The trick is that you have to Create a new version of the cost center. Here are the steps (as if you really needed them ;-) ):

Creating a New Version of Cost Center with New Vailidity Dates

1. Go to t-code:Â KS01
2. Enter the old cost center # in the Cost Center field
3. Enter the new Valid from & Valid To dates. Note: these dates cannot overlap with the existing dates
4. You probably want to create with Reference, so enter the same cost center # in the Reference section.
5. Hit the Master data button and tweak to taste…you’re done!

Â

Download the plugin: BWB-ReWriter

What BWB-ReWriter does

For starters, this is version 0.1. In my case, that means that it works, it gets the job done, but you’ve got to open the code to add your own url’s.

BWB-ReWriter takes care of the necessary steps to let you add “pretty” parameters to your Wordpress urls. This may be particularly needed if you’re using Wordpress as a CMS. You may ask, “Why can’t I just add my rewrite rules to the .htaccess file?” The short answer is that Wordpress obliterates them, as far as I can tell, and I may be wrong…I’m running 2.5.1. So, you have to do it the WP way. Here are the steps that BWB-ReWrite takes to make that happen:

1. Flush rewrite rules so WP will recalculate them and pick up your new rules
2. Add your custom rules to the $wp_rewrite->rules array. It adds your rules to the top. Mod Rewrite takes rules in sequence, so if a standard Wordpress rule matches first, your rules will never be testing/applied.
3. Add your parameters to the $public_query_vars[] array.

Add Your Custom Mod ReWrite Rules to the Wordpress rules engine

Wordpress has an object, $WP_Rewrite, that gets instantiated as $wp_rewrite by Wordpress, and is free for you to use. There appear to be different ways of interacting with that object to customize your urls. So, the code below is probably just one way to get ‘r done. Here is the salient code from the plugin, along with the comments that walk you through what you need to change to add your urls:

/*	Add your custom rules in the array below...the first part (the key,
	to left of =>) is the regular expression to match, the second part
	is the new value
*/
function bwb_add_rewrite_rules( $wp_rewrite )
{

	/*  Unsurprisingly by its name, this array contains your new rules.
		The array uses your Regular Expressions (the expressions test the raw
		URL for matches) as the keys.  The values (the string to the right
		of the "=>") are the new URLs.  In the function below, you will add
		your parameter names to $public_query_vars[].
		Separate Key + Value pairs with a comma.  Do not put a comma after
		the last pair…that always gets me b/c I copy/paste a lot.

		Change the page (regions) to your page name, change/add/remove
		variables and their corresponding regex matches “(.+)” to match
		your needs
	*/	

	$new_rules = array(
		‘regions/(.*)/(.*)/(.*)’ => ‘index.php?page_id=4®ion=’.
		$wp_rewrite->preg_index(1).’&country=’.
		$wp_rewrite->preg_index(2).’&state=’.
		$wp_rewrite->preg_index(3),
		‘travel/(.*)/(.*)/(.*)’ => ‘index.php?page_id=4&country=’.
		$wp_rewrite->preg_index(1).’®ion=’.
		$wp_rewrite->preg_index(2).
		‘&state=’.$wp_rewrite->preg_index(3)
	);

	//Add the rules to the rules array..wanna add them to the TOP, like so
	$wp_rewrite->rules = $new_rules + $wp_rewrite->rules;
}

function bwb_query_vars($public_query_vars) {
	/*	ADD YOUR PARAMETERS or QUERY VARIABLES BELOW
		Uncomment the lines and change the variable names to the ones
		you want to use. Add more lines as needed
	*/

	$public_query_vars[] = “region”;
	$public_query_vars[] = “country”;
	$public_query_vars[] = “state”;

	/*	Note: you do not want to add a variable multiple times.  As in
		the example above, multiple rules can use the same variables
	*/

	return $public_query_vars;
}

Using the Query Variables in your Code

I almost forgot to tell you…now that you’ve got the URLs working, to get the query variable values, all you need to do is something like this:

$region = get_query_var(’region’);
$country = get_query_var(’country’);
$state = get_query_var(’state’);

You’re all set.

Next Steps

Clearly, there is room for improvement here. I would like to add an options page that lets you type in your Match expressions, resultant values, and your variable names, and the plugin would pull these out of the database on the fly. That should work, and I intend on trying it. But here’s to version 0.1

That’s about it. Hope it helps somebody out there!
Cheers,
Byron

$original = "foo";
&$ref = $original;

echo $ref;   \\Prints  "foo"....Note that you don't continue to use the '&' after the var is initialized

now change $original

$original = "bar";

echo $ref;  \\Now prints:  "bar"

$ref would be unaffected by changes to $original if it had been set using the normal: $ref = $original;

Next to figure out what that @ is doing in PHP code…

[UPDATE] David sheds light on the “@” below…Thanks David!

