Show TOC

Background documentationUnderstanding the User Interface

 

The BRFplus user interface (UI) consists of a workbench that enables you to maintain your business rules. You can create, modify, and delete objects. The workbench provides access to all the BRFplus objects available in a system. While the workbench enables you to model all the BRFplus-specific rules content, it also provides some tools for integrating a BRFplus application into your host application from which you want to call BRFplus. To accomplish this, you need to implement the respective calls in the source code of your application. The workbench can help you with that task by generating web services, function modules, and code snippets that you can use to connect your ABAP code to a particular BRFplus function.

You can start the BRFplus workbench in one of the following ways:

  • In the backend system with transaction BRFPLUS.

  • In the web browser with the BRFplus workbench URL that is specific for your system landscape.

Note Note

The BRFplus workbench is based on SAP Netweaver's WebDynpro ABAP technology. Therefore, you can apply generic modifiers and parameters to the browser URL to fine-tune the workbench behavior. For example, you could add the sap-accessibility=X switch to the URL to provide screen reader support to the UI.

End of the note.

Prerequisites

The role BRFplus Administrator (SAP_BC_FDT_ADMINISTRATOR) has been added to your user profile. Of course, you can as well use a custom role with a subset of the authorizations contained in SAP_BC_FDT_ADMINISTRATOR.

Features

The BRFplus workbench consists of two main panels, the Navigation Panel on the left and the Work Area panel on the right. The workbench also provides a couple of general features through the Menu Bar. The System Status dialog that is available from the Help menu shows the backend system and client where you are currently logged on, the logon user and language, and the current UI mode.

The workbench has the following two UI modes:

  • Simple Mode

    This UI mode is recommended for the business user. It concentrates on business-relevant settings and hides most of the technical details that are only needed for administrative tasks.

  • Expert Mode

    This UI mode is for the business expert or developer. In Expert Mode, you have access to a number of additional tools needed for administrative or cleanup tasks. Besides, some of the more technical functions are only available in Expert Mode (for example, the Return to active version function used to discard changes that have been made to an inactive object).

You can switch between the two modes using the Personalization dialog.

Menu

The Menu consists of the following:

  • Workbench

    You can perform workbench operations such as create an application, show the current objects in the repository, synchronize the object that is currently loaded into the workbench with the repository tree, and add the current object as favorites.

  • Tools

    The availability of tools depends on the UI mode you choose. The simple mode activates only the simulation tool. The other tool components are available only in expert mode.

    • Application Administration

      You can delete unused objects from the application using the application administration tool. You can also discard old versions of objects that are no longer needed, delete objects that have been marked for deletion, and reorganize objects.

    • Application Usage

      You can use the application usage tool to query the applications that are being used by the selected application or query other applications using the selected application.

    • Lean Trace

      This tool lets you review and analyze the runtime behavior of a BRFplus function on a general level. The name “lean trace” indicates that this tool works on a relaxed granularity level so that certain execution steps are aggregated or completely hidden.

    • Mass Change

      With this tool, you can create a selection of BRFplus objects based on different criteria and then apply a particular change to all selected objects at once.

    • Simulation

      You can provide input for the context data objects of a function and simulate the execution for test and debugging purposes.Simulation is similar to function module testing.

    • Transport Analysis

      You can analyze and check the consistency of all the BRFplus objects in a transport request.

    • Web Service Generation and RFC Generation

      A third party user can process the rules defined in BRFplus using the web service generation tool. A similar approach is possible when you have an SAP system landscape installed and want to access a BRFplus application from a system, but the application resides in a different system. For this, you can use the RFC Generation tool to set up the necessary environment.

    • XML Export and XML Import

      You can easily transport active versions of the BRFplus objects from one system to another with the help of the BRFplus-specific XML conversion (provided both systems support BRFplus). For more information, see Export and Import of XML Data.

  • Help

    The Help menu lets you directly access the context-specific Application Help that is attached to the particular type of object you are currently working on.

    You can also open the Help Center pane at the right border of the window. Here, you find a link that leads you to the entry page of the BRFplus application help from which you can explore the various help topics. In addition, the menu offers a legend that explains the most important icons used in the workbench as well as the meaning of the typographic conventions used in the user interface. Finally, you can find the System Information here.

