At a time where the SCN website is due to have a clean face, SAP employee and SAP mentor Mark Finnern delights us, yet again, with a highly useful post titled “Top 25 SCN Blogs of all Time“. In case you have missed it, here is your opportunity to know which are the most popular SAP SCN weblogs, of all time. This ranking has been produced taking in consideration the number of user views, counted on the last 8 years. So these are the most viewed weblogs, which obviously reflect which SAP subjects users are more interested in.

Mark Finnern also adds a few observations that sustain this thorough list:

Wow there are some well known names and some surprises in the list, not the least the number one blog post by Steffen Weber. With 178K almost twice as many hits as the famous often updated originaly named XI FAQ post by Michal Krawczyk. Looks like the Excel Macro File referenced in Steffen’s blog post does come really handy. Congratulations Steffen for having written the most viewed post of the last 8 years.

I have to smile seeing that Michal’s XI/PI FAQ post is #2. I had long discussion with him why this kind of content should be moved to a wiki page so that everyone can improve it. His argument is that you need a curator, otherwise the quality isn’t there. Number of views he got is proofing his point, comments of certain links not working anymore can be counted for the wiki camp, but this is not the blog post to bring up that argument again, but to celebrate the top blog posts of SCN.

Thomas Jung can ad the title Master of SCN blogging to the long list of his career achievements, as 6 of his posts are in the top 25. I am always at awe seeing the beauty and quality of his posts. I remember the early beginnings when Brain McKellar nudged him after seeing his excellent BSP forum answers to post blogs. I am so glad he did oh and we miss Brian on SCN.

Love it that a Crystal Report post by Blair Wheadon is #5. It is a beautiful proof, that the BOBJ community has found a home on SCN. Being posted only 2 years ago in December 2009 it is also the youngest blog post on the list. Really amazing that it is on rank #5 already. Well done Blair.

Just wow that there are still 3 Roberto Negro posts in this top 25 list. He used to dominate the BW space, as it was called back in the mid 2000s. He moved on and is unfortunately not working in the SAP space anymore. Really bummed that he nver made it to a TechEd, or at least I don’t remember. I hope the hammock he once offered me is still standing somewhere in Italy waiting for me to relax in. Roberto we really miss you here, please come back.

Manfred Lutz and Ingo Hilgefort are the other two bloggers that have more than one post in the list. We have over 3000 SCNers who have written at least one post, To be in the top 25 is quite the achievement. Thank you all for putting the effort in.

Top 25 SCN Blogs of all Time

1. SAP NetWeaver Portal Reporting for Collaboration Rooms
This Blog describes how to create consolidated and ordered reports out of standard SAP NetWeaver Portal collaboration room raw data files.
Steffen Weber in Knowledge Management (KM), Standards, SAP NetWeaver Platform

2. XI/PI FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
Exchange Infrastructure – Frequently Asked Questions
Michal_Krawczyk_PIXI in SAP Process Integration (PI)

3. Sending E-Mail from ABAP – Version 610 and Higher – BCS Interface
Yesterday I posted a weblog on how to send E-Mails from ABAP in releases <= 46D using the API functions. Today we are going to look at releases >= 610 and the BCS Interface.
Thomas Jung in ABAP, Application Server

4. Web Dynpro ABAP Demonstration Videos
Web Dynpro, with its strong graphical modeling environment, provides an interesting challenge for authors of all types of written materials on the subject. Often videos can fill that gap. This weblog describes several hours of newly released Web Dynpro ABAP videos.
Thomas Jung in ABAP, Beginner, Enterprise Portal (EP), Web Dynpro

5. Crystal Reports in Visual Studio 2010
An overview of how Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 customers will receive Crystal Reports.
Blair Wheadon in SAP Crystal Reports, Interoperability .NET

6. New Blog Series: ABAP Trial Version for Newbies
New Blog Series: ABAP Trial Version for Newbies With the new build of the SAP NetWeaver 2004s ABAP Trial Version (SP11), we in SAP NetWeaver Product Management are eager to introduce, through a series of blogs, SAP ABAP technology to those with limited ABAP experience.
Manfred Lutz in ABAP, Application Server, Beginner, Web Dynpro