Cheers,
Byron

What is Certify?

In the 2006 to 2007 timeframe, Worksoft made the strategic decision to tailor its automated software testing platform for the SAP experience. This well may be the tipping point for this relatively small company. They are gaining a lot of traction with some pretty major SAP customers. Here in St. Louis, there are already several Certify customers (here’s hoping a Worksoft Certify User’s Group will be in the making).

Among the testing tools that we looked at, Certify most closely matched our testing strategy - at least what we hoped our strategy would be going forward. Certify came across as having the advantage of allowing your business process experts (BPX’s) create and maintain the test cases for their areas of responsibility. Other testing platforms talked about Quality and Testing Engineers, and other dedicated resources that we were not prepared to secure.

Has Certify lived up to the ease of use we expected? Not quite. Let me qualify that. This is certainly a tool that the average BPX can become proficient in, however, there is a learning curve, and this bike requires a lot of practice to get good at riding it. We are finding that as BPX’s use the system more regularly, they are finding more uses for it in their daily work. They are dreaming up additional test cases and variations that give us much broader testing coverage than we’ve had in the past. Some of them actually like it . Certify is a complex and quirky tool that is made all the more complex because of the complexity of the patient - SAP. If SAP weren’t so complex, Certify would seem a lot simpler.

Does Certify Deliver the Replicator Experience?

Yes…once you’ve got the test cases built. That is the mountain you must climb to reach Valhalla. Our BPX’s are able to do Sales Tax testing on 50 states in a tiny fraction of the time that it was taking them in the past. We have people creating 300 line item PO’s with the push of a button. This ties up the computer for 20 minutes, by this was an hour+ of manual work before, and heaven help the person who flubbed up the downstream testing and requested another 300 line item PO.

The creation of test cases is not to be taken lightly, especially if you’re running some bolt-ons in your SAP environment. Hopefully we are blazing the trail for future Certify customers (thank you cards are accepted ) in the area of bolt-ons. We are running a number of them such as GuiXT, and it seems that these frequently have quirks that Certify is not prepared for. Worksoft has been very responsive in applying resources to help us through these problems. These usually result in a work around or in some cases a hot fix that gets applied to your clients.

Gaining user acceptance is a major feat, but it is definitely a battle worth fighting, no matter which testing platform you go with. The payoff is huge for your testing strategy. We have had the most success by dedicating 2 resources to the test case ramp-up phase. All of our BPX’s are busy with daily life in SAP, so adding the Certify learning curve and test case creation to their plates was not going to really work. We’ve had our BPX’s identify test cases to be created. Our Certify experts are scheduling time to work directly with the BPX’s to get these created. We’ve seen a complete turn around once we provided these resources to our BPX’s…knock on wood

A List of Issues to Consider

Here are some items we are/have been dealing with:

1. General testing strategy - what, when, where, why, and how to test our system…and how to document that
2. User acceptance
3. Test data management - no testing system will work with bad or unpredictable data
4. Test case maintenance
5. Possible Integration with SAP Solution Manager - Worksoft is building in Solution Manager integration…we are considering what that looks like and how we would use it, but haven’t gotten very far on this item
6. Tracking test case creation - I created a web application that lets us track the status of our test cases (are they built yet? do they work? are they scheduled to be created? when?). I’ve talked with Worksoft about the need for something like this. Whether you have a dedicated department of testers doing the creation or whether you have distributed that responsibility to your BPX’s, you will need some mechanism to track and manage your progress.
7. Integrating test results with your Support/Development Ticket system - whether you use Remedy or some other ticket system, it would be great to be able to document the Certify testing in that system…automagically

That’s the short list…

Final Words

Should you use Certify? Well, that’s begging for the age old consultant answer…I won’t even say it. Suffice it to say that Certify is a solid product, gaining some real traction among SAP users, and it’s getting better and better every day. The leap from Certify 7 to Certify 8 was like Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 (maybe that’s a bad analogy…forgive me, but you get the point). You should seriously consider how you want to test your system. Look at the alternatives on the market, and pick the best for you. We’re giving Certify a tentative 2 thumbs up. We’re still early on in our use, so anything else would be rash. Worksoft are interested in being a successful company, and they realize that there is really only one path to that…making their customers successful. We can attest to that.

Cheers!

