There are several ways to bring data to Manager Self-Services (MSS) that serve any business purpose. You can use the out-of-the-box services that are shipped with the MSS business package. You can start tweaking the configuration or you can also create new services from scratch that are tailored to your business needs.  In most cases the given opportunities to tweak a configuration are not sufficient or simply not available and applications totally built from scratch are often not covered by the budgets available. But sometimes you can find both in one single tool – the generic iView. This simple service allows you to compile data in a tailored way, feed MSS and make managers happy.

Now I mentioned it – generic iView. What is that? A generic iView is a service that allows you  to display data that has been compiled by a SAP query on the SAP Netweaver Portal. The vehicle for the data generation is the  SAP Query tool. Application champions in SAP HR are probably already familiar with this powerful tool that is already available in the SAP R3 box. You don’t need to buy it. The same applies to the generic iView. It’s for free, you just need to use it.

Now we arrived at the point were you are probably raising the question – how can I use it, what do I need to get it done? In the following section I will try to provide you with a proper answer and a clear how-to guide.

First of all you need to know the basic components of this tool.  Basically you need to take care about three essential steps:

1. Create a custom variant for the generic iView service
2. Create or define SAP queries that suit your business need
3. Prepare the portal content and attach it to MSS

Before we start we need to check the pre-requisites – basically the authorizations you have on your SAP system. In order to perform the steps mentioned above you need at least the following authorizations:

ERP System (or Backend): Adequate profile to work with SAP query and read HR data.

Portal: Content Administrator and Self-Service Administrator roles.

Now you are well prepared to continue.  Please follow the instructions below:

• Log in to your SAP portal.
• Go to Self-Service Administrator > Portal Content > Content provided by SAP > srvconfig
• Go to folder com.sap.pct.erp.srvconfig.mss > Generic iView > FPM Applications

• Right mouse click on Generic iView Test Application and press Copy




• Go to your customer name space on the portal content directory and Paste as Deltalink (very important)
• Right mouse click on the pasted application and select Change ID
• Enter a new name, ID and prefix for the application (very important)
• Save your changes
• Go to folder com.sap.pct.erp.srvconfig.mss > Generic iView > FPM Views




• Repeat steps 4. and 5. for all view objects
• Go to folder com.sap.pct.erp.srvconfig.mss > Team Viewer > FPM Views
• Repeat steps 4. and 5. for all view objects

Now the first Part of the endeavor “generic iView” has been accomplished. More to come in the near future. I hope you will come back and follow up on this hopefully interesting article.

About the author

Christian Popa (cristego) is a SAP HCM, Self-Services (XSS) and Netweaver Portal Expert, having several years of experience in Global IT and SAP Projects. Click here to view Christian’s full profile.