In 2006, I thought it would be a great idea to write a book about SAP Query Reporting. For years, I had been storing hand-written notes on the topic of HR and Payroll reporting in an overstuffed 5 inch binder. I had developed a habit of scribbling down information and tips on this subject almost religiously. One day it was a nugget of information I received from my experience consulting for a company in need. The next day it was a piece of knowledge from a participant at an SAP conference at which I was speaking. Yet another day it was a technique that reaped dividends for my co-workers and company. Over the years, that binder had grown exponentially in size as had my desire to publish a book that accurately reflected the sum of all of my thoughts, knowledge and work experience on SAP Query Reporting. That book was published in 2006 and it was called SAP Query Reporting.
Unlike my other SAP books which were great sellers initially than slowly found their way to the bargain bin, SAP Query Reporting is still a top seller and it is over 6 years old! The funny thing about Query content is that it hasn’t drastically changed since my first SAP conference almost 20 years ago. Sure, ABAP Query is now known as SAP Query and it’s CE (Concurrent Employment) compatible and uses better indexing to get at the data. Yet at the end of the day, it still operates within the same fundamental framework. With all the amazing changes in SAP over the years, SAP Query has not changed very much. And SAP has made it clear that it does not plan on any future enhancements.
At the upcoming SAPinsider HR 2013 conference in Las Vegas later this month, I am giving a few presentations about the reporting options in SAP including SAP Query, Ad Hoc Query, where the cloud and Success Factors and BI fit in, etc. And of course I will be recommending SpinifexIT’s Easy Reporter (the only SAP-certified solution for real time HR/Payroll reporting).
I hope you are able to come to HR 2013 and meet me and the SpinifexIT team. I have at least 5 presentations that I am giving on various topics and I will also participate in the “Ask the Experts” forum on Tuesday, so there will be plenty of opportunities to say hello and talk to me about HR/Payroll reporting. Additionally, I will also be at Booth number 520 in HR 2013′s Solutions Showcase exhibit hall giving away free copies of my book. Check out the conference at hr2013.wispubs.com/. Many of the things I have learned in my career have come from the conferences and meeting other attendees, especially those who take the time to share their experiences with me. I am a richer person for it.
I hope to see you at HR 2013 in Las Vegas February 26-March 1!
In my almost 19 years of experience as an SAP HR consultant, I have seen companies use many different ways to configure the key elements of the personnel structure in an SAP ERP HCM system. Every few years, a new best practice design emerges that differs significantly from the one before.
While there’s no single right way to configure PA, there are best practices that have worked successfully in leading companies. At HR 2013, I will expound on these practices during my presentation, “Ensure Accurate and Meaningful Employee Analyses With These Expert PA Configuration Tips.” Since PA configuration is completely customizable, I strongly recommend designing a master plan before starting. A PA configuration grand design should address the following key questions:
What data do I need to collect?
What statuses do I want to assign?
What reporting goals are related to these actions?
During my presentation, I will provide recommendations to address these questions, along with useful tips on how to use the customer-specific status field to store employee statuses and classifications. I will also give step-by-step instructions with detailed explanations for customizing employee groups and sub-groups, and configuring actions and action reason codes.
Previous attendees at SAPinsider HR conferences have told me that this type of “getting back to basics” education yields great benefit in terms of data integrity and easier HR reporting. I’m excited to share the best practices and tips I’ve learned and developed over the years to help you get more value from your HR system.
I like to read. I’ll admit the reading list includes the Twilight, Hunger Games and Fifty Shades of Grey trilogies. But I also read a lot of Human Resources books and magazines. They may not be quite as titillating (no vampires or red rooms of pain that I have found quite yet), but unlike the other books, I do learn a few things that I use in my everyday life.
And my everyday life is usually about Human Resources and technology. My latest read is HR Specialist Magazine, the Employment Law Edition, in which I learned that employees filed 99,947 charges of workplace discrimination with the EEOC last year alone (the highest ever). Leading claims include retaliation, race bias and sex discrimination.
The magazine details all of the different areas where employers need to be mindful of avoiding lawsuits and ensuring compliance. I always to try to think of ways that technology can assist in these endeavors. One article about how altering time sheets can mean a personal liability for managers was pretty interesting. It basically outlined that if you are a manager responsible for approving timesheets or signing off on alterations of time sheets, it’s not just your organization that can be sued … but you personally! The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) allows employees to sue their bosses, execs and HR professionals for personal liability for altering pay records.
How does technology help? For starters your SAP ERP HCM system can track employee time in several different ways and includes the ability for managers or HR professionals to alter time entry. My suggestion would be to insist (make it a required field, for example) for any change that is entered as an override to an employee’s time requires the entry have a note inserted detailing specifically why the time was altered. Little things like that allow you to make sure you are keeping things on track in terms of compliance. Plus, if you have a great reporting solution like Easy Reporter, you can easily report on those values as needed.
My blog posts will likely focus on these types of concerns and how technology can be used to assist. And for those curious – I am team Edward, Peeta and Christian respectively.
I have just returned from celebrating the holidays with my friends and family. I love watching everyone open their gifts but I can admit that holiday shopping is not fun. It took dozens of stores/websites to get all my gifts. If you looked at my Christmas shopping lists you would see things like a camera, train, a phone case, sweaters, ties all the usual stuff. You would think by looking at the list that a certain superstore with a bull’s-eye logo would meet my needs but it didn’t and that’s what this week’s blog is about. A single store may meet many of my needs but it certainly does not meet all of my needs. I feel the same way about SAP’s approach to reporting.
According to the article “Readers of this publication are certainly familiar with the applications of SAP Business Suite. Financials, HCM, SCM, CRM, and so forth are their “systems of record” where they house their most prized and cherished corporate information. Business analytics solutions are the applications that unleash the value of that information. Such solutions mean that you not only have a place to put your business information, but also a way to actively engage with it and extract every ounce of value therein. That’s what business analytics are all about.” I think the concept is great, like a BW type solution that houses all data so that it can be strategically reported on regardless of the module. It would be a great module to leverage to report on integrated information that includes data from HCM, Finance and Supply Chain for example. There is fantastic value in that. What challenges me though is the one-size-fits all concept. Let’s go back to my holiday shopping analogy. A big superstore is great for many of my holiday gifts and I was able to get a lot of the general gifts without a problem however I still had to go to specialty stores to get the important items on my list. Remember that camera on my list, sure superstores sell cameras but they do not sell the Nikon D7000 which my best friend wanted. I could likely find a train at the superstore but not the POW MIA Express Train Collection that my Uncle Frank wanted and that phone case had to be ordered at a specialty store to fit Laurie’s new IPhone 4S.
What I am trying to say is there is a lot of holiday presents that I could buy at the superstore but there will always be items that I need to get from the specialty stores. I feel the same way about reporting in SAP. Sure there are lots of great reports I could get from the new Business Analytics module but anything very detailed and specific to a module (like payroll and HR) still require the use of reporting tools specific to that module. Additionally the SAP HCM module is largely unique because of the heavy amounts of real-time transactional data that is processed through it and the complex relationship for payroll results etc.
For me this article reiterated the supercenter direction that SAP is moving towards. Business Analytics will certainly play a huge role in organizations and provide a large number of SAP HCM reports that I am excited about however I am still concerned that I will still have to go to a bunch of other places in SAP like Wage Type Reporter, Ad Hoc Query, HIS etc. to get at the detailed specific data I need.
spinifex IT is the creator of Easy Reporter, the only SAP certified solution that runs live inside SAP for real time HR and Payroll reporting. Check it out for yourself online at www.spinifexit.com/easy-reporter/ or contact me for a live WebEx demonstration.
When creating reports with SAP Query there may be occasions where you want to highlight or flag certain records for attention, real-world HR examples include:
Listing all associates and their salaries and flagging those that are over the maximum (or under the minimum) for their pay grade
Listing all associates and flagging those who are out on a leave
Listing all associates and their performance scores, flagging those who scored less than “meets Expectations”
Identify associates who are under (or over) a specified age (such as 18) to assist you in determining which associates are eligible for particular benefit programs or which require review
Identifying rehires who were previously terminated with a bad termination code
To do this we simply use calculated or local fields within your SAP Query. I blogged on how to create a calculated field – check it out “Creating calculated fields in your report (How to Eliminate Duplicate Line Reporting in Query Tools)” here on SAPINSIDER.
To insert a picture, only when certain conditions are met please follow the steps below. This will insert a flag for associates born earlier than 1989 as shown in picture.
