Hi,
I thought I would share with you an important stuff about SAp reporting...Jst go through it and see if facinates you...
<b>The Three Biggest Misconceptions
About SAP Reporting — And How
to Dispel Them</b>
the three most common misconceptions about SAP reporting are worth understanding in some detail, because in the process of dispelling them, you learn a lot about the advantages of using the ABAP Query and why it is the best choice in many cases. In addition, if you decide to promote the ABAP Query in your organization, you will know where the points of resistance are likely to be and how to respond to them.
<b>Misconception #1:</b>
“We Should Do Things the Way We’ve Always Done Them”
When companies migrate to SAP, they often impose their current thinking and business practices on to their SAP system instead of embracing the new and, in some cases, advanced functionality available with SAP. They often try to continue their business practices and workflows as they were performed prior to SAP without utilizing SAP’s inherent value to improve and reengineer those business practices to create a more efficient work output. For example, a company will take a copy of an old report provided by their legacy system and try to replicate that report in the new SAP system, without stopping to consider the limitations of the old system or the capabilities of the new system — and the implications of each. This is a strategy based on the all-too-common mentality:
“Well, we always ran this report this way.” When the organization I support first implemented the SAP HR module, the highest-priority report was a printed list of employees and their social security numbers. The reason? The legacy system had required a social security number to access an employee’s record. It never occurred to them to find out if the new SAP system shared this requirement (it didn’t — in fact, they could now access an employee record based on any criteria, including simply the employee’s name). The transition to reporting in SAP involves letting go of old mindsets and embracing new concepts, which can be difficult at first, but quickly becomes easier as users realize the benefits. For example, many legacy systems offer only batch reporting for accessing data, where dozens of reports containing the data you want are sent to a printer daily. SAP, on the other hand, offers online real-time access to data, obviating the need for cumbersome printed reports for simple lookup purposes.
So, just because “you’ve always done it that way” does not mean you should continue to do so. There is likely a better way to meet your specific reporting needs, but before rushing headlong into a new solution, make a proper assessment of what your needs really are. Perform an in-depth evaluation of each individual reporting requirement to gain a better understanding of what the report is used for, who receives a copy, what business decisions are made using the report, etc. With this knowledge, you can be sure that your reporting solution provides you with exactly what you need and you will be better able to leverage the functionalities available to you.
<b>Misconception #2:</b>
“SAP Lacks an Abundance of Standard Reports”
The second misconception is that SAP does not come with an abundance of predelivered standard reports. In
SAP’s earliest versions, the number of standard reports was limited, but with time the list grew. As the list grew
to the thousands, many longtime SAP users who were accustomed to the limited number did not take the time to
investigate whether a standard report was available when they needed a report.
SAP Release 4.6 contains over 4,000 “canned” reports (2,500-3,500 reports in Releases 4.0-4.5). SAP’s
predelivered standard reports are robust in their design and provide the essential information you need to make
informed business decisions. The table below provides a small sampling of some of the standard reports avail-
able for various modules.
For each individual reporting requirement that you identify, you should first investigate whether SAP already
offers that report as a “canned” report. If they do, use that one! All of the work is already done for you — there
is no coding to do, no security to work out, and all the information that you need is embedded within the deliv-
ered standard report.
<b>Misconception #3:</b>
“We’ll Need an ABAP Programmer”
The third and biggest misconception is that ABAP programmers are required to write (hard-code) all R/3 reports.
This belief is a carryover from the earliest releases of SAP, where the available reporting tools and standard
reports were very limited. It is also prevalent for two other reasons: First, legacy systems often required pro-
grammers to hard-code reports and people are used to doing things that way (remember Misconception #1?).
Second, many SAP customers are not aware of all the reporting options available in SAP and assume that cus-
tom, hard-coded reports are their only option.
There are many disadvantages to hard-coding reports in ABAP. In addition to the resource implications of a
programmer spending time creating a custom report, you must add the time a programmer must continue to
spend maintaining the report, including making any changes to the report’s data and evaluating the impact of
upgrades or Legal Change Packages (LCPs) on the report’s code. There are also widely varying ways to code
data retrieval for a report, each of which can affect the retrieval mechanism and, in turn, system resource utiliza-
tion. Add in newly skilled or improperly trained ABAP programmers and the result can be a potentially negative
impact on your report output. Even if all your custom reports are written by the very best ABAP programmers,
turnover is more common than not, and at some point someone new will need to learn the intricacies of the
custom report. Custom reports also require more rigorous testing to ensure that the correct data is retrieved and
processed (in the correct hierarchical order), and that security is properly programmed.
No organization can entirely avoid using custom ABAP reports, as there are always unique cases where the
reporting need cannot be met by standard reports or reporting tools, but the use of such reports should be kept
to a minimum. In addition to the abundance of standard reports available with SAP (refer back to Misconcep-
tion #2), the mighty Business Information Warehouse (BW), and other SAP-delivered tools (including LIS,
Report Painter/Writer, Drilldown reporting, and the Query Painter), SAP has an easy-to-use report-writing tool
— the ABAP Query — that empowers business end users to write their own reports, from any data in the R/3
database, with no programming required
<b>**REWARD POINTS IF USEFUL**</b>
Regards
AK
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