SAP HR Transaction and Screen Variants

Transaction and screen variants are very useful for creating personalised screens and transactions for a select number of users. In addition, you may wish to make changes to certain screens and transactions for all SAP users. This functionality allows you to make these enhancements in areas where standard SAP provides no standard configuration settings.

This is a very useful part of the system and is highly beneficial in areas such as recruitment (initial data entry screen) which is not easily customisable using standard configuration. Screens in areas such as Organisation Management and Recruitment can be modified to meet your business requirements. The enhanced screens will then be called by nominated SAP system users.

To get to the initial screen for Transaction and Screen Variants you can use the menu path:

Tools Accelerated SAP Personalization or the transaction code SHD0.

Depending on which version of SAP you are using, you will either be presented with a single screen or one which has 3 tabs on it.

If your version of SAP has the single screen (up to and including version 4.6c) just enter the transaction you wish to modify and the variant you wish to use. Remember that the variant should follow the customer naming convention starting with a Z.

If you are using version 4.7 and beyond, you will be presented with a screen consisting of 3 tabs. On the tab “transaction variant” choose your standard transaction code that you wish to modify and enter a transaction variant. The transaction variant should start with a Z as per the customer naming convention.

Click on the create button for all versions and you will be taken to the SAP screen for the transaction code you stipulated – in this example PB10 (fast data entry for the recruitment module).

Click on the save button and you will see the following dialogue box appear.

Choose which fields you wish to modify. The field headings have the following meanings:

W. content: the field contents are saved with the field
Output only: this will make the field “display only”
Invisible: ticking the checkbox will hide the field
Required: mandatory field

Enter a short description for your newly created transaction variant.

Tick whichever fields you wish to hide (make invisible) etc. In the above example 3 fields have been “hidden”. Click on the Exit and Save icon. You will be taken to a screen which looks very similar to the one in the dialogue box. You can make further changes here. Click on the save icon and you will be asked for a development class or package (depends which release you are using). You will then need to save the changes into a Workbench transport.

Green arrow back to the main screen which is printed below (version 4.7). In this example the transaction variant is ZEJH1.

If you are using version 4.6c or lower then you will see a screen which looks like the following screen shot.

Click on the test icon to see how it looks in the system. Once you are happy you can then activate the variant in version 4.7 and above. You don’t need to do this for earlier versions. For version 4.7 and above, you do this on the first tab “Standard Variants”. Click on the activate icon. The variant will then be used for all users on the system. To deactivate the variant for all users click on the deactivate button.

Once activated the changes will take place in all clients in that instance on the server.

GuiXT Features

You will also be able to make use of the additional features of GuiXT which is another very useful tool.