Navigate to the Select Field screen (#2) of SAP Query
Add a short name for the Year of Birth field from infotype 0002 and give it a short name (YBIRTH)
Follow menu path Edit > Local field > Create and a dialog box will appear
Give your new local calculated field a short name, field description, and heading
Define the attributes of your new field by selecting icon
Select the Complex calculation button
In the Condition line, specify the expected value. You first list the short name you gave to the reference field (in the first step) followed by an operator and then followed by the value in single quotation marks.
Condition: YBIRTH > ‘1989’
8. In the Formula line, specify what value you want to output. In this case you want to output a icon, so you select the icon button to select the picture you want. The Formula line is then updated with the name of that icon (A flag in this example is called ICON_DEFECT)
9. Basically, you are saying that if the year of birth is greater than 1989, output a red flag for that record
10. To check your logic, select the Check icon
11. If no errors in your logic are found, select the green check mark icon to return to the Field definition dialog box
12. Select the green check mark icon to return to the Select Field (#2) screen
13. On the Basic List Line Structure screen (#5) be sure to add your new calculated field so that the field is included in your report output
14. Press F8 to execute your report to see your flagged records! :)
spinifex IT is the creator of Easy Reporter, the only SAP certified solution that runs live inside SAP for real time HR and Payroll reporting. Check it out for yourself online at www.spinifexit.com/easy-reporter/ or contact me for a live WebEx demonstration.
This weeks’ blog is a continuation from last weeks’ blog which was in response to a question about “How to Eliminate Duplicate Line Reporting in Query Tools“. You can accomplish single-line reporting in SAP query-based tools such as Ad Hoc and SAP Query in three different ways:
By specifying parameters upon selection (see Dec 1, 2011 blog)
Creating calculated fields in your report (see Dec 7, 2011 blog)
Creating calculated fields in your data source (InfoSet)
This is the final blog in this series and it’s fair to say that this is the most complex solution to the question above. The available Query based tools for SAP HCM are quite limited in the data that you can report on. However they can be used to successfully report off of master data infotypes.
The challenge is that some of the data on the infotypes is either not available or not available in single line reporting. A real world example is infotype 41, Date Specifications. This screen stores approximately a dozen different dates for an employee. It is configured by each company to store whatever dates they wish. These dates can be reported using a Query tool and have 1 line per date per employee for only ONE DATE AT A TIME (by specifying the sub type on the selection screen). If you tried to output multiple dates you would get multiple lines per employee. This is explained in greater detail in the 12/1/2011 blog.
The option to fix this and allow for multiple date types (or other infotypes) to be output along a single line is to customize the data source itself that houses all the fields. And here is where this gets technical. This solution requires a trained ABAP programmer to implement. This data source is called an InfoSet, in earlier versions of SAP it used to be called a Functional Area. This InfoSet is setup initially when you begin using the Query tools. If you follow best practices your InfoSet would be set up by a technical person in your Development environment and transported through to your production client. In most cases it would be set up based on SAP’s pre-delivered logical database pnpCE. This logical database provides access to all of the Master Data infotypes.
Because the InfoSet is not designed for the some infotypes that cause multiple line reporting – you can customize it using a call out to an ABAP program so that you can essentially create new fields in your data source to store the data you want to output on a single line. In the Infotype 41, Date Specifications example you would use an ABAP program to create a field to store a field for each of your date types so that in your reports in the future you can simply drag the new fields on and you can report as many date types as you wish and still get only one line per employee!
Creating an ABAP program and integrating it into your existing InfoSet is an activity that should be performed only by a trained ABAP programmer. Here is a sample of code that can be used that can be called from your InfoSet to create a field for each date type on infotype 41.
INFOTYPES: 0041 NAME I0041.
TABLES: PA0167.
DATA: DAR LIKE PA0041-DAR01,
DAT LIKE PA0041-DAT01,
HIREDATE LIKE PA0041-DAT01,
REHIREDATE LIKE PA0041-DAT01,
LASTHIREDATE LIKE PA0041-DAT01,
ADJSVCDATE LIKE PA0041-DAT01,
TERMDATE LIKE PA0041-DAT01,
SEPARATIONDATE LIKE PA0041-DAT01,
BENTERMDATE LIKE PA0041-DAT01,
KEY_DATE1 TYPE D.