7. BusinessObjects and SAP Part I
This is Part I of a series on BusinessObjects and SAP products.
Ingo Hilgefort in Enterprise Data Warehousing/Business Warehouse, Business Intelligence (BusinessObjects), Business Process Expert

8. How do you activate ABAP Proxies?
Have you got the error message “Unable to connect to the Integration Builder, when you are trying to create a ABAP PROXY from a R/3 system? This blog show the steps to be executed to make sure you are able to build ABAP Proxies.
vijaya kumari in SAP Process Integration (PI)

9. SAP NetWeaver 7.0 – Java and ABAP Trial Version on Linux – VMware Edition – Tips & Tricks
Here you find the required steps missed out in the official Documentation. How to get the Application Server running, install the License and connect from Windows.
Gregor Wolf in ABAP, SAP NetWeaver Platform

10. BSP a Developer’s Journal Part XIV – Consuming WebServices with ABAP
In this BSP Developer’s Journal we once again look at a technology that just does ride on the edge of the BSP environment. We look at how we can call WebServices with ABAP.
Thomas Jung in Business Server Pages, ABAP, Application Server

11. LOGISTIC COCKPIT DELTA MECHANISM – Episode one: V3 Update, the ‘serializer’
This is the first episode of a series (of three) concernig delta mechanism in the Logistic Cockpit for BW. Here you can find a short overview examining the conception and technical background of delta extraction related to logistic flows towards BW system by using the Serialized V3 Update.
Roberto Negro in Enterprise Data Warehousing/Business Warehouse

12. Basic ABAP OO eLearnings
I frequently receive requests for learning materials on basic ABAP Object Oriented concepts. In response I have created a 5 part eLearning series that is intended to be accessible to anyone just starting out with ABAP OO.
Thomas Jung in ABAP, Beginner, Business Server Pages, Web Dynpro

13. Troubleshoot the SAP NetWeaver 2004s BI Frontend Installation
This aim of this blog is to discuss how to configure your browser parameters as well as discuss how to install the latest SAP NetWeaver 2004s BI Frontend Components. Keep in mind that it is always best to keep your frontend patches up to do date. This article covers most of the issues I’ve seen when working with different browsers and frontend components specifically related to installation of frontend components.
Prakash Darji in Enterprise Data Warehousing/Business Warehouse, Enterprise Portal (EP)

14. LOGISTIC COCKPIT – WHEN YOU NEED MORE – First option: enhance it !
Through this weblog we will go on in our tour around the logistic data extraction world: after having familiarized with the data flows that the system can run for every available update methods in LBWE and before approaching all the other extraction mechanisms managed by SAP Business Warehouse, now it’s necessary facing this question: what’s happen if a standard logistic datasource (and its related information set) is not enough for our needs ?
Roberto Negro in Enterprise Data Warehousing/Business Warehouse

15. Web Dynpro ABAP exercises from TechEd 2007
For those who are looking to improve their Web Dynpro ABAP skills, here is the content of the hands-on session for Web Dynpro ABAP at TechEd 2007. Based on the ESM (Enterprise Sales Model), the exercises are structured so that the result of one task forms the foundation for the next exercise. The download contains all required objects, the ESM data generator, the example solutions, the templates, and the document ‘CD255 Developing User Interfaces with Web Dynpro ABAP’. All you need is a local installation of the latest ABAP Trial Version.
Manfred Lutz in ABAP, Application Server, Web Dynpro

16. Gravity – Collaborative Business Process Modelling within Google Wave
Gravity is a prototype developed by SAP Research in Brisbane, Australia and SAP NetWeaver Development providing real-time, cloud-based collaborative business process modelling within Google Wave. Google Wave is Google’s new real-time collaboration platform that combines features of e-mail, social networking, wikis and instant messaging in one integrated browser-based client.
Alexander Dreiling in Service-Oriented Architecture, Business Process Expert, Business Process Management, Business Process Modeling, Business Rules Management, Composition Environment (CE), Consumer Products, Insurance, Interoperability, SAP NetWeaver Platform, SAP Research, Enterprise Social Systems

