Setup of LOCL printing

This blog will explain the setup of the LOCL printer in SAP. Any output send to the LOCL printer will use the SAP GUI to call the windows printer list on your laptop or desktop and send the print there.

Setup of LOCL printer

Start transaction SPAD and create printer LOCL (with short name as well LOCL):

And on the access method tab enter this information:

Save now and the LOCL printer is ready to use.

Set up background can be found in SAP help pages.

Use of LOCL printer

If you print, choose the LOCL printer. The screen will refresh and give a dropdown list for the printers installed on you local laptop or desktop:

Restrictions of LOCL printer

LOCL needs a connection to the SAP GUI. It can therefore not be used for:

  • Printing spool in the background
  • Printing in RFC

If you still try to spool to LOCL printer, this is the output:

See oss note 2244868 – Front-end printing spool request is not printed.

SAP support portal security: mail filtering

SAP support portal is used in your company for many items: EWA’s, reporting issues, downloading software.

Protection of the accounts on SAP support portal for your company is required.

This blog will explain the setup of the security feature for mail filtering.

If you don’t set this up, your user overview will continuously show this warning:

Setting up mail filtering

Go to the support page for mail filtering:

Use the Add Domain button to add a new domain.

Domains to add:

  • Your company mail domain(s)
  • sap.com domain (for support from SAP)
  • Domain of your supplier maintaining your SAP system, in case they use their own mail ID

Background

Background of this feature can be found in OSS note 3025172 – How to add or remove email domains for my customer number – SAP ONE Support Launchpad.

Measurement of developer licenses

Every year SAP measures the licenses. The developer licenses are the most expensive licenses and also the ones which are under continuous debate with SAP.

Questions that will be answered in this blog are:

  • What is a developer and why is it so hard to measure?
  • How can I go back to the DEVACCESS measurement on my non-S4HANA systems?
  • What are the complexities on S4HANA with measuring developers?

Developer definition

Most likely the definition in your contract clearly states developer is only for creation and changing custom code (Z code). And not for applying OSS notes. The measurement should follow the definition.

Developer measurement on non-S4HANA system

On a non-S4HANA based system, the developer key concept still exists. This means a developer key needs to be called off at sap support site for keys. This mechanism is hackable, but in the end in the system table DEVACCESS is filled with everybody who has filled in the keys.

SAP has given update notes on the USSM user measurement programs that use the S4HANA logic, which is described below.

By applying OSS note 3225435 – USMM2: Development Workbench check – Restore old version, you can revert back to the original way of working that measures entries in DEVACCESS table and changes to REPOSRC.

The measurement of developers has to run on the development system. For security reasons, you should delete all entries in DEVACCESS table in all non-development systems.

When a developer is leaving, you should also delete the corresponding entry in DEVACCESS table to avoid it from being counted in the license measurement.

Read this blog on the deletions of entries in DEVACCESS table.

S4HANA logic (or better no logic)

In S4HANA SAP removed the developer key (see this blog). In the USMM measurement program SAP has put in logic to measure a developer as everybody who creates a transport entry of type Workbench. Text from the word document attached to note 3038370 – USMM2: Development Workbench Check alte Version wieder herstellen:

"In the current version of the check all users are shown that have made an entry of type K (workbench request) or S (development/correction) in the field TRFUNCTION in the table E070 within the last year."

Note 3038370 is now obsolete and replaced with OSS note 3225435 – USMM2: Development Workbench check – Restore old version.

This means also the following actions are counted as developer:

  • Basis team applying OSS note
  • Consultant making a client independent customizing
  • Many more actions that lead to entries in workbench request

This logic of SAP does not make any sense. As customer you can have big debates with SAP on this.

It is really unclear why SAP is not simply checking the REPOSRC changes on S4HANA system done on Z code last year. This will simply give list of real changes done on custom code by whom. That would be fair measurement.

SAP, if you read this, you can take over this idea.

