10 must know abap skills for functional consultants

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Career Center: 10 Must Know ABAP Skills forFunctional Consultants

Posted by Balaji Parsewar Jul 29, 2012After entering in SAP arena, earlier I used to assume as a SD Functional consultant, you should be masterof own topic. You should know SD business processes as well as SPRO part of SD module & its subsequentimpact to end user. I was living in a wrong assumption, in order to survive as well as excel in SAP field, youshould have command over SAP SD only & I need not to know programming language of SAP i.e. ABAP.

However while handling client requirement or solving their tickets, several time I got stuck due to lack ofknowledge of ABAP skill set. Over the period of time I realized that, a flavour of ABAP is must have ingredientto be a perfect SAP functional consultant.

By understanding utility of this topic I decided to write a blog on this & publish on SCN, career section, so thatall entry level as well as mid-level SAP professionals can enhance their SAP ABAP skills & add power to theirSAP career.

1) Knowledge of SAP Tables - This is the first & most important skill a functional consultant must have. As weall know, SAP system stores all data in the form of tables. Hence it becomes mandatory for us, when we carryout any transaction, in which table data goes. Knowledge of tables will help you in preparation of FunctionalSpecification which we provide to technical consultant. Knowledge of table helps us to track errors & dataretrieval operations.

2) LSMW/BDC Whenever there is mass upload of data to SAP system, knowledge of these dataupload technique becomes handy tool for functional consultant. While dealing with BDCs thoughfunctional consultant not supposed to write code of BDC but at least they should aware of SHDB& recording.

3) Functional Specification preparation - Whenever client provides us a requirement which cannotbe fulfilled through standard SAP configuration, we have to go for Z development with the help of ABAPconsultant. At that time, functional consultant interacts with customer & understands his requirement. Theserequirements get transmitted to ABAP consultant with the help of functional specification. For preparation ofthe same, you have to provide table name & data fields, logic of development, if conditions to be used, loops tobe used etc. Though it appears to be very simple task but preparation of functional specification required lot ofskills.

4) Interface & EDI Whenever SAP system interacts with another SAP or non-SAP system, datatransmission takes place through EDI i.e. Electronic Data Interchange.EDI is The computer-to-computer electronic exchange of machine processable business documents in a standard format.Knowledge of interface technologies like I-Doc & ALE becomes imperative when we are dealing with the clientwhich is dealing with its vendors & customers through electronic transmission of data.

Career Center: 10 Must Know ABAP Skills for Functional Consultants


5) Query - This is a handy tool if you want to create a small report having few numbers offields from a single table or joining two tables. If you know this tool, without the help of ABAPconsultant you can create a small report & satisfy clients requirement.

6) Debugging In day to day operation, in the absence of desired output from a transaction, itbecomes very critical to find out root cause of the given issue. At that time this skill can act asmagic. Debugging will help you to find out missing link. Though this is tool is having lot of utility,but its difficult to use.

7) Smartforms Wherever there is print output, there is a smartform. If you are in supportoperation, you will face majority of print output issue. Ex. Invoice Prints & Purchase Order prints.Smartform has 3 driving components: Print Program, Layout Set and Function module. Knowledgeof these will help you to resolve issue fast, at least you can explain issue fast to ABAP consultant.

8) SAP Notes SAP Notes are provided by SAP itself as correction in code. SAP Notes containsinstructions to remove errors from SAP System. SAP Notes can be searched & Implementedbased on Note Number, Application Component, and Implementation Status. Transaction Code isSNOTE.

9) Variants - Variants are input data which are filled in the selection screen and then saved so that at runtimethe variant can be selected and then the entire selection screen is filled with the desired values.

10) Creating Z T-Codes For any operations/transactions, in SAP system you can create 'Z' 'T-Codes as per client requirement.

I had tried to enlist maximum number of ABAP skill set required for Functional Consultant according to myknowledge. The list might be incomplete. I request experts to contribute to the blog & enrich this blog so thatmany SAP functional consultants can be benefited from this blog.

Regards,

Balaji Parsewar22496 Views Tags: abap_skills, abap_for_functional_consultants

Balaji Parsewar in response to kamlesh Arya on page 2Mar 5, 2014 2:06 PM

Thanks Kamlesh

kamlesh Arya in response to Balaji Parsewar on page 9Feb 28, 2014 5:47 PMHi Balaji,

Nice blog would like to appriciate your journy & blogs,



Thanks

Kamlesh

Nitin JinagalFeb 3, 2014 7:04 AMHi Balaji,

Very useful information. Surely 'Must know' for Functional. After reading this, I come to know that I need towork vigorously on four points.

