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A Workbench channel is a unit of content that appears on an individual user's desktop. SAP Sourcing provides a number of default Workbench channels. You can use Setup to create a custom Workbench channel for your enterprise or company, or to modify existing channels.

Each Desktop Channel object specifies the code component that renders the channel content, along with configuration parameters for the channel. In general, it should not be necessary to modify the Desktop Channel objects, but it may be desirable to modify certain settings or create new objects representing custom channels. Channels are assigned to Workbench Page templates, which determine workbench configurations for individual users. Information from the Desktop Channel object is copied to the workbench template when the channel is assigned to the template. See the section on Individual Workbench Configurations in Workbench Setup to understand how changes to the Desktop Channel must be propagated to ensure that all users' configurations are updated.

This section describes how to create and edit a Workbench channel.

Creating a Workbench Channel

You can create a custom channel for your enterprise as follows:

Note Note

We recommend that you consult with an SAP Business Analyst before creating a new workbench channel.

End of the note.

  1. Navigate to   Setup   System Setup   Workbench   Desktop Channel  .

  2. On the Desktop Channels page, choose Create.

  3. On the Creating: Desktop Channels page, enter the channel information, including whether the channel is to be visible to buyers, suppliers, or both buyers and suppliers.

  4. Under Parameter Definitions, choose Add to add a parameter definition.

  5. In the dialog box for New Channel Parameter Definition in New Desktop Channels , enter the required information and choose OK.

  6. Save your entries.

Editing a Workbench Channel

It should not be necessary to edit a workbench channel, except to modify settings.

Note Note

We recommend that you consult with an SAP Business Analyst before editing a workbench channel.

End of the note.
Field help for Desktop Channels

Title: Choose Lookup to select a localized resource for the channel title.

External ID: Indicates the ID that uniquely identifies the channel. When you create a new channel, a unique numeric ID is automatically assigned to the channel. You can optionally change this default value to something more user friendly.

Component: This value identifies the code that renders the channel. For example, the entry com.frictionless.analysis.charting.imbo.MultiQueryIMBO refers to the code that drives query-based channels. This value should not be changed except based on the specific advice of SAP Technical Support.

Buy Side / Sell Side: Select one or both checkboxes to determine whether the channel is available to buy-side users, sell-side users, or both. In fact, this option controls whether the channel can be added to a buy-side or sell-side Workbench template. The template itself further controls what channels are available for an individual user's workbench.

Unique: Select this checkbox to define the channel as unique, indicating that it can only appear once on the desktop. Once a unique channel has been added to a particular user's desktop or to a workbench template, it will not be available in the list to be added again. Channels without the Unique setting can be added to the desktop multiple times.

Wide: Select this checkbox to indicate that the channel is a full-width channel and requires a wide (two-column) channel to display effectively. Users can position the channel in a single column channel, but the results will be suboptimal.

Scope: This is a performance setting that generally should not be modified without specific advice from SAP Technical Support. The two possible values are request and session. Channels that are request scoped have their content generated for each request for the Workbench page. Channels that are session scoped are generated the first time the page is requested in a user's session and rendered from cached content for subsequent requests. This field should not be modified for existing channels at the implementation level. It should be used for the definition of new channels only.

Parameter Definitions: Choose Add to add parameter definitions. Some channels incorporate their configuration properties, such as the News topic in a news headline channel. You can establish default values for all users as name-value pairs in the Parameter Definition dialog box.