SAP Transactions

The word transaction describes a single business activity that is conducted with SAP R/3. Some examples of end user transactions are

• Creating a purchase requisition
  
• Generating a budget report for a company department
  
• Scheduling the shipment of a material to a plant
  
• Recording the activities of a maintenance job
  
• Entering employees' weekly work hours
  
• Displaying the yearly sales for a product
  

Every transaction progresses through a four-step workflow of actions, commands, and events.

The typical workflow begins when the end user logs on the SAP system (Step 1). This action calls up the SAP Easy Access screen, which is the default "home page" for the software. The end user works with the elements on this screen to call up or navigate to the initial screen of a transaction (Step 2), where they instruct the software on its specific objectives and then execute it (Step 3). A few seconds later, the output of the transaction appears (Step 4) in one of two forms:

• A confirmation that some business process, such as the creation of a requisition or the entry of an employee's work hours into the database, was accomplished. This message appears by default at the bottom of the initial screen.
  
• A display of data from the database. This usually appears on its own output screen.
  

A good bit of the communication between the SAP R/3 software and the end user is accomplished during Steps 3 and 4 of this SAP workflow via technical object codes.

A technical object is anything that is monitored and tracked by SAP R/3. This includes tangible objects, such as employees, consumable materials, equipment, and physical plants, and intangible ones, such as work orders, purchase requisitions, and shipping orders.

Every technical object has a unique object code, which is assigned to it when its specifications are entered in the SAP database and which is the primary shorthand means of identifying it. There are literally thousands of such codes in every SAPdatabase, but, fortunately, the software provides a way to search for them, so you do not have to memorize or record them.

What is SAP R/3

SAP R/3 is a package of integrated applications called modules that record and track the activities and costs of doing business. Its roots extend back to 1972, when five system analysts, all former employees of IBM in Germany, created the software for collecting large volumes of business data in a single computer and then processing this data in real time, when the user needs it. Real-time processing was a particularly novel development at the time because the computers of the 1970s were slow, lumbering machines that required minutes, and sometimes even hours, to process large volumes of data.
Since that time, SAP has grown from a small regional company to the leading provider of business enterprise software in the world. At last count, SAP R/3 is now installed at 84,000 locations in 120 countries around the world, and it is used by more than 10 million people every day. SAP is now the world's third-largest independent software vendor, and it is still growing strong.
The great strength and utility of SAP R/3 are due to a large degree to its architecture or structure, which consists of functional modules, the SAP database, and the graphical user interface or GUI- Pronounced "gooey" We use the term system throughout this book to describe this three-part assemblage of software.


The functional modules are discrete software packages that are dedicated to specific tasks, such as accounting, payroll management, and inventory control. They are typically installed in application servers, which are computers that are capable of rapidly processing or "crunching" large volumes of data and then assembling the output of their work in a format that can be read by the user.

Table P.1. Some examples of SAP functional modules
Module Name	Abbreviation	Function
Sales and Distribution	SD	Managing and reporting product prices, orders, and delivery, and analyzing production and profit data
Project System	PS	Managing and reporting all phases of a project, including costs, design, approval, and resources
Materials Management	MM	Managing and reporting purchasing, warehousing, and inventorying of goods and materials
Plant Maintenance	PM	Managing and reporting maintenance; inspection and servicing of plants and equipment
Financial Accounting	FI	Managing and reporting corporate cost accounting and budget planning
Controlling	CO	Managing and reporting internal department costs and budgets
Personnel Management	PM	Managing and reporting employee data, recruitment, travel, benefits, and salaries
Time Management	TM	Managing and reporting employee time data and payrolls
Personnel Development	PD	Managing and reporting training courses, seminars, and business events

ABAP is the only module through which we can write the code(progamme). CRM (Customer relationship management) is not ERP (Enterprise Resource and Products).
The database is the actual collection of business data. These data are stored inside database servers, which are computers with huge amounts of storage memory and the capacity to rapidly exchange data with the application servers.
The graphical user interface or GUI appears on the desktops of the computers or clients that you use to access the software. The centerpiece of the GUI is the application window (called a session by SAP), where you enter commands and data on scenes or screens by means of your mouse and keyboard.
Note: Some users may access the SAP software through Web browsers such as MS Internet Explorer. In these cases, the SAP GUI appears inside the frame of the browser window.
There are many modules in the complete version of SAP R/3, but most business enterprises do not use all of them. Rather, they purchase and install or implement only those modules that they need to do their business. The selected modules are then integrated or linked to one another and to the database servers and clients by programmers, and the screens are customized or configured to fit the enterprise's needs. Once the modules are integrated, the boundaries between them vanish and they work with one another as a single, seamless software package. This aggregation of modules is also very flexible: The enterprise can often add more modules whenever they want so that the software grows as their business needs grow.

HISTORY OF SAP.

Founded in 1972,SAP is the recognised leader in providing collabrative business solutions for all types of industries and for every major market. Headquartered in Willdorf,Germnay,SAP is the world's largest inter-enterprise software company,and the world's third largest independent software supplier overall. SAP employs over 28,900 people in more than 50 countries SAP profesionals are dedicated to providing high-level customer support and sevices.

1972 - Five former IBM employees

(1) Dietmer Hopp
(2) Hans-Werner
(3) Hasso Plattner
(4) klaus Tschira
(5) Claus Wellenreuther

Launch a company called SAP - Systems Analysis and Program Development.later known as SAP - Systems Applications and Products.1973 - R/1 system is created

R stands for Real Time
1 stands for one tier.

ALE - Basics

ALE is Application Link Enabling - An middleware tool. Data is exchanged asynchronously, except for reads which are only synchrous. 

ALE is a SAP proprietary technology that enables data communication between two or more SAP R/3 and/or external systems. ALE comes with application distribution/integration scenarios as well as a set of tools, programs, data definitions, and methodologies that you can easily configure to get an interface up and running. The ALE components are inherently integrated with SAP applications and are robust, leading to a highly reliable system. ALE provides mechanisms using which clients can achieve integration as well as distribution of applications and data. 

The Settings can be done in SPRO ® SAP Reference IMG ® Application Server -> IDoc Interface/ALE

To use the ALE tools choose Tools ® IDoc Interface/ALE