Well I can say that this is a long awaited SAP launch and that will provide help to many users worldwide. If you’re like me, at a certain point in your SAP career, you felt the need to have your own SAP sandbox. Being for professional purposes or for your own personal skillset build, an SAP sandbox system is always handy and you can’t well perform this kind of experiments on your client development system.

Up until now, there weren’t many (viable) available solutions. There are some companies that provide you a paid service for you to have your own SAP system/client but usually expensive for most of us.

This month Learning on Demand by SAP launched a new service called SAP Sandbox onDemand, which consists of an SAP ECC 6.0 system with sufficient basic data, such as customer and vendor master data, to enable substantial experimentation.

Using this system, users can access the core ERP functionality of modules such as FI and CO, SD, HR and MM and can write and test ABAP code and modify SAP Netweaver settings and configurations. This offering will provide interested individuals with the ability to reinforce their existing SAP ERP knowledge and skills through experimentation in a live but safe environment. It will also enable you to clarify areas of ambiguity in your knowledge or to test new functionality that they may be considering for an existing or new client.

Given that the SAP Sandbox onDemand is accessed via an SAP WebGUI, there is no need to install any client-side software on your PC, so you can start using the system immediately after receiving your access details.

Comparing with other and existing offers, SAP Sandbox onDemand has a fair price in my perspective: US$80 for 30 days access.

Click here for more info and start playing now!

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1. Best of SAP Sites Directory
2. SAPLAB Version 2.0 is on-line!
3. 22 SAP How To’s you can’t miss!

Following my previous post “Submit an Article, Win a Free Ad“, it is with great pleasure that I announce the winner for this free campaign. Winner is website “Perfect Resources” which is a website and Blog specialized in SAP HR eLearning solutions.

This article focuses on a particular situation in SAP HR, typically when the user is performing a Hiring Action. You have created a position and attached it to an Organization Unit. You have the position ID and everything is all set. Now you want to hire an employee into this position. You go to transaction PA40 and select a date and then select the hire action. You enter the required information, enter the position number and the position attributes are defaulted, now you hit enter again and you get at error message “Position and Personnel Area have different controlling area“… hmm what is this?

You can do a couple of things to resolve this issue. First go to transaction code SPRO, click on Enterprise structure then assignments. Click on Controlling and then assign Company Code to Controlling Area. Click on the Controlling Area which has your country’s name and then click on Assignment of Company Code.

Next, check to see if your Company Code exists.

Now go to transaction code PO13 and enter the position ID which you created. Check Account Assignment infotype 1008 and click on display. Verify the Company Code and Controlling Area. If it’s not the same, let your finance guy know this.

You can also resolve this issue by going through transaction code PO13, enter the Position ID you created and click on Relationship infotype. Select the radio button All and then click on Overview. Select the relationship A003 Belongs To and click on display.

Copy the Organization Unit ID and open a new screen. Type in transaction code PO10 and enter the Organization ID you just copied. Now click on Relationship type infotype and select overview. Check if there is a A011 Relationship; it should be there. Select this relationship and if you know the right cost center click on change, enter the correct cost center over here and click on save.

Now go back to the hire action screen and continue with your hiring.

Author: PerfectResource.net

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1. Best of SAP Sites Directory
2. SAP Free White Papers
3. 5 Keypoints if you want to be a SAP Consultant

Hello everybody. I know I have been missing and still owe answers to some of you. But, as I can only imagine, if you work in consultancy as I do, I guess you’d only wish you could have more time for your hobbies, right? So please bear with me, I promise I will get back with Part 2 of popular post “How to do a Support Package Stack Upgrade – Part 1“. It’s being highly requested and I am truly appreciated that this blog it’s serving good purposes!

This weekend I received an e-mail announcing a new website, namely a Forum, in Wikipedia Newforum. After checking out (I confess I hadn’t yet heard of it), I thought it was woth a while to spread it in SAPLAB.

Here’s what the e-mail publicized:

Now Totally FREE* SAP HR Online Training with 5000+ Real Time Screen Shots: www.wikinewforum.com

Other Training Courses + Other SAP Modules FICO, MM, SD, CRM, PP, PM.. @ www.wikinewforum.com

Special Topics apart from general topics:

* Payroll & Time Schema’s
* Payroll & Time PCR’s (Personal Calculation Rules)
* Rates of Pay
* Factoring/Pro-ration
* Wage type Valuation
* Time Quota’s & Time Types
* Time Evaluation
* Absence Valuation
* Compensation, Benefits, Performance Appraisal, e-Recruitments
* Employee Self Service (ESS) & Manager Self Service (MSS)
* CATS – Cross Application Time Sheets
* Integration with FICO & other Modules
* and more and more….list will not stop
* Totally End-to-End implementation Process with 5000+ Real Time Screen shots

After registering, I browsed around the forum and sub-foruns and from what I read, I think it is a potential resource to use if you’re in an SAP HCM/HR project implementation. You can start by the “SAP End-to-End Implementation” and look into the Free Demo and the existing topics. For sure that we need to think before buying any content, even for just 1$. But, as I said, I think this is a starting off website and forum and in my opinion, it has a good growing potential. It’s really up to us SAP gurus to push it up .

What is your opinion on this new resource? Please comment!

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1. Ask an Expert, Get a Free Answer

Recently I’ve found a Wiki in SDN which I think has a great potential. First of all, you need to have a clear notion of the Wiki Concept. According to Wikipedia:

A wiki is a website that uses wiki software, allowing the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked Web pages, using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor, within the browser. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites, to power community websites, for personal note taking, in corporate intranets, and in knowledge management systems.

Most wikis serve a specific purpose, and off topic material is promptly removed by the user community. Such is the case of the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia. In contrast, open purpose wikis accept all sorts of content without rigid rules as to how the content should be organized.

Being that said, there are numerous wikis sitting in SDN. And since ESS is a very hot topic, it is a good idea to highlight this one.

The “ESS Initial Steps” wiki was originally created by Stuart Campbell. The beauty of the wikis is that any interested user can edit the information on it, obviously with the objective of enriching it or completing it further. Note that for SAP SDN wikis you’ll need to have a valid SAP issued user to be able to edit and save the information in the wikis.

The “ESS Initial Steps” wiki intends to provide a hands-on initial contact with the ESS implementation. It starts of listing the core components information, links/urls to the SAP Help pages, the ESS architecture, the ESS Homepage Framework concept, and so on.

If you’re involved in Employee Self-Services and Portal projects, go along and visit this wiki. You can think about contributing and improving it.

Here’s the link:
http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/ERPHCM/Initial+Steps+in+ESS

Note: you should also read SAP Note 1007341 – SAP ERP 2004/2005 – supported ESS/MSS system landscapes.

Related posts:

1. Display Employee Photo in ESS
2. Simple Sample Applications for Enterprise Services
3. Install a Local SAP Netweaver Developer Workplace

Master Data:
PA10 – Personnel File
PA20 – Display HR Master Data
PA30 – Maintain HR Master Data
PA40 – Personnel Events
PA41 – Change Hiring Data
PA42 – Fast Data Entry for Events
PRMD – Maintain HR Master Data
PRMF – Travel Expenses: Feature TRVFD
PRML – Set Country Grouping via Popup
PRMM – Personnel Events
PRMO – Travel Expenses: Feature TRVCO
PRMP – Travel Expenses: Feature TRVPA
PRMS – Display HR Master Data
PRMT – Update Matchcode
PSO3 – Infotype overview
PSO4 – Individual maintenance of infotypes

Time Management:

PA51 – Display Time Data
PA53 – Display Time Data
PA61 – Maintain Time Data
PA62 – List Entry of Additional Data
PA63 – Maintain Time Data
PA64 – Calendar Entry
PA70 – Fast Data Entry
PA71 – Fast Entry of Time Data
PBAB – Maintain vacancy assignments
PT01 – Create Work Schedule
PT02 – Change Work Schedule
PT03 – Display Work Schedules

Payroll:

