Introduction to SAP

Choose Help  SAP Library to display the Help screen.. Click The Menu Bar to display the Help documentation.. Click SAP Library on the Help menu bar to return to the main Help screen.. C

Introduction to SAP

Customer Order

Inventory Sourcing

Delivery Invoicing Customer

Payment

Sales Order Planning

MPS MRP Planned

Order

Production Order

Purchase Request

Vendor Selection

Purchase Order

Goods Issue

Invoice Verification

Vendor Payment

Initial Contact

Production Control

Introduction to SAP ERP

SAP’s ERP is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system designed to assist an

organization with the integration and management of business processes The system deals with the problems of organising and executing the millions of transactions that are

fundamental to many large businesses SAP is the leader in the ERP market SAP ERP is a very large system which incorporates over 30,000 tables, 50,000 transactions and 15,000 reports This tutorial is an introduction designed to assist you with familiarising yourself with the SAP ERP basics

Log On details

Due to the value of the information stored in the ERP system it is necessary to control the access to the software The SAP administrator would need to establish a user account for each user who intends to use the ERP system Each user account is identified by a user name and requires a password for security Each user account is also allocated a particular type of security profile which determines the data a user is allowed to view and change

The other log on detail you require is the Client number A Client is a set of self

contained tables required for processing transactions in the SAP system A user in

one client can not change the data in another Client You will need to know your

user name, password and Client before you attempt to access the system

 Identify your log on details

Client

User Name

Password

Exercise 1: Logging on to the SAP System

There are various techniques to open the SAP ERP system

1 Double Click to open the SAP ERP system

A screen appears which allows you to select which server you want to logon to Companies

often have more than one SAP solution server

2 Click the Server that has been assigned to this subject

3 Click to activate the SAP ERP system

After a short time the My SAP ERP log on window appears similar to the one below:

Input Areas of the Screen

Client

A Client identifies a business entity in the ERP system Each Client contains data that is completely separate from data in other clients Different clients are established for testing and developing different aspects of the system and for

training purposes The system default Client should already appear

User

Uniquely identifies you to the ERP system Your User Id will be allocated by

your workshop leader and remain the same throughout the unit

4 Type your User Id XXX-NNN

5 Press <TAB> to mover the cursor to the Password text box

6 Type your Password which will supplied by the lecturer

7 Click or press <ENTER> to accept the input

A new screen will appear which allows you to enter a new password to replace the

temporary one you logged on with

You now need to create a new password You will be the only person who knows this

password so it is important to create a password which is easy to remember However the ERP system has some rules about what it allows to be a password

Password Rules

Passwords must be at least 3 characters long and less than 8

Passwords are not case-sensitive

Passwords can not start with a blank space, question mark(?) or an

exclamation mark (!)

Passwords can not start with 3 identical characters i.e Aaahsap

The password can not be pass

The password can not be any of the previous 5 passwords

8 Type your new password

To hide your new password from other people, it is hidden by asterisks as you type

9 Press <TAB> to move to the next text box

10 Click to enter the new password into the system

A Copyright message appears on screen

11 Click to close this dialogue message

SAP ERP Main Screen

After logging on to the SAP ECC system the main screen appears:

The SAP ERP main screen has a number of screen elements you need to become familiar with:

Status Bar The Status Bar displays warning or error messages It also displays:

Session Number You can have more than one SAP ERP session (similar to

a window) opened at one time This area identifies which

session is the active window (1)

Client A SAP system can contain more than one Client The Status

Bar indicates which Client (800) you are logged onto

Server Name This indicates the name of the computer server SAP is installed

on This is different to a Client, which was required when you logged on

Insert/overtype This indicates which typing mode you are in INS

Standard Toolbar Application Toolbar

Navigation Area

Status Bar Menu

Bar

Standard Toolbar This allows you to use icons to perform common navigation tasks

Notice that some icons are dimmed to indicate that they are not available on this screen

Application Toolbar This allows you to use icons to perform common tasks for

particular applications

Navigation Area This lists the options available within each application It provides a

hierarchical menu structure

Menu Bar This lists the options available to customize the SAP environment

SAP Hierarchical Menus

The menu structure within the SAP ERP system can appear to be complex and confusing

As you move between different applications within the ERP system the menus change

accordingly However navigation via the menus uses the same techniques no matter which application you are in

After a bit of practice the menu structure will become much easier You will soon realise

that transactions related to the movement of materials will appear under the Logistics menu, while most financial transactions appear under the Accounting menu

There are 2 different techniques you can use to view the contents of each top level menu You can either click next the desired application area or double click of the application

area To view the options in Logistics:

12 Click next to Logistics to display the options

next to Materials Management to display the options

 Experiment and see what menu options are available in Human Resources

You will notice that is does not take long before you have an extensive menu tree appearing

on the screen You can use the symbol to close a subordinate menu level or by clicking

on the Standard Toolbar

13 Click next to Human Resources and Logistics to hide the lower menu

options

14 Close all other menus until you have returned to the top level menu

Using Help

SAP has an extensive Help documentation It is essential that you understand how to use the Help documentation if you want to gain a better understanding of this system SAP ERP provides different kinds of on line Help You can access the Help documentation a number

of different ways There is web based Help at http://help.sap.com/ :

The Help menu contains the following options:

Application help: Displays comprehensive help on the current application

SAP Library: This is where all online documentation can be found

Glossary: Enables you to search for definitions of terms

Release notes: Displays notes which describe functional changes that occur

between ERP releases

SAP Service Marketplace: Enables you to log on to SAP’s web based repository of

SAP resources

Create Support Message: Enables you to send a message to the SAP for support

However you need appropriate level of access to do this

Settings: Enables you to select settings for help

15 Choose Help  SAP Library to display the Help screen

The Help screen is divided into two sections On the left is the Contents or main headings while on the right side the Help documentation appears

16 Click Getting Started – Using SAP Software in the left pane

A new window appears

17 Click next to First Steps to display the available topics

18 Click next to SAP GUI for Windows to display the available topics

19 Click next to Navigating in the SAP Window

20 Click Element of an SAP GUI Window to display the contents

21 Click The Menu Bar to display the Help documentation

 Explore some of the other topics

Once you have explored some of the Help options:

22 Click SAP Library on the Help menu bar to return to the main Help screen

23 Click of the Help window to close the last Help screen and return to the SAP

main menu

Another form of Help documentation is Application Help which can be accessed via a number of techniques You can access it by choosing the SAP Library command from the

Help menu or from particular task screen you can access it via the Application Help

command from the Help menu The major difference between these two techniques is that

Application Help command is Context Sensitive Help This means that Help screen

displayed gives help relevant to the SAP screen it was accessed from To demonstrate this:

24 Choose Human Resources -> Personnel Management -> Recruitment

-> Appl Master Data on the SAP Main Menu

25 Double click to start this action

The Initial Entry of Basic Data screen appears To find out about how this screen is

used:

26 Choose Help -> Application Help from the menu bar

The Help documentation for Initial Entry of Applicant Data appears on screen, as this

was the task screen that was active This is an example of context sensitive help From

here, you can select relevant topics

Glossary

The Help documentation also includes an online glossary which can help you to understand

some of the terminology used in the SAP system

27 Click Glossary on the Help menu bar to move to this screen

The Glossary screen appears:

SAP Help system enables you to search for particular topics

 Find the term client What data is stored at the Client level?

28 Close of the Help window to close the last Help screen

ERP Terminology

After working with the Help files you would have encountered a number of ERP terms which

are important to understand if you are going to understand how these systems operate

Business Scenario: Grouping of business processes in a specific organizational unit that

share some similar goals in the enterprise, such as purchasing, services, balance sheet preparation, production, personnel administration, and so on

Organisational Units: An organization unit represents any type of organizational entity

found within a company, for example, subsidiaries, divisions, departments, or special

project teams These organisational units need to be mapped in the SAP system as they

are the locations where the various Business Scenarios occur Some of the possible

organisational units are displayed below:

The types of organisational units mapped in the SAP system will depend upon which

Business scenarios are going to be used Some units are only relevant to certain SAP

modules

 List some of the Organisational Units you would find in a university

Master Data: Business Scenarios involve various objects such as customer, vendors,

products, employees etc Data which describes these objects is referred to as Master

Data This data describes the various objects stored within the SAP system This data

usually remains unchanged over an extended period of time

A Master Data object, such as a customer, can be used by more than module Each

module may only be concerned with certain aspects of the Master Data

 List Master Data objects in a Student Administration system

Transactions: are application programs which execute business processes in the ERP

System They usually result in the changing of one or more master data objects such as creating a customer order, posting an incoming payment, or approving a leave request The majority of processing the SAP system is related to transactions For example the

diagram below illustrates a Transaction the interaction between the Master Data objects

of Customer and Material in the creation of a sales document

 List some common transactions that would occur within a university

Document: A data record that is generated when a transaction is carried out and contains

all the predefined information such as sales document, order, pay slip etc

Reports: Program which reads certain data elements and displays them in a list SAP has

SAP Navigation

Master Data Navigation

An ERP system stores vast amounts of data about the various objects used in different business processes To display the data you want from such a large system there are

various navigation techniques you need to become familiar with SAP ECC includes a

number of tools which can facilitate this navigation

This exercise requires you to find the Master Data for a particular product The product we are interested in is referred to as Deluxe Touring Bike The Master Data referring to a product is called a Material Master To display the Material Master for a product:

30 Choose Logistics -> Materials Management -> Material Master ->

Material -> Display

31 Double Click to perform this action

The Display Material: Initial Screen appears:

You want to search for a material (product) called “Deluxe Touring Bike”, There are usually

thousands of different products in the ERP system, a facility called a matchcode can make the search a lot easier A matchcode is a method of finding a certain piece of data when

you do not know the specific number of that record

To access the matchcode tool for a particular field you click the

32 Click to display search dialog box

We want to search by Material description

33 Type *Bike* in the Material description field to display all materials that have a

Material Description that includes bike

Note

You are able to replace letters and numbers by using wildcards A summary of the

different types of wildcards can be seen below:

*sale* Containing the character string sale, such as rvsale07

*f+ Containing an f as the second-to-last character, such as rmlogifa

rp+++sch Starting with rp, ending in sch, and containing any three characters in between,

such as rp012sch or rpinvsch

34 Click in the dialog box to accept this option and display the search results

There are a number of products that satisfies the Matchcode

35 Click Deluxe Touring Bike (Black) (any one) to select it

36 Click in the dialog box to accept this option and to move to the next screen

Notice that the ERP system has automatically places the material number in the Material

field

 What is the Material Number for the Deluxe Touring Bike (Black)?

Now that the relevant Material Number has been found you can display the Master Data

for the product

37 Click or press <ENTER>

The Select Views dialog box appears on screen The Material Master stores a large

amount of data depending upon which processes it is involved in within the organization The costing data about a material would be of little interest to someone responsible for its

storage in the warehouse The Select View dialog box allows the user to select which data from the Material Master will be displayed

From this dialog box it is evident that there is a large amount of information available about

a product We are going to assume that you are assigned to the purchasing department and therefore only require details relevant to this area