Variant Attributes

You can maintain the following attributes on the Variant Attributes screen:

Meaning
Enter a short, meaningful description of the variant.

Caution
This can be up to 30 characters long.
Only for Background Processing
Select this indicator if you want the variant to be available for background processing but not in dialog mode.
Protect Variant
Select this indicator if you want to prevent your variant from being changed by other users.
Only Display in Catalog
Select this indicator if you want the variant name to be displayed only in the variant catalog (and not when the user calls the F4 value help).
System Variant
This field cannot accept input.

Note
It is set automatically when a system variant (beginning with CUS& or SAP&) is created.

You can also assign the following further attributes to the selections in a variant:

Type
The system indicates here whether a field is a parameter (P) or a selection option (S).
Protect field
Select this indicator for each selection that you want to be write-protected on the selection screen. These fields are visible on the selection screen when the user starts a program with the variant, but do not accept user input.
Hide field
If you select this indicator, the system hides the corresponding field on the selection screen. This allows you to change the appearance of the selection screen.
Selection variable
If you select this column, you can set the value of the corresponding selection dynamically at runtime. For more information about the different ways of doing this, see Variable Values in Variants .
Save field without values
If you select an indicator of this column, the contents of the corresponding field are not saved with the variant.

This is useful if you do not want to overwrite the contents of this field on the selection screen.

You create a report SAPTEST with the parameter TEST for which you create the variant TESTVARIANT. In the variant, you set the Save field without values indicator for the parameter. Then you run time the program and enter the value ABCD in the TEST field. If you now retrieve the TESTVARIANT variant, the TEST field retains the value ABC instead of being overwritten by SPACE.

SPA/GPA
This attribute appears only if you have created the corresponding selection criterion using 'MEMORY ID xxx'. You can switch the SPA/GPA handling on and off in the variant. This means that fields filled using SPA/GPA appear with their initial values after you have loaded a variant in which those fields have an initial value.