17. Update Your ABAP Development Skills to SAP NetWeaver 7.0
If the title of this blog sounds familiar, then chances are good that you have attended session CD251 at one of the TechEds this year. Now find out how some of the core content of this TechEd Session has been made available as an Online SDN E-Learning.
Thomas Jung in ABAP, Service-Oriented Architecture, SAP Process Integration (PI), SAP TechEd, Web Dynpro

18. BusinessObjects and SAP – Installation and Configuration Part 1 of 4
In this blog series I am describing the steps that are required to install and configure the BusinessObjects solution on top of a SAP BI system (Part #1).
Ingo Hilgefort in Analytics, Enterprise Data Warehousing/Business Warehouse, Business Intelligence (BusinessObjects), Community Day, ERP, SAP NetWeaver Platform, SAP TechEd

19. ABAP Proxies in XI(Client Proxy)
The other way of interfacing XI is through proxies. From WAS 6.20, proxy generation feature enables application systems to communicate with XI using proxies. Proxy generation enables you to create proxies in application systems. Proxies encapsulate the creation or parsing of XML messages and the communication with the relevant runtime components required to send or receive the messages.
Ravikumar Allampallam in SAP Process Integration (PI)

20. Generic Extraction via Function Module
Short overview about the extraction api, using custom defined function modules.
Siegfried Szameitat in Enterprise Data Warehousing/Business Warehouse

21. Aspirant to learn SAP XI…You won the Jackpot if you read this!-Part I
My inbox is flooding with many mails soliciting the direction to start their career into SAP XI. I am too lethargic to reply for everyone as it is a bit lengthy process to explicate it in a mail. You can ask me, Why am blogging so late? I told you already am lazy to pen lengthy stuff:)…But…One day I got a mail from an graduate student asking me to guide him…!!….Alas! Iam amazed and impressed with that mail….I guess SDN Community has accomplished its goal in global marketing and inspiring all sorts of people across the globe……Kuddos to SDN!…
Sravya Talanki in SAP Process Integration (PI)

22. LOGISTIC COCKPIT DELTA MECHANISM – Episode three: the new update methods
This third episode describes in detail all the elements required to help make an aware selection of the right new update method (after the serialized V3 update mechanism replacement) for the applications related to the Logistic Cockpit.
Roberto Negro in Enterprise Data Warehousing/Business Warehouse

23. Http* Errors in XI
There are many forum discussions about Http Errors. This blog is collective information about most common HTTP errors occurring during XI implementations and possible tips to solve the problems.
Krishna Moorthy P in SAP Process Integration (PI)

24. SAP’s definitive strategy for planning technologies moving forward: What’s the word on BPC, BI-IP and SRC?
This blog discuss SAP’s direction for planning products. It describes SAP’s official stance, and provides a bit more insight into Business Planning and Consolidation 7.0, version for SAP NetWeaver.
Ryan Leask in Analytics, Enterprise Data Warehousing/Business Warehouse, Business Intelligence (BusinessObjects), Business Process Expert, Business Process Management, Business Process Modeling, Business Solutions, Enterprise Performance Management, SAP NetWeaver Platform

25. First steps to work with Change Request Management scenario
This blog describes how to create a test landscape to practice with the Charm scenario in Solution Manager 7.0 without creating interferences with real TMS landscapes. Also you will find tips and tricks for the common mistakes in the configuration of this scenario.
Dolores Correa in SAP Solution Manager

Many thanks again to Mark Finnern for this great contribution. Here is Mark’s career summary.

Mark Finnern is the Chief Community Evangelist of the SAP Community Network focusing on the SAP Mentor initiative. He is an SAP veteran, has implemented SAP FI/CO at many customers in Germany and the US. Was the co-inventor of the Pre-Configured Client (PCC), which at times was used by 90% of all US SAP customers to save implementation time. It evolved into SAP’s Best Practices and All-In-One offerings. He is the proud owner of a Traffic Monitoring System patent. Mark was the driving force behind community features of the SAP Community Network: Blogs, points recognition system, wiki, Community Day now Inside Track. Mark Finnern has a bachelor’s degree in Business oriented Computer Science from the Fachhochschule in Furtwangen Germany. He is also the founder and host of the Future Salon with its new tag line: Creating a world that works for all.

