JULY 2

Today was my second day of training, which started with introduction to SAP/ABAP. I got to learn about the basics of SAP/ABAP  and the basics of R/3 system on which SAP's applicaions are built.  The brief of the study is given as follows.

SAP (System Application & Products for Data Processing).

 SAP is the leader in the market of enterprise applications in terms of software and software-related service.Today major companies including Microsoft and IBM are using SAP's Products to run their own businesses.

SAP ERP  is an Enterprise Resource Planning , an integrated software solution that incorporates the key business functions of the organization.

SAP ERP consists of several modules, including utilities for marketing and sales, field service, product design and development, production and inventory control, human resources, finance and accounting. SAP ERP collects and combines data from the separate modules to provide the company or organization with enterprise resource planning.

ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming)

ABAP is one of the many application-specific fourth-generation languages (4GLs)  first developed in the 1980s. It was originally the report language for SAP R/2, a platform that enabled large corporations to build mainframe business applications for materials management and financial and management accounting.The ABAP language was originally used by developers to develop the SAP R/3 platform. It was also intended to be used by SAP customers to enhance SAP applications – customers can develop custom reports and interfaces with ABAP programming. 

The Development Environment

R/3 is an integrated suite of applications designed to handle the data processing for large corporations. It was developed in Germany by the company named SAP.

Within R/3 is a runtime environment and an integrated suite of application programs written in SAP's 4GL-ABAP/4. These application programs are designed to meet the data processing needs of very large businesses. R/3 and its predecessor R/2 are particularly popular with the manufacturing sector.

R/3 is the system in which our ABAP/4 programs will run. 

Purpose of R/3 System

The sole purpose of an R/3 system is to provide a suite of tightly integrated, large-scale business applications. The standard set of applications delivered with each R/3 system are the following:

• PP (Production Planning)

• MM (Materials Management)

• SD (Sales and Distribution)

• FI (Financial Accounting)

• CO (Controlling)

• AM (Fixed Assets Management)

• PS (Project System)

• WF (Workflow)

• IS (Industry Solutions)

• HR (Human Resources)

• PM (Plant Maintenance)

• QM (Quality Management)

These applications are called the functional areas, or application areas, or at times the functional modules of R/3.

Traditionally, businesses assemble a suite of data processing applications by evaluating individual products and buying these separate products from multiple software vendors. Interfaces are then needed between them. A significant amount of IS time and money is spent in the implementation and maintenance of these interfaces.

R/3 comes prepackaged with the core business applications needed by most large corporations. These applications coexist in one homogenous environment. They are designed from the ground up to run using a single database and one (very large) set of tables. Current production database sizes range from 12 gigabytes to near 3 terabytes. Around 8,000 database tables are shipped with the standard delivery R/3 product.

This is important for us, as an ABAP/4 programmer, to know because these applications are all written entirely in ABAP/4

In a Windows environment, we will sign on to R/3 either by choosing a menu path from the Start menu, or by double-clicking on an R/3 icon. The R/3 system will prompt us for a user ID and password.  We will fill in these two fields and then press Enter.

The logon screen appears as follows:

LOG ON Screen

The R/3 system will then display a copyright screen, and when we press Enter, the system will display the R/3 main menu as shown below -

R/3 Main Menu Screen

From the main menu, we can go to three conceptual areas in the R/3 system:

• the Applications area

• the Basis area

• the Development Workbench

In the Applications area, we initiate transactions for the functional areas within R/3. To access these, from the R/3 main menu we can choose one of the following: Logistics, Accounting, Human Resources, or Information Systems.

In the Basis area, we can run transactions that monitor the R/3 system itself. To access the Basis area, from the main menu we can choose the menu path Tools->Administration. Here we will find many performance, tuning, and database administration tools.

The Development Workbench is used to create and test ABAP/4 programs. As an ABAP/4 programmer, we will spend most of our time within the Workbench. To access the Development Workbench, we will choose the menu path Tools->Development Workbench. However, our code will most probably read or update application data, and so it will be destined to become part of the application area. 

Discovering the R/3 User Interface

Every R/3 main menu screen contains these elements:

• Title bar: Contains the title of the current screen.

• Menu bar: The contents of the menu bar change with each screen. By browsing the menus within it, we can discover all functions that are possible on the current screen. The System and Help menus are present on every screen and the menu items they contain never change.

• Command field: Here we enter commands to be executed. 

• Standard toolbar: Contains the Command field and a series of buttons. They will never change in appearance, position, or function, and they will be present on every screen. Some might be grayed out if their functionality is currently unavailable.

• Application toolbar: Changes with each screen. Displays buttons that give us quick access to menu items for that screen.

• Interface Menu: Enables us to customize the characteristics of the user interface, access the Windows clipboard, and generate graphics.

• Screen area: This is the big area in the middle of the screen that displays the report data or a screen from a dialog program.

• Status bar: Displays messages, the system ID, session number, client number, insert/overtype mode indicator, and the current time.

We can turn most screen elements on and off.