FORM GET_DATE USING VALUE(PERNR)
VALUE(DATUM)
VALUE(TYPE)
CHANGING RESULT.
CLEAR RESULT.
PERFORM READ_INFOTYPE(SAPFP50P) USING
PERNR '0041' SPACE SPACE SPACE DATUM DATUM '0' 'NOP' I0041.
IF SY-SUBRC EQ 0.
DO 20 TIMES
VARYING dar FROM I0041-dar01 NEXT I0041-dar02
VARYING dat FROM I0041-dat01 NEXT I0041-dat02.
IF dar IS INITIAL.
EXIT.
ENDIF.
IF DAR EQ TYPE.
RESULT = DAT.
exit.
ENDIF.
ENDDO.
ENDIF.
ENDFORM.
The picture included in this blog will show you how to refer to the custom program from the InfoSet.
Next week’s blog I will share the ABAP Code that you can use to get at the most popular fields not available in Query tools including Previous position title, Hourly Rate of Pay and Manager name which you can use as a reference to create even more fields.
spinifex IT is the creator of Easy Reporter, the only SAP certified solution that runs live inside SAP for real time HR and Payroll reporting. Check it out for yourself online at www.spinifexit.com/easy-reporter/ or contact me for a live WebEx demonstration.
This weeks’ blog is a continuation from last weeks’ blog which was in response to a question about “How to Eliminate Duplicate Line Reporting in Query Tools“. You can accomplish single-line reporting in SAP query-based tools such as Ad Hoc and SAP Query in three different ways:
1. By specifying parameters upon selection (see last week’s blog)
2. Creating calculated fields in your report
3. Creating calculated fields in your data source (InfoSet) (in next weeks’ blog)
When I first learned how to use the SAP Query, transaction code SQ01, I did not know you could create calculations directly in the reports themselves. It’s actually quite easy and does not require any programming skills. You can create calculated fields to do basic mathematical equations or even more complex if…then type logic. You can also use it for the scenario where you want to eliminate duplicate or multiple line reporting.
I refer to them as calculated fields but SAP calls them Local fields. Local fields are new fields added to your existing reports in SAP. Local fields allow you to generate new information from the fields that are already available to you for reporting. You can create local fields from the Select Fields screen (screen #2) of SAP Query.
Often, when you want to perform calculations in SAP Query, you do so using existing fields. For example, you want to create a new calculated field that takes a person’s annual salary and increases it by a number or fixed percentage. If you were doing this through traditional ABAP code reporting, you would need to write an ABAP program that references the technical table and field names and also be familiar with the relationships behind-the-scenes inside SAP tables. Because SAP Query is an end-user reporting tool - no ABAP skills required, you can create your own short names for your fields so that you can easily reference them in your calculations.
Creating a Calculated (Local) Field in SAP Query
Start by creating an SAP Query report and include a handful of fields like Personnel No, Name, Annual Salary etc. Let’s use the example of taking the Annual Salary and adding a fixed amount to it. Because many of the calculated fields that you will create will be based on existing fields, you often start the process of creating a calculated field by giving short names to some of the fields already in your query – you do this on the Select Fields screen (screen #2) of SAP Query.
Navigate to the Select Field screen (#2) of SAP Query
Place your cursor in the box for the field that you want to give a short name to and follow the menu path Edit > Short names > Switch on/off
A new column, labeled “Short name,” appears. Enter a short name for the field you want to use in the calculation formula. I will give the Annual Salary field a short name of SALARY that I will use later in the calculation.
Next follow menu path Edit > Local field > Create and a dialog box will appear
Give your new local calculated field a short name, field description, and heading
Define the attributes of your new field by selecting it from the list of buttons or by saying your field has the same attributes as another field already in your report. Using the dropdown box I will select the SALARY field which means that my new field will be a currency field just like the Annual salary field on Infotype 0008.
For the line that says Calculation Formula, use your short name and any math you want. In my example, I will take the Annual salary field short name SALARY and add 1000.
Select the green check mark icon to proceed and return to the Select Fields screen
Navigate to the Basic List Line Structure screen (#5) and add your new calculated field to your Basic List Line Structure screen (#5) so that the field is included in your report output
Press F8 to execute your report and your report will now have a new column that displays each employee’s Annual Salary + 1000.