Source: http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/27705

It sometimes seems difficult to find your ways in the SAP neverending web of information. Anyone who works with SAP knows that a big part of their job is to constantly search and digest the best piece of information (ideally) they can find. These mostly originate from various sources and most of the times, in what refers to blogs, at least half of them are low quality.

Being that said, I’ve decided to write this post and reveal which are my top SAP fellow blogs, whom I follow and recommend that you visit.

1. SAP Community Network Blogs

SAP blogs are by far the most complete and extensive source of information. It also has the advantage of being supported by SAP and its contents managed and updated by SAP employees, SAP mentors and other credible SAP professionals. The downside to it is that you’ll need an SAP user in order to view it fully or be able to post comments.

Link: http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs

2. SearchSAP

Owned by TechTarget, SearchSAP is a very complete website and blog with more than tutorials or how-to’s on SAP. It contains news, expert advice, technical tips and career guidance, latest applications as well as future ERP system plans with breaking news coverage from independent editors. I recommend this website and its rich content.

Link: http://searchsap.techtarget.com/

3. JonERP.com

Jon Reed’s blog is widely known and is a complete source that I recommend for any SAP professional. Jon actively blogs about several SAP emerging areas, SAP market trends, with a special focus on SAP career – Jon Reed’s blog has a special SAP Career Center page, designed for people wanting to know more about careers on SAP and how to enhance it. Jon also is consistently posting new podcasts and webcasts.

Link: http://www.jonerp.com

4. Pixelbase

Michael Koch is the driver of Pixelbase, which I recommend that you  follow and visit on a regular basis. Michael is an experienced independent consultant and he’s also a well known SAP Mentor. Pixelbase is the commercial face of Michael’s activity, however, you’ll find that there is much to learn from the blog, covering topics such as SAP Web Development (ITS, BSP, WebDynpro for ABAP), custom SAP Development (ABAP and ABAP OO), RIA (Adobe Flex), Interfaces (ALE, IDOCS, XML), SAP CRM development and Data Migration, as well as conference coverage, among others.

Link: http://www.pixelbase.co.uk/

5. Feeding the SAP EcoSystem

Peter Russo is the main blogger and webmaster of Feeding the SAP EcoSystem blog. Unlike others, this blog focuses more on SAP products and Peter includes his personal experiences in each post he writes. Benefiting from the fact that he appears to attend lots of SAP events, he also transmits these experiences to the blog, which are obviously enriching for any of us. It is ideal if you want to understand what’s going on in the SAP world and also where SAP is going in the future.

Link: http://www.feedingthesapecosystem.com

6. Blag’s Bag of Rants

Blag is Alvaro Tejada Galindo’s nickname on twitter (@blag),. Alvaro is a senior ABAP Consultant, SAP Mentor, Programming Geek, Blagbert/Programming books author. Alvaro is Peruvian and lives in Montreal, Canada. If you want technical, Blag’s blog is the place to go.

Link: http://blagrants.blogspot.com/

7. Friday Morning Report

The Friday Morning Report is owned and managed by Craig Cmehil, a well known SAP community evangelist that works for SAP AG as a Director for Social Media Relations. Hence, Craig is very active in his blogging, tweeting and moderating discussions over at the SCN website and blogs.

Link: http://fridaymorningreport.tv/

8. SAP WEB 2.0

This is an interesting blog that I also follow. It focuses in cloud computing solutions and 3 main areas:  Web 2.0 by SAP, Web 2.0 in SAP and Web 2.0 with SAP. It is worth taking a look!

Link: http://www.sapweb20.com/blog/

9. SAP Bloggers Corner

SAP Bloggers corner is intended to promote conversation about what SAP is doing in the market. The main attraction of this blog is the livestream feature, podcasts and broadcasts, published on a regular basis.

Link: http://sapbloggerscorner.com/

10. ERP Genie

I think this was the first SAP blog I visited, ever since I started in the SAP world. It is very rich in content covering SAP podcasts (from Jon Reed), Job  Board, Foruns, FAQs, whitepapers  and tutorials, etc.  You can also browse the blog based on your user/consultant profile, i.e., Functional or Technical. The blog also contains a very complete section on SAP General. It’s a really good starting point for anybody and definitely a blog that you want to come back.

