earlier, depending upon the requirement. Following snapshot shows the sample output for Sales query using SAP List Viewer option.Here we can provide a sales document number if required.
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If We execute it directly ,it will show all the records as shown below:
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The above figure also shows the other available output options.
In the upcoming blogs we explore more & learn to create user groups, functional area and build SAP queries based upon the same.
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