Thank you very much for sharing this !!

ntn

ram kumarDec 18, 2013 3:34 PMHi Balaji,

information is very help full,Really appreciate your efforts on this.

thanksram

mr. PPIO in response to Balaji Parsewar on page 3Oct 20, 2013 11:03 PMdear, i wouldn't say "SAP scripts are no more in use".

there are clients with SAP 4.0B (surprise? )

if you're functional, you simply must know about SAP scripts.

Balaji Parsewar in response to mr. PPIO on page 4Oct 18, 2013 11:51 AMHi PPIO,

SAP scripts are no more in use. You will find SAP scripts in old implementations.Quite complex as compared to smartforms.

If you know the concepts, eventually you will come to know about T-Codes also.I agree with your view regarding BAPI & BADI.



Especially BAPI's are widely used now a days in SAP & mobility integration.

mr. PPIOOct 14, 2013 12:10 AMmate, you have missed SAP scripts

your item number 7 is not enought, beside the t-code SMARTFORMS there is a t-code SE71 - it is a differentworld, friend.

I would also mention that all functional guys need to understand the purpose and ideas of these "abap" toolslike (and they need to know how to use them):

SE37SE38SE80BAPIBADI...

good luck

Srinu SOct 13, 2013 11:21 AMHi Balaji,

Very helpful document. nicely explained. thanks for sharing.really every functional consultant have to followthese to become a good resource for a company.

thanks,Srinu.

Aritra DuttaSep 13, 2013 10:48 AMHello Balaji,

This is Aritra. I require a small help from your end. I was going through your blog on "10 MustKnow ABAP Skills for Functional Consultants" and found the same is very helpful. However, I ama new joiner in the SAP world. Presently Im into functional consultant role in Human resourceperformance management. My work is to provide functional support to our internal clients andstake holders. Now, we are migrating to SAP HCM - Performance Management and I want toexcel my skills on the same. What are the must know ABAP Skills for me, and what are the other



module except the Performance management on which I should grab my knowledge. My target isto be a successful SAP functional consultant. Request your thoughts and advice on the same.

Regards,Aritra Dutta

Balaji Parsewar in response to avanish gulatee on page 5Sep 2, 2012 5:31 PMHi John,

By looking at the dynamics of job market, we simply can not rest on our functional skills.Simply above mentioned ABAP skills will act as career booster & will add lot value to our CV.

Slowly & steadily working on these skills say tenure of 3 years, we will move further in our career as a techno-

functional consultant which I suppose the best thing a functional consultant can do.

Regards,

Balajiavanish gulatee

Aug 23, 2012 7:02 PMHi balaji ,My situation is same as you pasted the forum .I had only being to functional side but knowing ABAP is must,asfar I am concern in SD there is less involvement of ABAP .but the points which you have mentioned covers almost 70 percent of knowledge for a SD consultant.

Pawan KumarAug 23, 2012 1:37 PMNice Job Balaji,

Really appreciate your efforts on this.

Regards

Pawan

Balaji Parsewar in response to mmboy 05 on page 6Aug 21, 2012 11:37 AMThanks mmboy.05.Will try to contribute more in future.

Regards,

Balaji



Balaji Parsewar in response to vijaya reddy on page 6Aug 21, 2012 11:36 AMHi Vijaya,

Its good initiative. Reading book will give you theoretical base.It will definitely help you to increase yourknowledge of SAP tables.

Still I feel better way to increase interaction with ABAP consultants. If you just observe them while doing theirtasks like debugging also, you will gain vital knowledge. I had shared my blog with my fellow ABAP consultants& they assured me to contribute to my skill set mentioned in my blog.

Regards,

Balajimmboy 05

Aug 17, 2012 8:33 AMDear Balaji,

A Very nice blog. All the words in ur blog are 200% true. I have worked in printing forms (PO and Migo) for

more than 100 times .

Expecting as such further from u !!!!

vijaya reddyAug 16, 2012 1:44 PMHi Balaji,

Good work, even I agree with you that a functional consultant should have an ABAP knowledge inorder to growin his career.

I have planned to read the SAMS teach your self ABAP in 21 days inorder to improve my ABAP skills as I aman Funtional consultant.