Link: http://www.erpgenie.com/

Hope you liked this blog list; these are just a few of the ones I follow on a regular basis. What are your favourite blogs?

Alvaro Tejada Galindo, also known as @Blag is a Senior ABAP Consultant from Lima – Perú. He started learning programming at the age of 20. He started with Visual Basic 6.0 and C++ and he also learned some Pascal, Euphoria and Java. In the past 10 years, Alvaro has been involved in ABAP development, also learn scripting languages like Ruby and PHP.

In this post, similarly to what he did back in 2007, 2008 and 2009, @Blag compiled a list of what he considered the best and most useful SDN posts in 2010. Let me also take this opportunity to thank @Blag for his contribution, it is really very useful besides it’s what I consider rich content.

Ranting

• The Grinch who stole the Questions - Julius Bussche
• Geek’s Dictionary: What is the Walldorf Kiss of Death? – Thorsten Franz
• Kiss of Death for Web Dynpro Java – The Follow-Up Questions – Thorsten Franz
• Can we reinvent the grey haired ABAPer? – John Moy
• Should SDN be used for cross-blogging? – Michael Nicholls
• “Request-A-Blog” from a SAP Mentor – Richard Hirsch
• Goodbye Simplicity, Hello Obfuscation – &SAP_EDIT – Chris Paine
• A Blogger’s Carol – Jim Spath

WebDynpro

• Silverlight Islands in Web Dynpro Java 7.20 – Yariv Zur
• Wave Islands in Webdynpro ABAP – Uwe Fetzer
• Web Dynpro ABAP: Display tiff images – Elvez
• ABAP Class using Singleton pattern – used in WDA Enhancements. – ashish shah
• Web Dynpro Forms using HCM Processes and Forms – Brad Pokroy
• The death of Web Dypro Java has been greatly exaggerated… – Wolfgang Hilpert
• Technology Stability in a World of Constant Change – Michael Bechauf
• WebDynpro UIs – Usable? - Pete Lagana

Beyond SAP

• Are there SAP user groups in Latin America? – Jim Spath
• Meet the Mentors – Alvaro Tejada Galindo
• Ode to Marilyn Pratt: Honoring the Advocate on Ada Lovelace Day – Moya Watson
• Twenty Four ^2 – Jim Spath
• Consuming ABAP Webservices in Flex – Neil Gardiner
• SAP Mentors setting the tone for consulting? – Dennis Howlett
• I too want to become a famous blogger – Muthu Ranganathan
• SAP SDN Blog Reader for iPad, iPhone and Android devices – Helmut Tammen

SAP Developer Network

• SAP Mentor Monday: Highlights 2009 from SAP Mentors – Mark Finnern
• Turning a new page… – Craig Cmehil
• My UNOFFICIAL underground SCN promo fan video – Chris Solomon
• Meet David Branan Community Support Angel – Marilyn Pratt
• Powered by YOU: SCN By The Numbers – Mark Yolton
• Congratulations to the current Topic Leaders (2009-2010) – Laure Cetin

Business Server Pages

• Single Sign On to BSP pages – Holger Bruchelt

Emerging Technologies

• smartJSON – Lightweight JSON Library For ABAP – Wiktor Nyckowski
• iPhone App for searching HELP.SAP.COM – John Moy
• Mobile Augmented Reality in SAP – Ivan Femia
• SAP River, Gateway and more at Innovative Community Day Bangalore – Dipankar Saha

Community Projects

• unofficial Timeline of SAP – Sergio Ferrari
• Community Project ZGEOCODE – Gregor Wolf

Business Process Expert

• Want Fries With That? – Martin Lang

Widgets

• SAP Mentor Directory 2010 – Anil Bavaraju

Beginners

• Web Dynpro ABAP on TV for beginner (Hello World) – Holger Stumm
• Video: Why & How To Blog on SAP Community Network? – Natascha Thomson
• Growing in your SAP Career – Somnath Manna
• Asking Good Questions in the Forums to get Good Answers – Rob Burbank

ABAP

• ABAPdoc v2 – Onno Bagijn
• Macros – Good or Evil? – Gerd Rother
• Twibap: the ABAP Twitter API – Uwe Fetzer
• The ABAP Workbench and the Test-Driven Development Cycle in EHP1 - Stephen Pfeiffer
• xlsx2abap – Read and edit your Excel files from ABAP – Ivan Femia
• Enterprise Geeks to planet earth: “Houston, we have a problem” – Dennis Howlett
• Against All Odds – Programming of Communicating (S)ALV Grid Controls – Uwe Schieferstein
• Re-learn ABAP: Transition from Procedural to OO ABAP – Eric
• Calling a function module is now FM Droid – Raúl Vides Mosquera Pumaricra
• abap2xlsx – I’m no longer a baby, I grow up and now I’m a fully featured tool – Ivan Femia
• Just When You Thought You Knew Everything about ABAP Date Calculations… – Rob Burbank
• Calling a function module (abap code) – Raúl Vides Mosquera Pumaricra
• ABAP Trial Version 7.02 available in SCN! – Horst Keller
• ABAP Testing and Troubleshooting Tools – Which Features Are In Which Releases? – Olga Dolinskaja
• ABAP Debugger Scripting: Basics – Stephen Pfeiffer
• ABAP Debugger Scripting: Advanced – Stephen Pfeiffer

Carreer Center

• Nuke that code, let us start over – Vijay Vijayasankar

Standards

• SCRUM as example for new approaches in application development – Marcel Salein

SAP Education

• How do you know the consultant you get is the consultant you interviewed? – Kevin Wilson
• SAP Certification: The Certification 5 Report – Dennis Howlett
• SAP Communities, SAP Mentors, what’s in it for me ? How to convince my boss to
  let me access it ? (SAP Inside Track debriefing & Invitation to TechEd Networking Sessions) – Martin Gillet

SAP SAPPHIRE

• Where will you be ? – Abesh Bhattacharjee
• Blue Shirt Brigade aka SAP Mentors at #SAPPHIRENOW #ASUG2010 – Mark Finnern
• Sapphire Now 2010 in Orlando – My First Sapphire – Simon To
• My Sapphire experience @Orlando and the people who made it special : Part – 1 – Abesh Bhattacharjee
• My Sapphire experience @Orlando and the people who made it special : Part – 2 – Abesh Bhattacharjee

Higher Education

• SAP Mentors, Certification Five geek out with Bill McDermott – Dennis Howlett
• I would get SAP certified if…. – Vijay Vijayasankar

CRM

• Create your own BOL Object – Harel Gilor

SAP TechEd

• Why I want to go to TechEd – Chris Paine
• #nataschatoteched: An SAP Mentors case study – Ted Sapountzis
• Zen and the Art of Community – David Hull
• Life After Demo Jam – Matt Harding
• SAPTechEd in Vegas…Win, lose, or draw? – Susan Keohan

Community Day

• A Scrapbook of SAP Inside Track Vancouver – Jason Cao
• We made it! SAP Inside Track Istanbul – Abdulbasit Gulsen
• SAP Inside Track Sydney, Australia 2011 – Graham Robinson

Service-Orientes Architecture

• Semantics of Web Services – Tobias Trapp

Business Intelligence

• The BW – HANA Relationship – Thomas Zurek

Mobile

• SAP’s Mobile Strategy: Really? – John Appleby
• Caffeine – ABAP to Go – The Motivation – Daniel Vocke
• Android and RESTFul web service instead of SOAP – Michael Hardenbol
• Mobile apps or HTML? – Tobias Hofmann

Open Source

• Barcodes in SAP with the Barcode Writer in Pure Postscript. – Robert Russell
• Call a function module in the ABAP Editor: Stop Crying – Start Laughing. – Andrea Olivieri

Analytics

• What does SAP mean by “In-Memory”? – Ethan Jewett

SAP xApps

• Release : SAP MII Backuper v 1.0 – Abesh Bhattacharjee

Code Exchange

• Creating your own project on Code Exchange – Rui Nogueira

SAP Business Workflow

• What not to WF – Susan Keohan
• Santa baby, hurry down the chimney tonight… – Susan Keohan

Source: blag’s SDN weblog

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!

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

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!

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.

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

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.

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