Files PCL1, PCL2, PCL3 and PCL4

Which information is stored in the files?

File PCL1 is the basis for the HR work area data. It contains information from the time data recording, for example, incentive wage time tickets or infotype supplement texts.

File PCL2 contains derived information, for example, payroll results. It also contains all generated payroll schemas.

File PCL3 contains applicant data.

File PCL4 contains the change documents for HR master data and recruitment.

The structure of PCLn files corresponds to that of the INDX file which you may be familiar with from other applications. The structure of all PCLn files (n = 1, 2, 3, and 4) is identical.

Structure of Files

Like in almost all SAP files, the key element with the highest priority is the client; data within a client is grouped according to basic relations (field PCLn-RELID ).

The type of basic relation is known as a cluster and characterizes the stored data according to the type, for example, cluster RX contains the payroll result for country X (from table T500L) and cluster TE contains the trip costs data.

Depending on the cluster, the structure of PCLn-SRTFD is defined in a field string xx-KEY , which is defined in an include RPCnxxy0.

Naming conventions

n = 1, 2, 3, or 4 (for PCL1, PCL2, PCL3, or PCL4)xx = for the clustery = 0 for international clustersy = country grouping according to T500L for national clusters

The personnel number is usually the first component of xx-KEY .

Importing and Exporting Data

The import/export files PCLn are managed with the ABAP/4® commands IMPORT and EXPORT . These commands store objects such as fields, field strings, or internal tables on the database, or read these from the database. Data is read from and written to the database using a unique key( xx-Key ).

Please note that the RMAC macros RP-IMP-Cn-xx and RP-EXP-Cn-xx are provided for importing and exporting data. Only these macros should be used.