Using Fields in the Form

Use

Text in the SAP system does not usually exist independently of other objects, but often contains a reference to some other stored object. For example, for a letter this could be the address data in the vendor master record or information in the material master record that is to be included in a purchase order text. You solve this problem by using placeholders for the data rather than entering the actual values into the text. You can create flexible text modules by using these placeholders at all points where the text needs to be variable.

In SAP Smart Forms, these placeholders are called fields. Fields represent data that is only included in the text when it is formatted for output. When generating the output, the system replaces all fields in the text with the values that are currently valid for them.

There are two types of fields:

System fields provided by Smart Forms
Your own fields, which you define in the form interface or declare as global definitions

Caution
The value of a field can be a maximum of 255 characters.

In the Form Builder, choose Start of the navigation path Utilities Next navigation step Field List On/Off End of the navigation path to display a field list beneath the tree structure. The fields in this list are sorted according to their definition. This enables you to keep track when including the fields.

Where can you include fields?

In text nodes

You include fields in text nodes if you want to display values at runtime. Once included, these fields appear with a gray background and are enclosed in ampersands (' &') to set them apart from normal text. You will make a lot of use of this option when Displaying Tables on the Form.

Note

In input fields of a node

You can also specify fields in the attributes of a node. By default, these input fields are set so that they expect static values.

If you want your input to be accepted as a field name, you have to first click the black arrow that is pointing away from the input field. As soon as the system expects you to enter a field name, it turns the arrow around so that it points to the input field:

Enter the field name without ampersands ('&') in the input field. In this way, you can include a graphic in the form dynamically, that is, not until the runtime of the Smart Form, for example.

Smart Forms does not use this black arrow for distinction in places where you do usually enter field names (for example, for a condition).