PC00 – Run Payroll
PC10 – Payroll menu USA
PE00 – Starts Transactions PE01,PE02,PE03
PE01 – Schemas
PE02 – Calculation Rules
PE03 – Features
PE04 – Create functions and operations
PE51 – HR form editor
PRCA – Payroll calendar
PRCT – Current Settings
PRCU – Printing Checks USA
PRD1 – Create DME
SM31 – Maintain Tables
SM12 – Locked Secessions
TSTC – Table lookup
SPR0 – IMG (Implementation Guide)
SE16 – Data Browser (Table reports)
PP03 – PD Tables
PP0M – Change Org Unit
P013 – Maintain Positions
PO03 – Maintain Jobs

Benefits:

PA85 – Benefits – Call RPLBEN11
PA86 – Benefits – Call RPLBEN07
PA87 – Benefits – Call RPLBEN09
PA89 – COBRA Administration
PA90 – Benefits Enrollment – Individual
PA91 – Benefits – Forms
PA92 – Benefits Tables – Maintain
PA93 – Benefits Tables – Display
PA94 – Benefits – Access Reporting Tree
PA95 – Benefits IMG – Jump to Views
PA96 – Benefits reporting
PA97 – Salary Administration – Matrix
PA98 – Salary Administration
PA99 – Compensation Admin. – rel.changes
PACP – HR-CH: Pension fund, interface

General/Reporting:

PM00 – Menu for HR Reports
PM01 – Dialogs in HR – Create custom infotypes
PRF0 – Standard Form
PSVT – Dynamic Tools Menu
PAR1 – Flexible employee data
PAR2 – Employee list

PD – Organizational Management:

PP0M – Change Org Unit
PO03 – Maintain Jobs
PO13 – Maintain Position
PO10 – Maintain Organizational Unit
PP01 – Maintain Plan Data (menu-guided)
PP02 – Maintain Plan Data (Open)
PP03 – Maintain Plan Data (event-guided)
PP05 – Number Ranges
PP06 – Number Range Maintenance: HRADATA
PP07 – Tasks/Descriptions
PP69 – Choose Text for Organizational Unit
PP90 – Set Up Organization
PPO1 – Change Cost Center Assignment
PPO2 – Display Cost Center Assignment
PPO3 – Change Reporting Structure
PPO4 – Display Reporting Structure
PPO5 – Change Object Indicators (O/S)
PPO6 – Change Object Indicators O/S
PPOA – Display Menu Interface (with dyn.)
PPOC – Create Organizational Unit
PPOM – Maintain Organizational Plan
PPOS – Display Organizational Plan
PQ01 – Events for Work Center
PQ02 – Events for Training Program
PQ03 – Events for Job
PQ04 – Events for Business Event Type
PQ06 – Location Events
PQ07 – Resource Events
PQ08 – Events for External Person
PQ09 – Events for Business Event Group
PQ10 – Events for Organizational Unit
PQ11 – Events for Qualification
PQ12 – Resource Type Events
PQ13 – Events for Position
PQ14 – Events for Task
PQ15 – Events for Company
PSO5 – PD: Administration Tools
PSOA – Work Center Reporting
PSOC – Job Reporting
PSOG – OrgManagement General Reporting
PSOI – Tools Integration PA-PD
PSOO – Organizational Unit Reporting
PSOS – Position Reporting
PSOT – Task Reporting

Recruitment:

PB10 – Init.entry of applicant master data
PB20 – Display applicant master data
PB30 – Maintain applicant master data
PB40 – Applicant events
PB50 – Display applicant actions
PB60 – Maintain applicant actions
PB80 – Evaluate vacancies
PBA0 – Evaluate advertisements
PBA1 – Applicant index
PBA2 – List of applications
PBA3 – Applicant vacancy assignment list
PBA4 – Receipt of application

< Back to SAP Transaction Codes

Related posts:

1. SAP ABAP Transaction Codes
2. SAP Basis Transaction Codes
3. SAP Financials (FI/CO) Transaction Codes

Displaying the employee photo in ESS is definitely turning into a FAQ. I’ve seen lots and lots of people asking in forums about this, and how they can achieve displaying the employee’s photo via ESS. Providing that you have at least the Employee Self-Service 60.2 Business Package (for ERP 2004), it shouldn’t be hard for you to get there though some simple custiomizing. Look into the steps below and please, get back to me in case something doesn’t go as you expect.

