Fwd: Web Forms

Tue Apr 17 00:54:48 EDT 2001

Hi Marc,
To add a little more detail to Dan's advice, which is all correct up to and
including
the maintenance hassle (you can reduce this to a certain extent by using a
pattern approach to your
web workitems, i.e. once you have your html templates correct for one web
workitem,
copy them for the next and only change the texts and field names)...

Look around the menus while you are inside your standard task,
you should find Goto > Web Transaction as an option.
(Also look out for a flag "Internet enabled" - you need to set this
on for releases below 4.6C.)

This menu option generates the ABAP dialog program, i.e. the ABAP
transaction
that will run the workitem.  This makes the link between the task and the
ABAP transaction.  If you want to add additional parameters, you can delete
and
regenerate the transaction from here also.

(P.S. If you haven't used this before in your system, you may need
to go back to the workflow config to set the naming convention for the
web transactions - keep it short e.g. YY, as the whole transaction name
MUST be no more than 14 characters and the name includes the task name...)

The program will be called something like SAPMTS10008126H where TS10008126
is the task name
and will have 4 screens.

Screen 50 is the start screen where you fill in the workitem and whether it
is run from the web.
Your simple input/output elements are "automatically generated" onto screens
100 and 150.
If you are executing a workitem, screen 100 is the most important and 150 is
not used.
If you are starting a workflow, screen 150 is the most important and 100 is
not used.
Screen 200 is the confirmation screen for any success/error messages after
execution.

The transaction generated will be something like YY_TS10008126H depending on
your
naming convention configuration.

Create an ITS service with the service name EXACTLY the same as the
transaction name, with
parameter
~transaction YY_TS10008126H
That makes the link between the Internet service and the ABAP dialog
program.

If you are in a 4.6C system you can use SE80 to generate the HTML templates
from the
screens.    Otherwise use SAP at WebStudio to generate templates for screens
50, 100, 150, 200
as necessary.

You must of course have a working ITS (Internet Transaction Server) to run
it on.  If you are not
familiar with the ITS yourself find someone who is and get them to help you
with the services/
templates.

There are a couple of sections on how to fix up your templates to work with
the web inbox
(service BWSP) in the R/3 library - worth reading.  Also worth looking at
the services/templates
for services BWSP, BWWF_WI_DECI (Web user decision) and BWWI_EXECUTE (web
workitem execution - generic)
to see how the generic transactions in this area operate.

Hope that helps get you started.
Regards,
        Jocelyn Dart
Consultant (BBP, Ecommerce, Internet Transaction Server, Workflow)
SAP Australia
Email jocelyn.dart at sap.com <mailto:jocelyn.dart at sap.com>
Tel: +61 412 390 267
Fax: +61 2 9935 4880

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Harmon [mailto:rrfs20 at email.sps.mot.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 17 April 2001 8:12 AM
To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: Fwd: Web Forms

"Susan R. Keohan" wrote:
>
> On behalf of marcd35 at hotmail.com...
> >Hello all,
> >
> >We are running 4.6B and would like to use workitems within the Workflow
Web
> >Inbox. Because the GUI for HTML is only available as of 4.6C that means
we
> >have to use web forms.
> >From what I understand about Web Forms:
> >
> >1. A workitem running a Web Form must use the object/method
FORM.HTMLPROCESS
> >2. Within the FORM.HTMLPROCESS task, input/display fields must be defined
in
> >the task container as export/import container elements
> >
> >What I don't understand about WebForms:
> >
> >1. How do you generate the HTML Template
> >2. How do you make the link between the HTML Template and ABAP Dialogue
(if
> >there is one ?)and possibly the Task Itself
> >
> >Basically I am looking for an easy step by step way to get the Web Forms
> >working, thank you for your help.
> >
> >Marc D.

Marc,

A workitem running a web form does not have to use the object/method
FORM.HTMLPROCESS.  You can write your own custom method for the task to
use, and it will still run on the web.  Yes, it is more work, but if you
use your own method it is much easier to enhance and customize the
method to meet your business requirements.  The key is to web enable
both your task and your workflow using the Goto->Web Transaction pull
down menu path.  R/3 will generate the necessary ABAP code for your form
to at least work on the web.  Once you have completed these steps then
you should go ahead and generate the web templates.

To generate the web templates you can use the SAP application known as
Web Studio.  It is available free at www.saplabs.com.  It comes with
very good documentation.  In 4.6c you can also use SE80 to generate the
web templates, I do not know if you can use SE80 to do this in 4.6b.
Your web templates will have to be customized as the autogenerated
templates produced by Web Studio are not user presentable and require
some HTML work to make them presentable to the users.  Again more work.

The link between the web form, the ABAP dialogue, and the workitem is
set up and controlled with another SAP application, the Internet
Transaction Server (ITS).  The ITS is also available free for download
at www.saplabs.com.  You must have an ITS installed to run web
workflow.  Again, more work.  Presently, I believe that the ITS software
only runs on the NT platform.  If you have access to the ASUG web site,
I know there are several good presentations both from SAP and customers
on web enabled workflow and the ITS.

We have found web enabling a workflow to be a double edged sword.  The
user community thinks it is the greatest thing in the world, but it is
easily twice the effort to develop and takes more resources to maintain.

Regards,
Dan
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