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Former Member

This is a series of blogs about the Reference Guide of SAP Sourcing. In this first blog, the focus will be on the Class Reference and the different views in the Class reference. There will be upcoming blogs about the different workbooks and mail templates.

General overview

The Reference Guide, often referred to as the “RG”, provides very useful technical information particularly when you are planning to do any
type of configuration.  The Reference Guide is accessible from the top of right-hand side of the page.  It is important to note that the Reference Guide link is only visible to users that have the appropriate permissions.

The Reference Materials is a section of the Reference Guide which is most commonly used for different page and toolbar customizations, scripting, tokens and other things. It contains the:

  • Class Reference
  • IAPI JavaDoc
  • Mail Template Reference
  • Database ERD

The RG is typically not used by the Business User but more by System Administrators, Query Developers and Scripting and Workflow Developers. In order to make sure that not every user can do modifications via Reference Guide, the access is restricted through Security Profiles.

NOTE: The Reference Guide is context-sensitive which means you will get different data, tables, etc. depending on where the Reference Guide is started from e.g. when launching the “RG” from a Master Agreement the user will see information related to Master Agreement when starting it from a Project, the user will see information related to Project.

The Class Reference

The Class Reference is the single source of truth in the application to find the Class ID and the different class numbers for the different display names. As an example searching for “Projects” will give you all information on the Class “Project” on the header of the page:

  • ID:   1100
  • Name:   projects.projects.
  • Display Name:  Project
  • Display Name ID: projects$projects.projects.class_name
  • Description ID:  projects$projects.projects.class_desc
  • Scope: COMPANY

The most commonly used class references are listed below, these can be used for e.g. queries and other things, it is important to note however that Class Name is case-sensitive i.e. when using it for a custom query make sure to consider the spelling.

ObjectClass IDClass Name
Project1100projects.projects
RFx900rfx.RFXDoc
Auction800doc.auction.auctionevent
Master Agreement1004contracts.Contract
Sub Agreement1003contracts.Agreement
Supplier607masterdata.Vendor
Value List Value616masterdata.ValueListValue

The Different Views of Class Reference

The Class reference page offers the user different views which can be used for different purposes and will be described in more detail below:

  • Summary View: This view contains information about different class members (similar information as the UI-view). One key difference is the additional information about field length, required (yes/no), field type (String, Data, Reference, Boolean, Price, VLV Reference, etc.).
  • Schema View: The Schema view shows the user in which database tables the data is stored, in the case of e.g. writing custom queries, this view would tell you which database tables the query is touching. This view however only lists standard fields, extension fields are not listed and can be found in the Extension Schema from the Setup page.
  • UI View: The UI view shows you the layout of the screens. It is most commonly used for UI Page Customization e.g. in case you want to change the order of a field or make it required. (NOTE: since Sourcing 7.0, these fields are drop-down list in the Page Customization setup  area)
  • CSV View: This view is relevant for data imports. In reviewing the CSV view, the user will find information about specific import templates such as data types and which fields are required and have to be populated in order for the import to be successful e.g. importing Master Agreements or User Accounts.
  • IAPI View: This view will tell you which IAPIs are available for potential Scripting and other customizations e.g. for Project IAPIs the following Project iBean and HomeClass can be found under iAPI view.
  • Toolbar View: This view shows all buttons on a particular page and on which Toolbar Customizations can be performed e.g. hide “Create Auction” button. This can be done through toolbar customizations. The toolbar ID of Create Auction button can be found in the toolbar view.

NOTE: Navigation Alt+Left Arrow will take you to previous page. Alt+Right Arrow takes you forward to the next page. Depending on the browser in use, you can check the shortcuts online (same for Firefox, Chrome).

Stay tuned for upcoming blog posts....