Byron

Steps for Finding Table for a Data Element

1.  From a t-code that contains your data element, click in the field for that element…here’s an example of clicking in Cost Center field in T-code KS13 (Cost Center Master Data:
   
2. Next press F1 key to bring up Help (aka Performance Assistant)
   
3. In the Performance Assistant, click the Technical Information button (shown above)
4. In the technical Assistant, look for the Field Name or Data Element field and copy the value:
   
5. Go to the ABAP Dictionary - T-code: SE11and enter the field name into the Data Type field…be sure to select the Data type radio button, and click Display button at bottom:
   
6. From the Display Data Element screen, click the “Where Used” button, circled in red below:
   
7. Select “Table fields” (you can play around with the others, but we’re looking for a table
8. Now comes the needle in the haystack search…except we’ve really narrowed down the haystack a lot. You can do a search (Ctrl-F) for key words that might be in your table, like “Master” for Master Data tables, etc. If you can’t find the table you’re looking for, you might have need to try a different data element. For instance, if you look up the data element for GL Account from T-code FB50, you get HKONT for the field name. But you won’t find a Master Data table for that. You need to go to FS00 and look up the field name there, which gives you SAKNR. Using the above steps, you can easily find the Master Data table for SAKNR. Here’s a shot of a data element tables list for KOSTL (Cost Centers):
   

Sometimes you get lucky looking up a field in the Performance Assistant and it gives you an actual table name and not a structure or view. This solves the problem neatly, but after that, you’re kind of searching.

If anyone has a better method, please…really…please, let us know.

Cheers!

My Codeigniter SQL JOIN Problem

Let me start by saying that this was my problem, not Codeigniter’s. If only I’d read the freakin’ manual a little closer. So anyhoo, my problem was that I was trying to join 2 tables with a LEFT OUTER JOIN, but it wasn’t working. My code was looking like:

        $this->db->select('tr_dests.*', 'tr_states.state_name');
        $this->db->where('dest_id',$dest_id);
        $this->db->from('tr_dests');
	$this->db->join('tr_states','tr_dests.state = tr_states.state', 'LEFT OUTER');

        $query = $this->db->get();

This was giving me the left hand table data just fine, but I was getting an empty result for my “state_name” column. It is shameful how long I spent trying to figure out what my problem was. Of course, I was convinced that there was something wrong with Codeigniter Activerecord class. So, I really didn’t try everything.

The Answer:

The problem was in my SELECT statement. I really thought I was ok there, but how wrong I was! Only use one string of fields per line. This is how you would do the SELECT:

        $this->db->select('tr_dests.*, tr_states.state_name');

        or

        $this->db->select('tr_dests.*');
        $this->db->select('tr_states.state_name');

        or as Derek notes below in the comments

        $this->db->select('tr_dests.*, tr_states.state_name', FALSE);

        The FALSE argument is optional. It tells CodeIgniter not to protect the fields or table names with back slashes.  Generally, you won't need to use that.

Maybe that will save someone an hour or two…or three. I feel stupid…lesson learned!

Part of the Injected deal is that it is free until you breach 100,000 impressions per month. At that point, there will be some sort of revenue sharing. I’d love to have to worry about that problem. I’m still quite a ways from crossing that bridge. For others, though the revenue sharing proposition will have to be part of the decision making process. Data portability would make that decision a lot easier. Knowing that you can get the data out and into your own databases would be a huge benefit. Also, I haven’t seen the license yet, so I don’t know who actually owns the data if you run it through Wetpaint. Those would be fairly important questions for any site that could potentially get big.

Well, I, for one, am excited about what Injected might be able to add to my sites. What do you think?

This may cause a bit of consternation if you, like us, had tooled your Portal team with Java gurus. Perhaps SAP were thinking that most shops have plenty (hah!) of ABAP resources, so they might drive more adoption by utilizing them with Travel. Another possible reason for the ABAP only decision might be that there would be significant interaction required with the core SAP system, and therefore ABAPpers would feel more at home.

The problem that we have is that most of our ABAPpers have little web experience and our Java/Portal people have little ABAP experience. There are 4 exits from this quandry:

1. You still have the option to go with Web Dynpro for Java, but you will not be able to get enhancements down the road and a future upgrade might be problematic
2. Your ABAP resources will need to become Portal experts….a new breed of ABAPper called a PortABAPper
3. Your Portal/Java resources will need to take up ABAP, becoming JABAPpers
4. Close your eyes, do a Hail Mary and hire a consultant (Note: the Hail Mary is not because you might regret the consultant, but because you might regret not having the in-house expertise when it’s over.)

The silver lining? There’s nothing like the opportunity to learn something new.

Many people may be very comfortable with working with HTML colors, so if you’re in C# and needing to get the .Net equivalent, you can translate directly from HTML colors with System.Drawing.ColorTranslator.FromHtml(). Here’s the usage:

System.Drawing.Color myColor = System.Drawing.ColorTranslator.FromHtml("Red");
or
System.Drawing.ColorTranslator.FromHtml("#ff0000");

Controls require the System.Drawing.Color type:

TextBox t = new TextBox();
t.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.Red;

Also useful is System.Drawing.ColorConverter. Here’s the MSDN link for that. But working from the HTML colors may be more familiar to you.