Creating a Feature Attribute 

Use

If you want to include a new field in a BE application, this must be defined as a new feature attribute.

To include a new attribute for a feature, you must first define this attribute and then assign it to one or more containers.

The procedure for this is described in the example for a field ‘ZFELD’, which is part of feature ‘ZFEATURE’ and will be used in container ‘DLI’ (= “Billing due list”), and ‘BDI’ (= “Billing document item”).

Procedure

1.       In the function bar of the navigation tree, choose the function “Other metadata entity”.

2.       In the selection window, select the “Feature” radio button, and enter value ‘ZFEATURE’.

3.       You reach the metadata view for a single feature.

4.       Open the sub-objects for the feature ‘ZFEATURE’.

5.       Call the context menu for the “Feature attribute” folder and choose the function “Create”.

6.       The metadata entry for a feature attribute is displayed in a dialog box. Here, enter the value ‘ZFELD’ in the field ‘Attribute’, and enter an existing ABAP data element in the field ‘Data element’. You only need to fill the ‘Reference field’ for currency or quantity fields. Use F4 Help to define whether the ‘Data category’ field is persistent, dynamic or only used in the interface. Use F4 Help to determine whether the ‘Visibility’ field should be public or private.

7.       Save you data changes using the “Save” function in the dialog box.

8.       Open the folder “Feature attributes”. Your new feature attribute is automatically displayed in the list of feature attributes.

9.       Open the sub-objects for this entry.

10.   Call the context menu for the “Container” folder and choose the function “Create assignment”.

11.   The metadata entry for the assignment of a feature attribute to a container is displayed in a dialog box. The ‘Feature’ field already has the default value ‘ZFEATURE’, and the ‘Attribute’ field already has the value ‘ZFELD’. Enter value ‘DLI’ in the ‘Container’ field.

12.   Save you data changes using the “Save” function in the dialog box.

13.   Repeat step 10 and 11 for the container ‘BDI’.

The assignment of a feature attribute to a container is only active upon assignment of the corresponding feature to the object to which the container belongs. In the example above, feature ‘ZFEATURE’ should be assigned to both object ‘DL’ (due to container ‘DLI’) and object ‘BD’ (due to container ‘BDI’).

To ensure that the field defined by the feature attribute is available in the generated application, the entire application must be regenerated as described in “Error! Reference source not found.”.