Creating and Editing Web Interfaces 

Use

You create and edit Web interfaces in order to generate a BSP application that is based on the Web interface. The BSP application accesses the planning objects using a Web browser.

Prerequisites

To create a functional BSP application, you must already have created planning objects in the planning environment.

SAP delivers planning applications based on Web interfaces that have been created with the Web Interface Builder. To avoid conflicts with the delivered Web interfaces, create your Web interfaces in the namespace that is reserved for customers. This begins with Y or Z.

Note that the Web interface development objects delivered by SAP are part of the packages delivered by SAP. We recommend that you do not change these objects as this represents a modification and has organizational and technical consequences. However, if you do want to make changes, copy the delivered objects and then change the copies.

Procedure

Use the Wizard to Create a Web Interface

The Web Interface Builder has a wizard that supports you in creating a new Web interface:

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       1.      On the SAP Easy Access Menu screen, choose Business Planning and Simulation → Web Interface Builder → Customizing. The initial screen of the Web Interface Builder appears.

       2.      Choose  (Web Interface → Create with Wizard). The start page of the wizard appears.

       3.      In the following steps of the wizard, you put together the elements that you require:

                            a.      Start

                            b.      Specify Name for Web Interface

                            c.      Select Planning Areas

                            d.      Select Planning Levels 

                            e.      Create Individual BSP Pages 

                              f.      Complete

For each step, the wizard offers information about the possible settings. In the first step, you only have the option of switching to the next step. However, when you have carried out more than one step you can switch between the steps that you have already performed in any order. This allows you to change the settings you made for an earlier step later in the process.

       4.      When you have made all the settings and have arrived at the last step, choose Complete. The system creates a new Web interface in accordance with your settings.

       5.      To save the Web interface, choose  (Web Interface → Save).

A Web interface that was created using the wizard is no different to a manually created Web interface. Therefore, the subsequent processing of a Web interface created using the wizard is the same as the subsequent processing of a manually created Web interface.

Create a Web Interface Manually

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       1.      On the SAP Easy Access Menu screen, choose Business Planning and Simulation → Web Interface Builder → Customizing. The initial screen of the Web Interface Builder appears.

       2.      Choose  (Web Interface → Create).

The system displays a dialog box in which you can determine basic properties of the Web interface. Depending on what you enter here, the system automatically creates certain elements for you for the new Web interface.

       3.      In the Number of Pages field, enter whether the generated application should consist of one or more HTML pages.

       4.      Select which of the available Standard Elements you want the system to create on each page of the application.

You can manually correct the selection that you make in the two last steps when you create a Web interface by adding further elements or removing elements that are not required.

       5.      Edit the new Web interface as described in the following Edit a Web Interface section.

Edit a Web Interface

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       1.      On the SAP Easy Access Menu screen, choose Business Planning and Simulation → Web Interface Builder → Customizing. The initial screen of the Web Interface Builder appears.

       2.      Choose  (Web Interface → Open).

       3.      From the list of available Web interfaces, select the one you require. The system displays the hierarchical element structure of the Web interface.

       4.      Edit the components of the Web interface (see Components for Web Interfaces):

·         To add a new component to the Web interface, choose:

○     Create Page in the context menu of an element of type “application”. A dialog box appears where you can enter the name of the page.

○     Create Subcomponents in the context menu of an element of type “page” or “container”. A dialog box appears with an overview of the subcomponents available in the system. Select the required element type.

·         To edit the attributes of an existing component, double-click on its name in the element structure or choose Change Attributes in the context menu of the component.

The system displays the attributes of the component in the attribute editor.

The different attributes of the components are documented in the system. For more detailed information about a specific attribute, choose the appropriate attribute in the attribute editor and then use F1.

       5.      When you have created all required elements and have set their attributes, save the Web interface.

       6.      Choose  (Edit → Check Consistency). If applicable, the system highlights problems such as, for example, incorrect references between elements of the Web interface.

       7.      Choose  (Edit → Generate). The system generates the objects specified in the Result section below.

       8.      Choose Edit → Display Preview or Display in External Browser to test the application.

If you are in the test phase when you create or change a Web interface and you want to check your results as quickly as possible, you can use the quick preview in the Web interface instead of the last steps two that are mentioned. To do this, choose Goto → Settings. Under Preview in the Settings dialog box, choose the Quick Preview w/o Generating option. This means that you can display the Web interface in the preview window without having to generate the BSP application first (which can be time-consuming).

Result

As a result of the subsequent generation in the Web Interface Builder, the system has generated the following objects:

●     For each element of type “page” that you have created in the Web interface, the system generates a BSP page which contains the elements required for the Web interface. This page is stored in the system. At the runtime of the application, the SAP Web Application Server generates a HTML-format page from every requested BSP page. This is displayed in the browser.

●     In addition to that, additional pages are generated for special purposes (for example, a page which is displayed when exiting the Web application).

When using the SEM-BPS design (see Design Templates for Web Interfaces): If you have specified in the properties of the Web interface that you want to use a customer-designed class, the system generates this class. The generated BSP pages then use the processing logic implemented in this class (and not the standard class of the Web Interface Builder).

 

See also:

SAP Web AS Architecture

Creation of Web Applications with Business Server Pages