1. Enter transaction code OANR and create a “Number Range” for SAP Archive Link;

2. For this process, additional authorization will be required for authorization object S_NUMBER = 03 ARCHIVELNK;

3. In “Intervals”, create a number range 01 from 0000000001 to 9999999999 without the external number flag. It is likely that this range already exists;

4. To assign the Documents Class, enter transaction code OAC2 and maintain table TOAVE. Create an entry with Document type HRICOLFOTO with document class JPG;

5. Set all three columns here to minuses and do not set the flag in the check box;

6. Now you must create a Content Repository with a storage type FILE archive. Enter transaction code OAC0.

7. Swap from Display to Change, select an entry and choose Copy. In alternative, you can just hit Create and fill in the following fields:

• Choose a two character name – can use Zx (where x is a number) if you need to use a customer namespace;
• Choose the relevant description;
• Set DocArea to be ‘Archive Link’;
• Storage type – set to R/3 Database;
• Protocol – leave blank;
• Choose Version no. 0046 (or the latest one available);
• Contents table – set this to SDOKCONT1;
• Basic Path – c:\ (this should be set to where the photos are stored);
• Archive Path – c:\ (this is the path from where the photos are to be retrieved);
• Output Device – leave blank.

8. Enter the path name where the photos are to be loaded from (this is for loading purposes only). When the photos are linked into the SAP system, SAP will take a ‘copy’ and store it in his own repository. The path may only need to be entered to ‘Arch.path’ and all the other entries;

9. Activate the Content Server Interface by maintaining the corresponding Basis service – transaction code SICF;

10. Create a user profile – with sufficient authorizations to carry out the processes which are done by the system in the background. Ideally this should be a background system user. Using your own user ID will trigger a warning that you are using a dialogue user account. If you use your own user ID, change it as soon as you have tested the configuration. Once you have finished the project, the chances are that your user account will be deleted from the system which will subsequently stop this service from working. Also, don’t forget to document every step of your configurations, including screenshots, passwords and authorization profiles;

11. Double-click on “content server” in the left hand tree structure, under default_host > sap > bc > content server;

12. Click on the refresh icon and make sure that the service is activated (black instead of gray). If it is activated, the writing should also be in bold;

13. Enter transaction code  OAC3 and check which content repository (Archive) is linked to document type HRICOLFOTO in object type PREL.

14. Set the ‘Content Repository’ field to the one you set up in the step above. Note the Ret.per. field is the retention period for the photo in MONTHS (the default is 833 years and 3 months);

Linking a photo to a personnel number

15. Enter transaction code OAAD and click on “Store and Assign”;

16. Enter business object PREL, document type HRICOLPHOTO and click on Create;

17. Enter the Personnel Number of the employee you want to link the photo to. Choose the infotype that you wish the photo to be displayed on (I’ve tested with Infotype 0002 but should);

18. Click on Continue;

19. Enter the path and filename of the photo. The dropdown will allow you to navigate to the appropriate directory;

20. The system will notify you that the Stored document is created successfully. If an error 401 appears, regarding missing authorizations, redo the above step. It is known to happen the first time you try to load the photo (SAP:-));

Displaying photos

21. You can now display your linked photos.

22. From any Infotype in PA30, you achieve this by selecting the employee in Display or Maintain Data and selecting Menu item ‘Extras’, display all facsimilies:

• Access transaction code SM30 and maintain table T588J;
• Note that Header structure per infotype and Header modifier activities describe which header is to be shown at the top of each infotype. The Passport photo option determines whether HRICOLFOTO or HRIEMPFOTO is used. Choosing either option is acceptable as long as all your other settings relate to that entry as well;
• Add an entry for PERNR with Filed Type ‘PIC’. Column 75 puts the picture on the right hand side. The IT column is used to decide where to take the ‘Field Name’ value from. For the PERNR attribute, all infotypes have this field;
• Before closing, GENERATE the screen header again;

23. In PA30, you can double click on the picture in the Infotype. This will bring up a bigger version of it;

24. As soon as the above configurations are done, ESS users can now update their own data, using the Who’s Who application;

25. Managers will also be able to view the employee’s photo in the MSS application Team: Employee Information.

No related posts.