Drilldown Reporting or Report Painter Reports? 

Drilldown Reporting

Drilldown reporting is useful for flexible online analysis of profit center report data.

You can either create a report ad hoc or using a form. In a form, you use a graphical report structure as the basis for your report. The system displays the rows and columns exactly as they will appear in the finished report. From a technical viewpoint, the same tool is used for this purpose as for the definition of Report Painter reports (see below).

In a drilldown report, you can navigate freely within a data cube. This means that you can change the drilldown characteristics and set individual values for characteristics.

You can find detailed information on how to use this tool in the corresponding documentation in CA - Cross-Application Components under CA – Drilldown Reporting.

For specific information on Profit Center Accounting, see

·        Standard Drilldown Reporting in Profit Center Accounting

·        User-defined Reports with Drilldown Reporting.

Drilldown reporting is also used in other components, such as CO-PA and PS.

It is possible to use the PC application inSight to present drilldown reports. For further information, see Connection to inSight for SAP R/3.

Report Painter / Report Writer

The Report Painter allows you to create your own reports to meet your specific requirements.

The report is defined on the screen via a graphical report structure. The report can therefore be divided into column blocks and sections. At the definition stage, you can view the report as it will appear on the screen when printed.

The Report Painter affords you more flexibility and comfort when creating reports, especially with more complex data material. In contrast to drilldown reporting, however, it offers limited possibilities of navigation. This means that you are only able to expand and collapse the hierarchy in the key column. Only predefined breakdowns can be printed, according to one or more characteristics (e.g. profit center and account).

You can find detailed information on how to use this tool in the SAP library for the component FI - Special Ledger, under Report-Painter Reports.

For specific information on Profit Center Accounting, see

Standard Report Painter Reports in Profit Center Accounting and

Defining your own Reports with Drilldown Reporting.

The technical basis of Report Painter reports is the Report Writer. For further information, see the SAP library for component FI Special Purpose Ledgers, under Report Writer.

Component CO-OM also uses the Report Painter.