    Recommendation Recommendation

    If you are new to the BRFplus workbench, we recommend you right-click on the UI background and choose Display Quick Help from the context menu. You will then be provided with additional help texts on the UI (either static texts, or texts that are only visible when you hover the mouse on a text with a green underline) meant to help you understand the purpose of a particular screen element, or the idea behind a particular feature on that screen. Once you are accustomed to the workbench, you can let these explanation texts disappear by choosing Hide Quick Help from the same context menu.

    End of the recommendation.
Navigation Panel

You can browse through the BRFplus object repository using the Navigation Panel on the left hand side of the workbench window. In the Personalization settings, you can decide whether the objects shall be displayed with their technical name or with their short text.

The objects shown in the navigation panel are not simple entries in a flat list. Rather, each object is the entry point to a hierarchy of subelements and usages. You can drill down through the object hierarchy by clicking on the triangle sign to the left of each object.

An application entry in the navigation panel serves as an entry point to the different object types of which the application consists, all the object instances for each type, their usages in other objects, which again serve as the starting point for a new drilldown.

For each object, the system provides a visual indication of the object's status:

  • Object type: The symbol to the left of an object's name indicates what type of object it is (application, various expression types, functions, and so on)

  • Typeface: Objects shown in bold characters are transportable (otherwise, they are local to the current system).

    Note Note

    This setting is inherited from the application to which an object belongs. Whether an application is transportable or not depends on the development package to which the application is assigned.

    End of the note.

  • Traffic light: Objects with a green traffic light are active and can be used in an application.

The BRFplus objects presented in the Navigation Panel can be arranged in different views. In the Personalization settings, you can define for each view whether it shall be displayed or not. In addition, you can define which of the different views shall be active when the system starts up. The following views are available:

  • Repository

    You can access all objects of all applications in the repository. The Repository view allows for an in-depth analysis of an object via a recursive drilldown into the object's subobjects as well as into the object's where-used list.

  • Recently Used

    You can easily access those objects that you have recently been working on. This list can hold up to 20 objects. Its content is automatically maintained by the system, following the “first in, first out” approach.

  • Favorites

    You can view all the objects that you have added as your favorites. This is useful if you want to keep a permanent list of objects you are interested in but do not work with every day. To add an object to the Favorites view, first locate the desired object in the Repository view and then choose Add to Favorites from the object's context menu.

  • Catalog

    You can define catalogs that serve as a container for a subset of objects and access it from the repository.

Note Note

The Recently Used and Favorites views present a flat list of objects without the additional drilldown capabilities of the Repository view. However, you can easily access the drilldown function by choosing Show in Repository View from each object's context menu.

End of the note.
Work Area

The work area panel is the place where you can display and edit objects. On top of the screen, the system displays the General section with the header data of the object. This section is generic and is available for all types of objects supported by BRFplus. The settings that are specific for a particular object type are shown in the Details section below the General section.

Check Results

Under certain conditions, the work area may contain a third section, namely Check Results. For each object type available in BRFplus, the system offers type-specific consistency checks that are implicitly run upon object activation. You can also start the checks manually by clicking the Check button in the workbench. Whenever the checks find any kind of problem (be it serious or not), the system displays the Check Results section on top of the work area and lists all messages that have arisen during the check. You can then start investigating the problems. The message list stays visible on the screen until you explicitly close the Check Results section with the Close button.

Sometimes, the checks return a great number of messages, depending on the complexity of the checked object and its relationships to other objects. In such a case, navigating through those many messages in the relatively small section can be cumbersome. To overcome this problem, the Check Results section offers a download facility that lets you save the entire message list in a Microsoft Excel file. With that, getting an overview is much easier, and you may want to use the spreadsheet as a worklist that helps you keep track of all the issues that you have already solved and those that are still to be done.

System Info

The System Info dialog available from the Help menu provides the following administrative data related to the running session:

  • System

    • System ID

    • System client to which you are logged on

    • System mode (either regular or deployable; deployable mode is relevant only for Business ByDesign systems)

  • User

    • User name

    • Logon language

    • Current UI mode (Simple vs. Expert, see section above)

    • Timezone used for object timestamps (local time of the logged on user, or UTC). This setting can be changed in the Personalization dialog.

Keyboard Support

Using the mouse is not always the fastest way to interact with the workbench. You can access the Workbench as well as the Tools menu via the keyboard by typing Alt + W or Alt + T, respectively. Also, a list of standard user actions is available that you can execute with the help of keyboard shortcuts. These shortcuts can be customized in the Workbench Personalization dialog.

More Information

Workbench Personalization