OSS notes with or without manual instructions

Some OSS notes have manual instructions to create SAP Z programs or to alter SAP objects. To avoid discussions with SAP, it is best if you carry out these instructions by an ABAP developers, rather than a basis consultant. Not only does the ABAP developer has a better clue on what the impact is, it also makes sure that the Z coding and changes to standard SAP are registered in the system and transport on the ABAP developers name. This will avoid discussions on developer licenses.

If basis applies the automatic OSS notes, these are not core custom developments. Check if these are counted by the measurement program. Then check the definition in your contract. Most likely the definition in your contract clearly states developer is only for custom code (Z code). And not for applying OSS notes.

SSCR key listing and developer license

You can run program RSUVM080 to quickly get overview of developer SSCR keys in development system or view in table DEVACCESS. More on RSUVM080 in this blog.

LUI: license utilization information

The LUI (license utilization information) is a new tool provided by SAP to help you better manage the insights into your current utilization.

Questions that will be answered in this blog are:

  • How do I use the LUI tool?
  • Where do I find more information on the LUI tool?
  • Does the LUI tool work for on premise systems and cloud systems?

Use of the LUI tool

The LUI tool is part of the support pages of SAP and can be reached using this link.

Open opening the link and logging on, you start with the overview screen:

As you can see the overview is both for On Premise as well as Cloud based solution licenses.

You can zoom into the details per license to see the trend:

This can help you to detect since when (and then you will check why) you are crossing the line of having utilized too much. This enables you to either take actions to go back, or simply procure more licenses.

For the SAP cloud products, the actual usage is automatically added by SAP. If you want to add usage data for the on premise systems, you will need to upload the LAW files.

Background information

Main LUI tool page can be found here.

LUI introduction video can be found here.

LUI FAQ can be found here.

Manual for using LUI can be found here.

Manual for preparation of measurement data for on premise systems can be found here.

SO10 standard text

With transaction SO10 you can maintain standard texts. These texts can be used in SapScript, SmartForms and your own ABAP code.

Questions that will be answered in this blog are:

  • How to create a standard text in SO10?
  • How to set default editor for SO10?
  • How to transport SO10 standard texts?
  • How to call SO10 standard text in ABAP code?
  • How to insert hyperlink into SO10 text?

Create standard text

Start transaction SO10, enter the text name and press the create button:

Now enter the text in the editor and save it:

Transporting standard texts

After saving the standard text the tool just saves the text without prompting for transport. This is as designed. The text can be maintained directly in production this way. Either by IT or even by business users.

If you do want to transport the standard texts, use program RSTXTRAN to add the standard text to the transport:

Read standard text from ABAP code

You can read the standard text from your own ABAP code by calling function module READ_TEXT

Example code:

DATA: IT_TLINES type table of TLINE.

REFRESH IT_TLINES.

CALL FUNCTION 'READ_TEXT'
      EXPORTING
*       CLIENT                        = SY-MANDT
        ID                            = 'ST'
        LANGUAGE                      = 'E'
        NAME                          = 'Z_DEMO_TEXT'
        OBJECT                        = 'TEXT'
*       ARCHIVE_HANDLE                = 0
*       LOCAL_CAT                     = ' '
*     IMPORTING
*       HEADER                        =
      TABLES
        LINES                         =  IT_TLINES
*     EXCEPTIONS
*       ID                            = 1
*       LANGUAGE                      = 2
*       NAME                          = 3
*       NOT_FOUND                     = 4
*       OBJECT                        = 5
*       REFERENCE_CHECK               = 6
*       WRONG_ACCESS_TO_ARCHIVE       = 7
*       OTHERS                        = 8.

Inserting graphic in SO10

Follow the instructions in OSS note 2918753 – How to insert graphic in SO10.

Inserting hyperlink in SO10

First create hypertext in transaction SO72. Select type CHAP:

In SO10 now select the menu option Insert / Text / Hypertext:

Hyperlink is now inserted into SO10:

Changing the editor

Many people don’t like the word tool as editor. It is not precise enough. You can run program RSCPSETEDITOR to change the setting for everybody:

Untick the MS word as editor and press the Activate button.

Relevant OSS notes: