If you regularly navigate, enter, and display data on your SAP system, you can benefit from helpful user options in the customizing of local layout icon. Extensive settings are available for you to customize screen layouts, such as turning on and off various pop-up messages, data keys, history of entries, and cut-and-paste functionalities. This icon allows you to adjust your user settings to meet your functional needs.

I’ll describe many options in detail and provide a common business scenario that benefits from a particular setting. Most users are unaware of these settings and how they relate to everyday SAP HR activities. I’ll show you how to simplify your daily operations with several timesavers and handy tricks. This article applies to all SAP releases from R/3 4.6C through SAP ERP Central Component (ECC).

Options Tab

To access the Options tab, click on the customizing of local layout icon and select Options from the drop-down menu (Figure 1). The main Options screen appears, containing tabs such as Options, Cursor, and Local Data. You can access the quick info and message settings in the Options tab.

Figure 1

Quick display of text definition and keyboard command

Quick Info

Quick info displays a short text description and its corresponding keyboard command of a particular button. When you place your cursor over an icon or a button, the system automatically displays the relevant quick info. For example, the back icon quick info contains the descriptive text Back and the keyboard command F3, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2

Select Options from the drop-down menu

This option is convenient for all business processes because quick info helps you learn the keyboard commands that correspond to frequent HR activities. Instead of using the mouse to click on an icon, press a keyboard command to perform your function. Table 1 illustrates a few quick info examples.

In the main Options screen, you can edit quick info settings in the Quick Info section of the Options tab (Figure 3). The Slow and Quick selections determine the amount of time the cursor needs to hover over an icon before the system displays the quick info. Select On Keyboard Focus Change to display quick info by using the tab button on your keyboard to navigate through icons instead of your cursor. If you do not want to see quick info at all, disable it by selecting None.

Figure 3

Specify the speed at which quick info and messages appear

Messages

To access the Messages settings, follow the same instructions described in the “Quick Info” section of this article. Messages are practical when you run new or unfamiliar business processes. It is easy to overlook Success, Warning, and Error messages.

Successful messages indicate that you saved the transaction correctly. Warning messages are generated when a transaction can be saved successfully but the user should be aware of further information, such as: a specific salary being entered in infotype 0008 is outside of the pay scale type and grade range. These messages are helpful because they alert users of potential consequences before they happen. Error messages occur when the transaction cannot be saved. For example, if you try to save data to an invalid infotype, you receive an error message in the status bar at the bottom of your screen.

The system displays the successful, warning, and error messages in the status bar at the bottom of your screen. To avoid missing messages, consider configuring your settings in the Messages section of the Options tab to Beep at Message or Dialog Box at Error Message (Figure 4), for example. As you become more comfortable in a certain transaction, you may find this feature distracting and decide to deactivate it. To stop receiving beeps and dialog boxes for all types of messages, ensure that all of the check boxes under Messages are blank. In every SAP system, the next screen in a process appears automatically when a transaction is saved successfully.

Figure 4

An example of an error message dialog box

Cursor Tab

To access the Cursor tab (Figure 5), click on the customizing of local layout icon and select Options from the drop-down menu. To save time and avoid erroneous data entry, use these cursor settings to customize the behavior of your cursor. In the Cursor Position section of the Cursor tab, there are four unique options to choose from, depending on the business process you are performing.

Figure 5

The different options available in the Cursor tab

Automatic Tabbing at End of Field: If you select this check box, the cursor automatically moves to the next field when the entire field length is occupied. For example, say you are entering a personnel number in one field and the maximum field length is eight characters. When you finish typing the eighth digit of the personnel number, your cursor automatically moves to the next field to continue entering data. This option helps you enter data more efficiently without needing to use Tab on your keyboard to jump to the next field; your system does it for you.

Figure 6 shows how the cursor behaves without activating the automatic tabbing feature. You must manually use your mouse or the Tab button on your keyboard to move from one field to the next. Figure 7 shows that when you enter the wage type (5000), the cursor moves automatically to the next field (Amount).

Figure 6

The different options available in the Cursor tab

Figure 7

Automatic Tabbing at End of Field is selected

Note Cursor Position in Field at Tabbing: If you select this option, the next time you tab to a certain field, the cursor automatically returns to the same spot. This is useful when you are entering data and switching back and forth between several different fields and some information within a field is missing. For example, say you are entering the Date of origin in infotype 0015. You know the month (03) and the year (2007); you do not know the date, but you plan to enter it in later.

Typically, when you tab over to a field, the cursor is positioned at the beginning of a field (Figure 8). If the Note Cursor Position in Field at Tabbing feature is activated, when you return to the field containing the missing data, the cursor is automatically positioned where you need to enter the missing data (Figure 9).

Figure 8

The cursor defaults to the beginning of a field

Figure 9

The cursor is automatically positioned in the field

Position Cursor at End of Text: This option prevents unnecessary spaces from mistakenly being added when you use the mouse to move the cursor from one field to the next. If this feature is turned off, the cursor appears exactly where you click, which may introduce erroneous spaces (Figure 10). Use this feature to continue entering text in a field directly at the end of the text. This can be especially handy if the last letter of an employee’s name was initially left out in infotype 0002, for example (Figure 11).

Figure 10

Wherever the user clicks in a field, the cursor appears exactly in that spot

Figure 11

Position Cursor at End of Text is selected so the cursor appears at the end of the text already in the field

Select Text in Edit Field in Insert Mode: This option visually alerts the user that the selected text in a field will be overwritten with the next key stroke. Some users may prefer this option if they frequently tab over to a field and need to completely replace all characters. On the other hand, you may find this feature is unnecessary for small edits.

Figure 12 shows where the cursor appears when this option is not selected. Figure 13 is an example of where the cursor appears when the Select Text in Edit Field in Insert Mode is turned on. If the user begins to type, the old text is automatically replaced with the new text.

Figure 12

Traditionally the cursor appears at the beginning of the field text

Figure 13

Select Text in Edit Field in Insert Mode is activated and the field text is automatically deleted when new text is entered

Local Data Tab

To access the Local Data tab, click on the customizing of local layout icon and select Options from the drop-down menu. You can access history settings in the Local Data tab (Figure 14). If you regularly input the same information, use the settings in this tab to streamline your processes and access past transactions, for example.

Figure 14

The Local Data tab allows you to store information for a specified amount of time

History: Select Off, On, or Immediately to determine if this feature is turned on and how the history of entries for a field responds. To turn off this option, select Off. By selecting On, as you type entries that match previous entries in this screen, a drop-down list appears with the previous entries. If you frequently type the same entry, this option saves you the hassle of typing the same entry again. Instead, type the first couple of characters and select the entry from the drop- down list.

For example, if you are in transaction SM30 and are entering the table name V_512W_D, after you type V, previous entries beginning with V appear in the drop-down list. If you enter V_512, the system may display V_512W, V_512W_O, and V_512W_D as previous entries. For each character that you type, your drop- down list narrows your search. Figure 15 shows an example of this history functionality for entering personnel numbers.

Figure 15

A drop-down menu of previously entered personnel numbers

If you select Immediately, the system automatically displays all previous entries when the cursor is tabbed to a new field all previous entries.

When you are configuring rules and features, many users find it is easier to turn off the history functionality. For example, if history is turned off, previous entries appear at lines 80, 90, and 100, forcing the user to select a previous entry and then return to the line that they want to edit and continue entering the remaining text (Figure 16). In this business scenario, the history of previous entries may be distracting and excessive.

Figure 16

An example of configuring a feature

Expert Tab

To access the Expert tab, click on the customizing of local layout icon and select Options from the drop-down menu. The main Options screen appears. The Expert tab (Figure 17) provides settings that allow the user to display table keys with the data description when selecting data for entry.

Figure 17

The Expert tab setting allows users to display keys in a drop-down list

Controls: In the Controls section of the Expert tab, there are two options available to save you time and effort when you enter master data: Show Keys in All Dropdown Lists and Sort Items by Key. A key is a unique identifier for each record in a database table and serves as a shorter version of the whole word. For example, the key for Australia is AU and the key for Bulgaria is BG (Figure 18).

Figure 18

Both the Show Keys in All Dropdown Lists and Sort Items by Key options are selecte

Typically, when you enter master data, fields with a drop-down option do not display the keys or sort the keys in the drop-down list. Keys in a table are useful to know and memorize, especially if you or your configuration team need to make changes in a table or reference a key in a feature. If you need to modify table configuration and you do not know the key, or have these user settings selected, you must search for the full text (such as Australia) instead of directly accessing a table entry with its shortcut key (AU), as shown in Figure 19.

Figure 19

An example of when the Show Keys in All Dropdown Lists is not selected

Quick Cut and Paste

To access the quick cut-and-paste functionality, click on the customizing of local layout icon and select Quick Cut and Paste from the drop-down menu. This option is very useful when you are copying data from your SAP system to Microsoft Windows or Excel, for example. Users who prefer to navigate their systems with a mouse instead of through keyboard shortcuts also find this setting beneficial. You can control cutting and pasting directly from the mouse, without using any menu paths or keyboard shortcuts, such as Ctrl-Y.

For example, if you are frequently cutting and pasting several times and need to go back and forth between screens, you can save time with this method. Quick cut and paste allows the user to highlight text while holding down the left mouse button. When you release it, the text is no longer highlighted. Next, right-click on your mouse button to automatically paste this data into a new location.

At first, users may find this option annoying because when they highlight a section of text to delete, the text is not deleted and when you release the left mouse button, the highlight disappears. I suggest when you are mainly entering data, turn this setting off and when you are exclusively cutting and pasting data from one environment to another, turn this setting on.

Set Color to System

To access the set color to system functionality, click on the customizing of local layout icon and select Set Color to System from the drop-down menu. Set a color to a specific system to prevent inadvertently making changes in the wrong system. You can assign different colors to your development, test, and production environments.

For example, if you are involved in production support, you are often simultaneously logged into development, quality assurance, and production systems. One way to prevent accidentally changing data in production — thinking you are in the test environment, for example — is to assign different colors to the different systems. Figure 20 shows a list of the various standard color schemes available. When you are happy with your color selection for a system, click on the OK button to apply this setting.

Figure 20

The color Grass is assigned to a specific environment