Dear Ramesh Chandra,
Functional specification: The Functional Specification is a comprehensive document created after the Software Requirements Document. It provides more details on selected items originally described in the Software Requirements Template. Elsewhre organizations combine these two documents into a single document.
Functional specs is like a templeate document, hence it will be same whether it is AR or AP or CCA. Basically functional specs is a document which explains the requirements with technical details, so that technical consultant or any other person can read and understand what is the background of the report or an extension done in SAP.
The Functional Specification describes the features of the desired functinality. It describes the product's features as seen by the stake holders,and contains the technical information and the data needed for the design and developement.
The functional specs should have the following details:
Background: Information why this report is required and Business process involved in that.
Selection Parameters: This should what fields should be selection fields, which are optional and which are mandatory etc.
Layout of the report: What information is required in the output of the report. This should also indicate the technical names - Table and field names from where the data needs to be fetched.
Detailed Description: This should explain the logic of the report - what calculations needs to be done etc.
The Functional Specification defines what the functionality will be of a particulat area that is to be precise a transaction in SAP terminology.
It also contains the data regarding change history, if any.
Functional Spec is mainly prepared for the purpose of developing the new reports (this happens only when SAP standard report not achieve the client purpose) using the ABAP Program. for ABAPers you need to give the details of the Tables , Fields and the logic how to pick the value and get the report.
For a sense of where the functional specification fits into the development process, here are a typical series of steps in developing a software product:
Requirements:
This is a formal statement of what the product planners informed by their knowledge of the marketplace and specific input from existing or potential customers believe is needed for a new product or a new version of an existing product. Requirements are usually expressed in terms of narrative statements and in a relatively general way.
Objectives: Objectives are written by product designers in response to the Requirements. They describe in a more specific way what the product will look like. Objectives may describe architectures, protocols, and standards to which the product will conform. Measurable objectives are those that set some criteria by which the end product can be judged. Measurability can be in terms of some index of customer satisfaction or in terms of capabilities and task times. Objectives must recognize time and resource constraints. The development schedule is often part or a corollary of the Objectives.
Functional specification.: The functional specification (usually functional spec or just spec for short) is the formal response to the objectives. It describes all external user and programming interfaces that the product must support.
Design change requests: Throughout the development process, as the need for change to the functional specification is recognized, a formal change is described in a design change request.
Logic Specification:
The structure of the programming (for example, major groups of code modules that support a similar function), individual code modules and their relationships, and the data parameters that they pass to each other may be described in a formal document called a logic specification. The logic specification describes internal interfaces and is for use only by the developers, testers, and, later, to some extent, the programmers that service the product and provide code fixes to the field.
User documentation:
In general, all of the preceding documents (except the logic specification) are used as source material for the technical manuals and online information (such as help pages) that are prepared for the product's users.
Test plan: Most development groups have a formal test plan that describes test cases that will exercise the programming that is written. Testing is done at the module (or unit) level, at the component level, and at the system level in context with other products. This can be thought of as alpha testing. The plan may also allow for beta test. Some companies provide an early version of the product to a selected group of customers for testing in a "real world" situation.
The Final Product:
Ideally, the final product is a complete implementation of the functional specification and design change requests, some of which may result from formal testing and beta testing. The cycle is then repeated for the next version of the product, beginning with a new Requirements statement, which ideally uses feedback from customers about the current product to determine what customers need or want next.
Most software makers adhere to a formal development process similar to the one described above. The hardware development process is similar but includes some additional considerations for the outsourcing of parts and verification of the manufacturing process itself.
Visit the following links:
http://www.sap-img.com/general/what-are-functional-specification-in-sap.htm
http://www.epri.com/eprisoftware/processguide/funcspec.html
Hope this will help.
Regards,
Naveen.
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