How to create a Fiori Tile for any traditional Tcode ?

Something funny happened to me last week ... I thought I have seen it all in terms of "bad SAP resources" but I keep on getting surprised everyday. I had to teach a "Fiori Consultant" how to create a Fiori tile for a standard traditional SAP GUI Tcode so we could execute it directly in Fiori. He/she should know that by hard as this is the bread & butter of Fiori ...

Creating a Fiori tile out of a standard Tcode is something easy if you have the accesses and permissions. In some cases, SAP has not delivered standard Catalogs and Security roles that will contain the Tcode that you are looking for and you will have to create a Custom Tile. Now a days, more and more projects get delivered with Fiori only accesses, which it should be the way to do it now. So, in those cases, you will need to create a Fiori Tile capable of executing a traditional SAP Tcode.

First thing you need to check, is how the Tcode is defined by SAP in its standard.

Execute Tcode SE91, enter the Tcode you want to convert into a Tile and click "Display" (Ex. F-29)

Down below in the "GUI Support" section, you need to check if your desired Tcode has activated the "SAP GUI for HTML" option. If it has, you will be able to call if from Fiori.

Then you will have to open the Fiori App Library and look for your Tcode as you will need to get certain information from there that it will be needed in subsequent steps.

https://fioriappslibrary.hana.ondemand.com/

Going back to your system, open your Fiori Launchpad Designer (not your regular Fiori Launchpad FLP link, this is the "Designer")

Click in "Catalogs" and click in "+" to add a new Catalog.

Assign a Title for your Custom Catalog and an ID, recommendation is to start with Z*. Then <Save>.

After that, click on "+" in the square to Add a Tile to the Catalog that you just created.

Here we will have to enter different information and parameters, some of them will be ones corresponding to your Tcode information from the Fiori App Library. 

From the searched Tcode in the Library, go to "Implementation Information" then "Configuration"

From there we will need to use "Semantic Object", "Semantic Action", "Parameters".

Now you will start completing the information in the Tile that you want to add.

Enter your desired Title for your Tcode, subtitle you can put the Tcode so you keep reference, keywords too. Icon you can give any icon you want from the list. Then enter the Semantic Object and Semantic Action from the Fiori App Library and the Parameters-value in Parameters. Once completed, click <Save>.

Next is to "Create the Target Mapping", On the top click in "Target Mapping" then at the Bottom part of the screen click on "Create the Target Mapping".

Here you will have to enter similar information that you collected from the Fiori App Library.

Semantic Object, Action, System Alias and Title. On Application Type, select "Transaction" and then on Transaction, enter your Tcode (Ex. F-29). You can also decide if you want this tile to be called on Desktop mode, tablet or even Phone. Then <Save>.

So in the 1st step you are assigning some information and in the 2nd you end up assigning the real Tcode. I know ... it seems repetitive, but it might have a reason, but I am not that much of a Fiori expert to tell you the difference. I just know enough to get around.

Once the Catalog has been created, we will create a Group where we can include this Tile or any other tile that exists out there from any other Catalog.

Click in "Groups" on top of the screen. Then "+" to add a Group.

Assign a Group Name and ID, in this case I kept it equal to the Catalog but it can be different. This Title is the one that will show in your Fiori Groups assigned to you when you will be navigating.

Click in the square "+" to add a new Group

Then look for your Group name created in prior steps. (Ex Z_AR... )

Once selected it will show you Tiles from that group and you just need to confirm / add them by clicking in the "+" underneath each Tile. Once it turns green, it means you added to the Group.

If you added one by mistake, you cannot unclick it. You need to drag and drop to the bottom right corner to delete it.

Now we have completed the Custom Catalog and Group creation. Next step is to create a Security role that will call them. You might not have enough Security accesses in your organization to create this and you might have to work with your Security person.

Execute Transaction PFCG, enter a Role Name (Ex. Z_AR_TEST_AD) and click in Single role.

Assign a description and <Save> the role. Then go to "Menu" tab, click on "Transaction" -> SAP Fiori Launchpad" and Catalog and Group. Assign the names of the Catalogs and Group you created in the prior steps in the Launchpad Designer. Save the role and get the role assigned to your SAP username.

The result will be that you have the Group "Customer - TEST AD" available within the Group lists in your Fiori Launchpad

Then the only Tile that I had added to my group (Ex. F-29) will appear.

Finally your F-29 Tcode can be executed as a GUI HTML from Fiori.

If your Company and/or Project needs to implement this, or any of the functionalities described in my Blog, or advise about them, do not hesitate to reach out to me and I will be happy to provide you my services.

www.dnabusinessconsulting.com

Edit SAP Finance Accounting period (OB52) in DEV and QA

Many, many times over the years during my numerous SAP implementation projects I faced this constraint that in non-Productive SAP environments like DEV or QA; the Accounting Period (Transaction OB52) cannot be edited in DEV or QA and those records have to be transported.

Similar to some other tables like Currency rates (TCURR), the Accounting period; is part of a group of tables that are denominated "current settings". This means that even though these Tables are transportable, once you are in Production, these tables content will be allowed to be maintained directly without the need for a new configuration transport all the way from DEV.

Of course this would not make any sense. These tables like Accounting period, Exchange rates, Costing Sheet rates and many more, are key and central to the Financial operations. How would you be able to operate if any time you need to change these tables, you would need a new configuration transport. It would be insane !

For this reason, tables that are part of "current settings" can be updated in Production directly.