That same process can be used to specify certain date types or wage types to eliminate duplicate lines in your report. The calculated fields that you create will exist only in that report/query. In next week’s blog I will show the most advanced version which is to customize your Infoset (SQ02) with an ABAP program so that the calculated fields are available in the data source so the fields are available for all reports.
spinifex IT is the creator of Easy Reporter, the only SAP certified solution that runs live inside SAP for real time HR and Payroll reporting. Check it out for yourself online at www.spinifexit.com/easy-reporter/ or contact me for a live WebEx demonstration.
This weeks’ blog is based on an Ask The Expert Question
Dear HR Expert,
I have read a lot of the documentation in the HR Expert publication and there are often great tips on Ad Hoc and SAP Query reporting. However, one question continues to be an issue in regard to both. Is there any way to eliminate the issue of duplicate line reporting in Ad Hoc or SAP Query? A specific example would be on a basic report of current data (reporting period set to Today) of personnel number, last name, first name, annual salary, and annual bonus (a wage type) from IT0015. The output of this query would result in two records for each employee who has an annual salary stored and an annual bonus on IT0015. Another example would be pulling a rehire date and an original date of hire from IT0041. Wage types, date types, and certain subtypes always produce multiple lines per person. This causes much frustration in the HR department.
— Senior Programmer Analyst
Thanks for the question, which is a common one about HR reporting. The answer is that you can accomplish single-line reporting in SAP query-based tools such as Ad Hoc and SAP Query in three different ways:
By specifying parameters upon selection
Creating calculated fields in your report
Creating calculated fields in your data source (InfoSet)
Option 1 will be covered in this blog and I will cover options 2 and 3 in subsequent blogs.
Let’s start by making sure that you have correctly input your parameters these include the date settings. The most common date parameter for reporting in R/3 is to the date selection period Today. Selecting Today ensures that the data you retrieve from the database is valid as of today. One thing to note is that if you have any future-dated records (for example, increases or organizational changes) they are not included in your report output because technically they do not exist yet. Most users complain of duplicate record results when selecting Other or Person Selection Period date parameters. That is because multiple records may exist for that employee during the date range specified.
Now, to get to the heart of your question regarding retrieving duplicate records when selecting Today on your selection screen. This is specific to certain infotypes that have multiple values in a single or table-based storage space. That sounds pretty technical, but basically what it means is that the database pulls all the records meeting your criteria. This issue of duplicate records does not occur with some infotypes, such as infotype0002. This is because infotype 0002 (personal data) stores each piece of information as a single identifiable field (the first name is stored in the P0002-VORNA field for example). To see the technical details, place your cursor into the field, press F1, and then click on the technical information button. That is the only information that can be stored in that field. Let’s compare that to an infotype that does produce duplicate records, such as infotype 0041 (date specifications). Date Specifications does not have a single field identified for only a single piece of data. Rather, the data that can be stored in each field is variable.
Infotype 0041 permits storage of customer-specific dates. During your initial system configuration you determine the date types. For example an employee may have three different date types stored as Date type 30, 36, and 66, listed in numerical order. However, unlike infotype 0002, in which the fields store only certain objects (for example, the first name field only stores first names in the P0002-VORNA field), the fields on this screen can store variable data. Date type 30 could appear in the first box or the last, depending on how many date types are on the screen. When I look at the technical details of the first Date type 30 date, I see the field name is P0041-DAT01. If I look at the details of the second date it would be P0041-DAT02, which refers to the second date box on the screen. The date type field next to it would be P0041- DAT02, and the next one would be P0041-DAT03, etc. However, that value of DAT01 is assigned because the date is stored in the first position on that screen. If I added a new date type for the associate, such as Date type 23, that would become P0041-DAT01 because it would then be in the first numerical position. If I created a query-based report containing a specific field such as First name (P0002-VORNA), it would output on a single line. However, if I created a query-based report to output the date field (Date for Date type), behind the scenes the system would read through all of the P0041-DAT01 to P0041-DAT12 fields and output a line in the report for each date stored.
