SAP CRM Web UI: Configuration, Application & Enhancement Tools

Overview

  • SAP CRM has many standard roles defined (for e.g., Sales Professional) and applications within these roles (for e.g., Account Management)
  • In general scenario, companies do not use the standard applications as it is and go for minor or major enhancements
  • Considering this, SAP CRM has been implemented with tools for the enhancement of SAP standard applications. Using these tools, it is possible to change the views, add fields, add tables, etc. into the existing applications
  • These tools mainly includes:
  • Web UI Configuration Tool
  • Application Enhancement Tools (AET)

Web UI Configuration Tool

  • The layout displayed for any view in SAP CRM is maintained as Web UI Configuration
  • These configurations are identified using 4 parameter values
  • Thus, you can enhance the Web UI Configurations with new layouts using different parameter values
  • The fields displayed in the Web UI comes from the database structures defined in the data dictionary
  • As per the requirement not all the fields are displayed in all the screens
  • It is possible to modify the screens using Web UI Configuration tool
  • With this tool, it is possible to remove some fields from the screens
  • Also it allows to add a field available in the data dictionary structure to the screen
  • On all the pages in the CRM Web UI, there is a button to go to “Web UI tool”
  • There are pre-defined roles needed to make this button available
  • Thus, in order to see this button and to do modifications in this tool, user must have sufficient authorizations
Web UI Configuration Tool
Buttons on Web UI page Lets study them below
  1. Configurable Area Web UI Configuration Tool: This highlights the area in screen that are configurable
  2. Configure page Web UI Configuration Tool: This opens the pop-up to configure the current page:

Web UI Configuration Tool

Web UI Configuration Tool
Configuration View for Work Centre page
  1. Personalization Web UI Configuration Tool
    1. With this, user can set own layout of the view
    2. This affects individual user and not applicable to whole application
  1. Print Page Web UI Configuration Tool: To take print out of current page
  • In order to create a new layout, it is possible to use “New” button to create a blank form
  • Also you can use copy the existing configuration and then modify it as required
  • Web UI Configuration Tool supports drag-n-drop feature to add the fields to the layout
  • It also provides ability to set different properties of a field
  • In few cases, implementations of these enhancements also include ABAP programming in the Web UI Components
Web UI Configuration Tool
Configuration View for Form View in Overview Page – I

Available Configurations (screenshot above)

  • A configuration is identified with a unique combination of following fields:
  • Role Configuration Key
  • Component Usage
  • Object Type
  • Object Subtype
  • Depending upon different combination there can multiple configurations available for a view
  • Selecting a row in this assignment block updates the “Current configuration design” to show the layout designed under selected configuration
  • Buttons to work on configuration (see above screenshot): These are the buttons to modify the “Current configuration design” for selected configuration in “Available Configurations”

    1. Add Caption: With button it is possible to add the caption on the Form view in an overview page
    2. Add Line: This button appends a row in the “Current configuration design” area
    3. Move Up: This button is to move a selected field one row above its current row
    4. Move Down: This button is to move a selected field one row below its current row
    5. Show Available Fields:(Fig. 3) it shows all the fields that are available to be added to the layout so that it is visible on the application
    6. Show Field Properties:(Fig. 3) it shows you can see and set properties of the field selected on the layout
    7. In edit mode, it is possible to modify some of these properties
Web UI Configuration Tool
Configuration View for Form View in Overview Page – II
  • This tool supports addition or removal of fields (available in the data dictionary) from the view layout
  • With this tool it is not possible to add the fields into the data dictionary structures and tables such that they reflect in your CRM.
  • Configuration screen for table view has a different layout, where user needs to set the available columns and properties of these columns
Web UI Configuration Tool
Configuration View for Table View

Security Concerns

  • End users should not have access to perform these settings in the configuration tool. Only super users or developers are provided with these roles
  • Any change made is visible to all the users accessing the application
  • On top of the changes implemented in the UI Configuration tool, end users can do settings for personalization of the view. Personalization settings are applicable to the individual user and are not shared among the end users
  • As per the requirement, personalization can be controlled within the customizing setting
  • This means that there are customizing settings with which developers can restrict users from personalization of the views
  • After applying this setting, personalization button will not be available for the end users

Application Enhancement Tool (AET)

  • Application Enhancement Tool is a comprehensive tool for the enhancement of the SAP standard applications such that the modifications till the database level are implemented by the tool itself and there is almost no coding effort.
  • This tool is also integrated with the Web UI Configuration tool.
Application Enhancement Tool
Configuration area highlighted on clicking the button
  • Similar to the UI Configuration tool, first you need to select the configurable area (highlighted in blue) from the application
  • This will open UI Configuration tool in the same window as shown below
    Application Enhancement Tool
    UI Configuration Tool for AET

We need to select a relevant button for AET enhancements (highlighted above)

  • Display Enhancements: Enables you to see already existing enhancements. It is possible to select an enhancement and to modify it
  • “Create Field” button can be used to create a new field in the select view

Following is the display of existing field and table enhancements:

Application Enhancement Tool
Display Enhancement View

This view is having buttons for View & Table enhancements in respective assignment blocks:

  • New: Using this button it is possible to create new fields and also to create tables
  • Using the hyperlink in first column (Enhancement Id) it is possible to edit an existing enhancement

Enhancing View

  • In order to enhance a view after clicking on the “New” button (shown in above scrrenshot) you need to select the business object part where the new field or new table needs to be added:
Enhancing View
Select Business Object part
  • Depending upon the object selected, the database tables and the structures will be selected.
  • While creating a field, you need to set properties of the field:
Enhancing View
Set properties of the new field
  • According to the properties selected the field will be generated and different layers will be enhanced for the new field
  • “Enable Export Mode” button can be used so that the framework picks properties from the Data Element used in the field definition
  • In Expert Mode, we need to set value for the Data Element field
  • In data element definition, it is possible to set properties like Label (Description)
  • Thus different properties of the field are to be set automatically using data element definition in data dictionary
Enhancing View
Set properties of the new field – Expert Mode enabled
  • Similarly we can create table fields using the AET
  • For table, we need to specify the details of the table as a whole and also the individual fields to be generate for the table
Enhancing View
Creating a Table View using AET
  • Once field or table is generated using the AET, the application will restart and the user can then use the new field or table
  • These fields and table will also have updated the required database tables
  • This means that when you enter value for these fields and perform save, the value will get stored in the database