Guide me If I am wrong choosing the approach.

Thanks & Regards,Vijaya.

Mark Loonam in response to Santosh Shivane on page 7Aug 14, 2012 4:01 PMThere is less need for debugging, print outputs etc in the SAP HR side of things.



For HR related abap knowledge I would focus more on knowing how infotypes are created(PM01) and ifyou use webforms, how they link to backend code(BSP Pages), here is where you might have to do somedebugging.

RegardsMark

Gaurav ChopraAug 14, 2012 2:59 PMHey balaji,

Good work ....I felt the same for the required skills for a functional consultant..

I will post these quick points on my study desk.

ThanksGaurav Chopra

Santosh ShivaneAug 14, 2012 1:39 PMDear Balaji,

Thanks for valuable information....

Could you please advise how can a SAP HR & PY functional consultant improve from point 4 to 10 abaprelated.

Regards,Santosh Shivane

krishnaraj BaskarAug 14, 2012 11:47 AMHi,In case of decentralized systems,knowledge of queue(SMQ1,SMQ2,SMQ3) could come handy for functionalconsultants.

RegardsKrishnaraj

TW Typewriter in response to Rahal Fm on page 8Aug 14, 2012 6:15 AMRahal,

Many thanks for the links!



I shall read the articles in details. If there are any questions, I shall get back to you.

Rahal Fm in response to TW Typewriter on page 9Aug 13, 2012 10:52 PMHi TW,

You can also check below links on your 2 points.

Point #1 - Knowledge on SAP tables -http://www.learnsaptips.com/2010/08/how-to-find-table-names-and-field-names.html

Point #2 - LSMW -http://www.learnsaptips.com/2010/08/how-to-create-sample-lsmw.html

Hope you will find them useful as well!

@Balaji, I totally agree on all the points you have stated here. All your points are very essential to become agood functional consultant these days.

Shiv VenkatAug 13, 2012 6:26 PMHi Balaji

This is a very informative blog...i am also a SD consultant and this is exactly what we all need to learn. SAPbeing an integrated solution requires a broad based approach rather then the narrow modular vision. I havealso realised that it is important for all the functional consultants to touch base with their fundamentals regularlyto be successful. But knowing the technical aspects has a definite advantage!!!

Robert TretterAug 13, 2012 5:01 PMWell done, Balaji. I started as an ABAP programmer, and I've transitioned into a techno-functional role.Considering many functional skill requirements are module-based, what functional skills are required forABAPers?

Balaji Parsewar in response to Narendra Konnipati on page 8Aug 2, 2012 6:42 PMThanks Narendra.

BalajiNarendra Konnipati in response to Balaji Parsewar on page 9

Aug 2, 2012 9:24 AMHi Balaji,

Very Nice Blog For Posting here,i want appreciate you.



Naren K

Balaji Parsewar in response to Thomas Dulaney on page 9Aug 1, 2012 7:58 PMHi Tom.

I feel, innovation & creativity flourishes if its backed by encouragement & good wishes.

Same way, your words of appreciation always encourage me to contribute best of my knowledge & experienceto the forum & make this forum a ideal place for knowledge-sharing.

Again thanks for including my blog to the SAP Career Blog Links.

Regards,

BalajiThomas Dulaney

Jul 31, 2012 9:01 PMVery nice blog, Balaji! I've added it to the list of blogs that I recommend to everyone interested in SAP careers(SAP Career Blog Links). It's always nice to hear a new voice in the career section. Keep up the good work!

Best regards, --Tom

Balaji Parsewar in response to TW Typewriter on page 9Jul 30, 2012 7:31 PMHi T W,

For point no.1 i.e. Knowledge of Tables, simply you need to :

1) Increase your Interaction with ABAP consultants whenever you will get opportunity.2) Make habit of pressing F1 key while operating in SAP.3) Create a chart of frequently used tables like VBRP, VBAK & paste it near your desktop.

For point no. 2 i.e. LSMW, there is only one mantra - "Practice makes man perfect."

Regards,

BalajiTW Typewriter

Jul 29, 2012 5:30 PMThank you for this blog!



Could you please advise how can a SAP SD functional consultant improve in point 1 and point 2?

I have not worked with LSMW but how to learn even if one has not worked with it? So that when there is clientrequirement, one shall be prepared.

10 must know abap skills for functional consultants

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