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Procedure documentationUsing Tables to Store Frequently Used Values Locate this document in the navigation structure

 

Many complex process consist of jobs the work with the same parameter values, for instance:

  • The name of an external system

  • The processing day (or business day) which may not be the same as today

  • The name of an SAP instance or client to use for a particular task

These values tend to be used by a large number of jobs, and change rarely. They might change:

  • On a daily basis (for the business day)

  • Between the Development, Quality Assurance and Production environments (for external system names).

In some cases there may be a pre-defined set of values from which the user can choose:

  • A list of countries, provinces or cities

  • A list of departments or cost codes

In these cases it is also useful to be able to validate the value a user has entered to ensure it is correct, and to prompt them with a list of valid values. This means that validation can occur at job submission time, rather than at runtime.

  • Tables - Tables allow you to store frequently used values and have these form a list in the submit wizard.

  • Table definitions - Table definitions define tables, listing valid columns and data types.

Actions

Tables and table definitions support the following actions:

Action

Description

Export

Export the table or table definition into a CAR file

Edit

Edit the table or table definition

Edit Security

Edit the security of the table or table definition

Delete

Delete the table or table definition

Duplicate

Make a copy of the table or table definition to create a similar one

New Table

Create a new table from the current table definition

Expand All

Expand all tables or table definitions in the current filter

New

Create a new table or table definition

Filter > New Filter

Create a new table or table definition filter

Filter > Edit Filter

Edit current table or table definition filter

Filter > Delete

Delete current table or table definition filter
Finding Tables and Table Definitions

You can search for tables and table definitions using filters and the Search Tables or Search Table Definitions box on the Tables or Table Definitions tabs, respectively. These boxes are known as the intelliSearch boxes and located under your username on the top right-hand side of the user interface. Filters allow you to specify a list of objects with static criteria. IntelliSearch allows you to specify complex queries in a simple way using prefixes. Prefixes are used to specify which property you are searching in and have short and long syntaxes. For example, if you want to display all tables with the term users in the comment, you would use the search criteria as follows:

c:users

You can search more than one property, as follows:

c:users n:ORA

Note Note

No spaces should be entered before or after the colon (:).

End of the note.

See the Advanced Object Search for more information.

The following table illustrates the available prefixes for tables and table definitions:

Prefixes

Description

n, name

searches the name property

c, com, comment

searches the comment property

d, desc, description

searches the description property

a, app, application

searches the application property
Deleting Table Definitions and Tables

You can only delete table definitions and tables when no other objects relate to them. For example, if there are job definitions that use the table, the table cannot be deleted until all job definitions that use it have been modified. You can see all job definitions that relate to the table in Related Objects in the lower detail pane and on the show page. You cannot delete table definitions if there is a table using it.

The table in related objects contains three columns:

  • Type - the type of object with a link to it

  • Related Object - the name of the object with a link to it

  • Used As - objects can sometimes be used in different roles

Security

Privilege

Description

TableDefinition.Create

Create table definitions

TableDefinition.Delete

Delete table definitions

TableDefinition.Edit

Edit table definitions

TableDefinition.View

Access table definitions

Table.Create

Create tables

Table.Delete

Delete tables

Table.Edit

Edit tables

Table.View

Access tables

You can grant privileges on two levels, Access and Admin; a privilege granted on Admin level allows the grantee to grant the privilege to other users. These privileges can be granted system-wide, per partition or isolation group.

If you have the security module, which requires the Module.Security license key, you have an additional Security tab on the table and table definition. It allows you to specify which users can access, edit, and delete the table and table definition.

Procedure

Create a table definition

  1. Navigate to   Scripting → Table Definitions  .

  2. Choose New from the context menu and enter a name and application (optional).

  3. Choose the Columns tab, and fill in some columns, with data types and specify if the value is allowed to be null.

  4. Choose Save & Close.

Create a table

  1. Navigate to   Scripting → Table Definitions  .

  2. Choose New Table from the context menu of a table definition and enter a Name, and Application (optional).

  3. Choose the Values tab, and fill in some columns, the column names must exist in the table definition you specified. The Key column is the field that should contain the data that you want to use.

  4. Choose Save & Close.

Use a table as a reference in a parameter for parameter values

  1. Navigate to   Definitions → Job Definitions  

  2. Choose Edit from the context menu of the job definition

  3. Choose the Parameters tab and select the parameter you would like to use

  4. In the Simple Constraint Type field choose table, enter the name of the table into the Simple Constraint Type field.

  5. Choose Save & Close.

Result

When you submit the job definition, records in the table are available as list-of-values in the parameter field of the job definition.