Aggregate Comments in Workflow

[Mike Gambier]

Hi SRamanan and Swathi,

I have already implemented this type use of texts in our system by writing a 
Class wrapper around the standard Class CL_GUI_TEXTEDIT and embedded it in 
several custom screens, admittedly not for Work Items but for other 
application documents.

For the most part this is fine for small comments. I even implemented an 
'auto-comment' feature to append user details and date/time strings to the 
comments to form an audit trail of sorts. It wasn't that hard to do.

However, as always, there are limitations to consider when using the 
underlying database table STXL in this fashion to record free text. The 
first being that this is not what the table was designed for and therefore 
performance will degrade over time when reading and writing to this table 
unless you archive/purge agressivley to keep its size down.

Remember that this is a standard SAP table and so is often used in other 
modules, such as standard texts for SD Output. Therefore you should think 
long and hard about using it as a dumping ground for lots and lots of free 
text. If you are thinking of adding a comments feature to every single Work 
Item I wouldn't really recommend this as an option unless the WI and 
therefore the comments have a very short lifespan and you think you can 
handle the volumes. Obviously the standard archiving objects for Workflow 
will not touch your comments if you choose to use STXL in this fashion, so 
that would be extra development too.

Since the table points to Cluster data storage in the database there aren't 
any real limits to the amount of text a user could enter. So to avoid people 
writing essays we also enforced a maximum number of characters in some 
cases.

MGT

>From: "Srinivasan Ramanan" <r_m_n_n at hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: "SAP Workflow Users' Group" <sap-wug at mit.edu>
>To: sap-wug at mit.edu
>Subject: RE: Aggregate Comments in Workflow
>Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 08:35:30 -0500
>
>You could try this design :
>
>   Define a new text in SAP for your comments.
>   Create a text editor in your custom transaction. User will be able to
>enter even an essay!!!
>   Use FM 'CREATE_TEXT' when first user entering comments.
>   Use FM 'SAVE_TEXT' with appropriate parameters when all the following
>users enter/add to an exisiting comment. ( Ensure that you capture existing
>text before adding text....involves good bit of ABAP)
>Use FM 'READ_TEXT' to show the sequences of text.
>
>One thing I used is : automatically create a last line of text with SAP 
>user
>name , date and time...each time user enter/adds text.
>
>Thus chronology will be vivid.
>
>This is all the more of an ABAP coding...
>
>SRamanan
>
> >From: "Swathi_Devireddy" <Swathi_Devireddy at satyam.com>
> >Reply-To: "SAP Workflow Users' Group" <sap-wug at mit.edu>
> >To: <sap-wug at mit.edu>
> >Subject: Aggregate Comments in Workflow   Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 18:31:08
> >+0530
> >
> >Hi,
> >I have a requirememnt that is when anyone recieves a workitem he han
> >forward it to another user (There is abutton Refer in my Transaction) 
>.When
> >i Refer the Workitem to another user its mandatory To write comments.
> >
> >For the next user there is a Log displayed in workitem (transaction ) 
>with
> >the comments.
> >So i have put a loop and used the same Task so that the workitem 
>continues.
> >The whole history of the comments should be visible to the agent for that
> >particular object
> >
> >This is a custom Transaction
> >Now how do i handle the comments.
> >I tried using a database table to store comments .but it restricts 
>comments
> >to 255 chars.
> >
> >Anyway to store the comments as the comments definetely excedd 255 chars
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >Thanks & Regards
> >Swathi Devireddy
> >HCU-SAP
> >Satyam Computer Services Ltd
> >*    : +91 40 3065 2511
> >* : +91 98853 35301
> >
> >
> >
> >
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