But now ... during an SAP Implemenation project, us Consultants and people doing testing in DEV and QA would also need to maintain and change values in these tables. You will need new exchange rates and to close and open your Accounting periods; among many other things. But if you try to do this in an out of the box DEV or QA environment, you will not be able to do it because you cannot do configuration directly in those environments. You will need to do it via a Transport request.

But it does not make any sense either. For this, with a simple small change in the configuration of the Table, you will be able to allow changes in DEV and QA without the need for a transport.

** Attention: this is a Table change, it will require a Workbench transport. If you are not sure what you are doing, please get it done by an Abap developer or Basis Consultant that will understand what he is doing.

Access Tcode: SE54 

Table/View: V_T001B_COFIB (for the OB52 Accounting period table. This is your table in case you are in S/4 HANA with New/GL active).

Select "Generated Objects" then "Create / Change"

Once in this screen change from "Standard recording routine" to "no, or user, recording routine". Then save it and assign a Transport number.

Source for this Blog post was: OSS Note "2269677 - OB52 TK430 Client XXX has status 'not modifiable' in test system"

If your Company and/or Project needs to implement this, or any of the functionalities described in my Blog, or advise about them, do not hesitate to reach out to me and I will be happy to provide you my services.

www.dnabusinessconsulting.com

New S/4 HANA 2020 Bank Sub-Ledger functionality config for Electronic Bank Statement

 In S/4 HANA 2020, SAP has released a new functionality called "Bank Sub-Ledger" that will allow companies with a large number of Bank Accounts to reduce their number GL Accounts in their Chart of Accounts significantly and manage them with just a few GL accounts.

Traditionally, in SAP we would have one GL Main Bank Account representing each House Bank and Bank account number (Account ID) combination that you have open with a given bank, plus a series of outgoing and incoming Bank clearing accounts for this combination. These accounts represent your issued checks not cashed by a vendor or Payments that you have received that you have not deposited yet or cleared with the bank. Depending on your business requirements, the different payments methods you have and other situations, you could end up with 4, 5 or 6 of these Bank clearing accounts. We also called them bank sub-accounts. Finally if your account is held in foreign currency, you will also need a Bank adjustment GL Account to post your foreign currency valuation at Month End.

It will look like this

105100 Bank Main account (House Bank)
    105101 Bank outgoing checks
    105102 Bank Incoming payments
    105103 Bank Lockbox clearing
    105104 Bank outgoing electronic payments
    105109 Bank adjustment account

At the end, you will have something that looks similar to this for each bank account that you have on a given Company Code. You might not have Lockbox or checks in some regions, but you will need several of this accounts to have a proper design and flexibility.

Now ... if your Company (Company Code) has many Bank accounts scattered all over the place among different banks you will end up with a large number of GL accounts within your Chart of Accounts dedicated only for your Banks. Total number of Bank Accounts x6. If you have 10 Bank Accounts, you will end up with 60 G/L Accounts only dedicated to this.

With the new S/4 HANA 2020 Bank Sub-Ledger Account, you can reduce this from 60 GL accounts to GL 6 accounts.

There are already several people that have done Blogs about how to configure and use this functionality  in SCN and other sites as well. But ... Nobody has posted anything yet on how to configure the Electronic Bank Statement for this Bank Sub-Ledger functionality. 

The traditional way of configuring the EBS when assigning GL Accounts to Accounting symbols and using the masking approach, WILL NOT WORK ! It will give you an error when you try to process an EBS file since the system is not able to do the account determination correctly. Your EBS posting rules will just fail.

This was the way to configure your Account assignment to your Account Symbols in the past when we did not have the Bank Sub-Ledger.

As I mentioned, if you do it like this; the system will not find the GL Accounts, the Account determination will fail and you will not be able to do any postings.

Now with the New Bank Sub-Ledger functionality, instead of doing the traditional masking setup, you need to configure it by putting the full GL Account number instead of masking the beginning of the string.

Configuration for EBS with Bank Sub-Leger 

Once you set it up like this, the system will start doing the Account determination properly once again.

A few notes:

#1 - There is a possibility to do a Migration from the old way to the new Bank Sub-Ledger. So, if you are Migrating to Bank Sub-Ledger, you will also need to adjust your EBS configuration. Because, most likely the migration program will not migrate and adapt this config it just changes the GL Master Data setup and other transactional tables.

#2 - OSS Note 3007105 from SAP has stated some restrictions and exceptions for this functionality. It cannot be used with Bill of Exchange Banks/Accounts and it does not work with the Foreign Exchange currency valuation process (FAGL-FCV).

This last statement is not 100% accurate to a certain point. FAGL_FCV is still able to take into consideration the Bank Sub-Ledger Open Item accounts and the Main Bank accounts balances to calculate and valuate them. But what it does not give you is a detailed posting that will specify which House Bank and Bank Account ID has valuated, but it will still valuate those amounts properly. So one of the main restrictions might not be that important at all.

I reached out to SAP with an OSS Support message asking if S/4 HANA 2021 had remediated this situation and FAGL_FCV was now working properly and they told me that they have not modified this program yet and that they will not modify it for future versions. Instead, they told me they are planning on releasing an "Advance Valuation program" that will handle it properly. But there is no timeline for that release yet.

If your Company and/or Project needs to implement this, or any of the functionalities described in my Blog, or advise about them, do not hesitate to reach out to me and I will be happy to provide you my services.

www.dnabusinessconsulting.com