Use

This function controls report creation depending on whether the report contains specification data.

Features

Rating

You protect specification data against unauthorized access using ratings. For example, you can specify that some data is for internal use only and other data can be accessed by all customers.

Validity area

A validity area can group several jurisdictions where specification data has the same validity.

You need to differentiate between:

Leadingvalidity areas

You specify the leading validity area when you create a generation variant.

Discretevalidity areas

If you want a report (a multi-language hazard label, for example) to feature several validity area/language combinations, you also define these assignments as part of the generation variant.

You also need to define a repeating group type Validity and language area so that the system selects the correct data for the report (see Example: Repeating Group of Type G ).

Usage check

You can use the usage check in the generation variant header and for the individual discrete validity areas to specify the way in which the SAP system compares usages. You can specify for usages with the same rating for the validity areas whether an intersection, subset, or superset should be present or whether they should agree for the comparison to apply. For more information about comparing usages, see Generation Not Permitted .

Status check

You can use the Status check indicator in the generation variant header to specify whether the specification or phrase status should be checked when a report is generated.

If you call the Report from Template function from the specification management hit list, you can override the indicator if required.

If there is no status entry for the relevant specification that prohibits generation, the status is taken into account in the following way:

Taking specification status into account (see also Generation Not Permitted )

The SAP system checks the usage records for the selected data records that led to the selection of the data record. If there is a status for the relevant specification that prohibits output on reports, the data record is not output on the report.

Taking phrase status into account

Depending on the status of the phrase item, you can specify whether the phrase item is expanded on the report, or whether the symbol of type Descriptor is not expanded and the additional information for the phrase status is output on the report.

Report category

The report category is also directly linked to the generation variant. A report can be identified using the report category, for example, as a tremcard or material safety data sheet (MSDS). In the standard system, only reports of the category Material safety data sheet are sent in the material safety data sheet shipping function. This is controlled via the business process Material safety data sheet shipping that must be assigned to the report category in the IMG activity Specify Report Categories and to the shipping reason Manual shipping in the IMG activity Specify Shipping Reasons (see Report Selection ).

Assigning report applications

Once you have assigned a report template to a generation variant, the SAP system automatically determines all report applications to which symbols were created in the report template. You cannot delete these report applications. You can also assign other report applications that you must have created under Specify Report Applications in Customizing for Product Safety .

You cannot assign the report application Specification master manually. It is assigned only by the use of specification symbols in the corresponding report template.

The symbols are assigned uniquely to a report application for the following reasons:

One symbol belongs to one symbol group only.

The symbol group is assigned to one report application only.

You can define your own symbols for each report application, which are then available in the report template. In Customizing for Basic Data and Tools under Specify Report Symbol Groups , function modules are defined for each symbol group, which then determine default values that can be overwritten for the parameter symbols of the report template. You can adapt the function modules. A report application can also use a number of symbol groups.

You can restrict the usability of the generation variant by assigning individual object keys to the report applications. If no object key is specified, the generation variant applies for all objects in the report application (see Defining Application Objects ).

If a report is assigned to certain objects already, there is no point in restricting the usability of the generation variant to other objects of the same report application. The SAP system therefore ignores these object assignments. Example: If a report is assigned to a specific material via the material-specification assignment, the assignment of the generation variant to another material is ignored.

When you access the report management or report information system functions, the generation variants and the corresponding reports are selected according to the search criteria .