To fix this and accomplish single-line reporting in SAP query-based tools such as Ad Hoc and SAP Query you have three options the first and easiest is by specifying parameters upon selection. This solution can work for any infotype that either stores variable data like infotype 0041 or that has sub types like infotype 0006 or wage types like infotypes 0014, 0015, and 0267. The first workaround is the quick and dirty limited version. For example, if I wanted to create a basic query-based report that would include an associate’s hire date (using my example Date type 36), all I would need to do is to include the Date type field on my reports selection screen. Using that method I can, upon report execution, specify that I only want that one date type in my report output, thus ensuring I get only a single line. This same method works on the wage type-based infotypes. For example, if I wanted to create a report that listed the employee’s name, position title, and hourly rate (i.e., wage type 3005) I could do so by including the wage type field on my reports selection screen. Upon report execution I can specify that I only want that one wage type 3005 in my report output, thus again ensuring I get only a single line.
I mentioned that this is a limited workaround because of the way a selection screen works. It only includes data in your report that meets the criteria entered on the selection screen. If I were to produce a report of everyone and their hire date on a single line as I mentioned previously, my single line report output would only include those associates who have that date type. Similarly, the output of the hourly rate report would be limited to only those associates who have an hourly rate using wage type 3005. If some folks were missing it, they would be excluded. I refer to this first workaround as the quick and dirty limited option as it is helpful when you are sure all associates meet the criteria entered on the election screen (so you get complete output) or if you want your report output to only include those associates. Because most companies require a date of hire, it would work for that example. Another downside here is that you are limited to reporting off only one date type. If you wanted to include hire date and service date from the above example, you would still get two lines for each associate.
The details of your second two options will be covered in next week’s blog. Stay tuned….
spinifex IT is the creator of Easy Reporter, the only SAP certified solution that runs live inside SAP for real time HR and Payroll reporting. Check it out for yourself online at www.spinifexit.com/easy-reporter/ or contact me for a live WebEx demonstration.
You can create three types of reports with the SAP Query tool: basic lists, statistics lists, and ranked lists. The most common type of SAP Query report is a basic list report that displays individual line-item data across the columns of the report. The data displayed in a basic list report may contain an overall total at the bottom but is often not auto summarized to display summary detail only. Generally speaking, the system displays data as it appears in the R/3 database. In contrast to basic lists, the data in statistics lists is output in a compressed, summarized format. A ranked list places items in order and ranks them in terms of highest to lowest or vice versa.
SAP Query is most widely known for its basic list style of reporting. However, it can do more than create basic lists. I will explain how you can use it to produce statistics lists, including summary analyses of data with totals and averages. The only technical requirement for creating statistics lists in SAP is using SAP Query.
SAP Query statistics lists are ideal for analyzing average rate of pay for all associates by cost center. Instead of viewing a list of all associates in the cost center and their rates of pay, you can use statistics lists to view the averages by cost center. It is also helpful to view the total number of new hires in a yearly comparison. In other words, you can make a simple report that compares the total number of associates hired in 2009, 2010, and 2011.
I’ll explain the steps to create your own statistics lists in SAP Query. If you have already been using SAP Query to create basic lists, then creating statistics lists requires no extra configuration.
Step 1. Navigate to the Maintain Queries Initial screen by using transaction /nSQ01.
Step 2. In the Query field, enter a name for the query you are creating and then click on the Create button. The InfoSets of User Group dialog box appears listing all the available data sources that within your selected query group.
Step 3. Select the appropriate InfoSet that you use for your HR reporting and then press Enter. Most likely, this InfoSet is based on logical database PnPCE.
The Title, Format screen appears, allowing you to save the basic formatting specifications for your query, including the name (title) and any notes you want to store for the query. The only required field is Title.
Step 4. Enter a meaningful title and then select the save icon on the application toolbar.
Step 5. Click on the white arrow next screen icon on the application toolbar to navigate to the Select Field screen. This screen lists all the field groups available in your InfoSet.
Step 6. Place a check mark next to each field group whose fields you want to include in your report.
Click on the next screen icon and the Select Field screen appears with a list of all the available fields within the selected field groups.
Step 7. Place a check mark next to each field that you want to include in your report. You can use the page up and down icons to navigate among all the fields.
Step 8. Click on the Statistics button on the application toolbar to create a statistics list in SAP Query. The Statistic Structure screen appears, giving you an opportunity to define your compressed list report.
Step 9. Enter a title at the top of the screen.
Step 10. Specify the sequence in which you want to output the fields and state whether you want R/3 to sort them in ascending or descending order.
