Introduction to ABAP

and SAP Structure

 What is the UOW?
 SAP operates around the concept of a Unit of
Work (UOW)
 Every transaction code you execute
completes a unit of work
 It’s atomic (cannot be divided). That is, a
transaction completes entirely or it does not!
 A unit of work (transaction code) corresponds to
a program (term used loosely)

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 What’s a Transaction?
 There is a 1-1 relationship between
transaction code and a UOW program
 A transaction
 Has a corresponding program
 Belongs to a package
 Has an initial screen and possibly many others

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 Organization of
the SAP System (1)
 It’s big
 Use the Object Navigator to look at all of the
SAP objects (SE80)
 All sorts of tools to look up and edit
applications
 Typical ‘drill-down’ interface

 My example will look at transaction code

VA01 – create sales order
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 Organization of
the SAP System (2)
 You have all of the source code and can see /
change / enhance how the system works
 All code is written in a language called ABAP
or more recently some is written in Java

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 Program Attributes
(Package)
 SAP packages, in the simplest case, allow you group
programs, database tables, (and other things)
together
 SAP itself is organized into thousands of hierarchical
packages
 A program belongs to a package and has an owner
 The package is defined when the program is

saved for the first time

 Use package $TMP for our “local” packages

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 ABAP Program Attributes
(Package)
 Use Local Package $TMP for our work

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 The Object Navigator
 It’s a navigator to all SAP ‘objects’ (SE80)
 The ‘Application Hierarchy’ is at the top and contains
packages

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 Object Navigator
(Lookup Example 1)
 Sales and Distribution (SD) / SALES is an
Application Component

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 Object Navigator
(Lookup Example 2)
 Which contains the program SAPMV45A
(Sales Order Processing)

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 Object Navigator
(Lookup Example 3)
 And the transaction code VA01 is bound to
this program SAPMV45A
 SE93 is used to look up a program based on
the transaction code

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 Object Navigator
(Lookup Example 4)
 Transaction code VA01 belongs to the
package SAPMV45A
 Having a default screen number of 101

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 Object Navigator
(Lookup Example 4)
 Screen 101 from the Object Navigator is the
first screen to create a sales order

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 Object Navigator
(Lookup Example 5)
 Which when run gives us a screen simulation

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 Object Navigator
(Lookup Example 6)
 Which looks is our first screen to create a
sales order (VA01)

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 How do we Customize?
 We modify SAP programs via ‘enhancement
sections’ and other means
 We create custom programs
 We copy entire transaction codes and ‘make
our own

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 Enhancement Sections
 They are entry points into SAP programs that
allow us to add our own code before or after
some SAP task executes

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 Creating a Custom Program
 It’s a unified interface for creating,
debugging, modifying, deploying, … ABAP
programs
 Use transaction code SE38

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 Review
(A First ABAP Program -1)
 Create a program

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 Review
(A First ABAP Program -2)
 Edit the program statements

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 Review
(A First ABAP Program -3)
 Activate the application (Program / Activate)

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 Review
(A First ABAP Program -4)
 Run it (F8) or (Program / Test / Direct
Processing
 A first report is displayed

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 APAP Program Attributes
(Introduction)
 Every program that you create has metadata

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 APAP Program Attributes
(Program Type)
 ABAP has it’s own program types
 Executable programs can be run
independently of a transaction code
 Module Pools are made up of processing
steps and are executed from a transaction
code
 And other types of programs

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 APAP Program Attributes
(Program Status / Application)
 Program status controls whether the
program is a test (local) program deployed to
production systems
 Application controls where in the SAP
hierarchy the program “lives”

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 The ABAP Editor
 It’s Visual Studio for SAP
 A code editor
 The clipboard works as we would expect
 We can run and test programs inside of the
ABAP editor

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 ABAP Program Names
 SAP has naming conventions for programs
 Local programs should ALWAYS begin with
the letters Y or Z (for customer)

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 ABAP Syntax (Introduction)
 Like most programming languages, we have
variables, statements (sequence, decision,
loops)
 The language looks like the old COBOL language

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