After you create a statistics list, the toolbar has a Statistic button that allows you to create multiple statistics. The ability to create multiple statistics gives you an easy mechanism by which you can define more than one summary in a single SAP Query. However, single statistics lists are most popular for HR reporting.
Step 11. Press F8 or click on the execute icon to execute the report. As with almost all other reports in SAP, you see the report’s selection screen upon execution. The selection screen gives you an opportunity to specify any criteria for the output of your report.
Step 12. Press F8 or click on the execute icon a second time to display your finished statistics list report.
Spinifex IT is the creator of Easy Reporter, the only SAP certified solution that runs live inside SAP for real time HR and Payroll reporting. Check it out for yourself online at www.spinifexit.com/easy-reporter/ or contact me for a live WebEx demonstration.
Today’s blog is in response to a question from Lynn White, Senior Business Analyst. Lynn writes, Dear HR Expert, How do you add custom infotype fields or even standard SAP infotypes such as date specifications to the Ad Hoc Query?
Thanks for the question. The most common data source that is used for Human Resources query based reporting in SAP is an InfoSet. InfoSets were formerly known as Functional Areas in versions earlier than 4.6. The InfoSet is often made up of a Logical database containing all of the infotypes that you would like to report on. Three common logical databases for SAP Human resources include:
• PaP - HR (Recruitment) Applicant master data
• PnPCE - HR (PA) Personnel administration master data
• PcH - HR (PD) Personnel development organizational data
The most common query reporting is accomplished using the PnPCE logical database because it includes the most frequently used Personnel Administartion infotypes like 0000 (Actions), 0001 (Organizational data),0002 (Personal data),7 (Work schedule), 0008 (Basic pay) etc.
To add basic infotypes to an already existing InfoSet for use with a query based reporting tool like the SAP Query or the Ad Hoc Query you can do the following:
1. Go to transaction code SQ02 (InfoSet initial screen)
2. Select your existing data source that you use for your queries and select the Change button.
3. Follow the menu path Edit > Change info type selection
4. A box will appear that lists all of the infotypes available within the logical database from which you can select which new ones to include.
5. For example your question mentions infotype 41 Date specifications. This can be added by selecting it in the dialog box.
6. After placing a checkmark next to the infotype that you wish to include, select the check mark Enter button to proceed.
7. When you return to the main screen that infotype will now be listed at the very bottom on the left hand side of the screen under Data fields.
8. It will also be listed at the very bottom of the Field group/data fields section on the right of the screen.
9. By default only some of the fields on the infotype will be included and will be made available for reporting. To see which ones are included look at the Field group/data fields part of the screen.
10. By default only two fields were added, Date type and Date for date type.
To add additional fields to be available from this infotype (or any infotype included in your InfoSet) follow the steps outlined below.
1. In the right hand side of the window in the Date type and Date for date type side of the window position your cursor on the Field group (infotype) that you would like to add fields to. For this example I will select with my cursor the 0041 – date Specifications infotype. It will appear highlighted.
2. Next return to the left hand side of the window in the Field group/data fields part of the screen and view the fields that are available for the selected infotype.
3. When you see a field that you wish to include (and make available for query reporting) right click on it and select Add field to field group.
4. That field will then appear on the right hand side of the screen under the selected infotype and is now available for reporting.
6. Be sure only to add fields to the appropriate infotype.
Now to the other part of your question regarding the addition of custom infotypes to your queries. The same steps that are outlined above can be used to add custom infotypes. All custom infotypes that you create will be available in the Data fields window under the grouping Further infotypes. They will be listed in numerical order. So it is most likely that your custom infotypes are available at the very bottom of the list of infotypes in that section. You add them to your queries following the same procedure outlined above.
The most important thing to note is after making any change to an InfoSet is that you have to Save and Generate the InfoSet before exiting. The Save button is available on the application toolbar. The Generate button looks like a red and white beach ball and is used to check the consistency of the InfoSet. After saving and generating the infotype you can now use these additional infotypes and fields in your new and existing SAP Query and Ad Hoc Queries that use this InfoSet as the data source.
Spinifex IT is the creator of Easy Reporter, the only SAP certified solution that runs live inside SAP for real time HR and Payroll reporting. Check it out for yourself online at www.spinifexit.com/easy-reporter/ or contact me for a live WebEx demonstration.
