Contents

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 2
SAP Logon ........................................................................................................................................... 2
Login for the first time: .................................................................................................................... 4
How to change the password in SAP .................................................................................................... 5
SAP User Interface (SAP GUI) ............................................................................................................... 6
Menu Bar......................................................................................................................................... 7
Standard Tool Bar ............................................................................................................................ 7
Command Field................................................................................................................................ 8
Title Bar ........................................................................................................................................... 8
Tree Menu ....................................................................................................................................... 9
Area Menu....................................................................................................................................... 9
Status Bar ...................................................................................................................................... 11
Add / remove favorites ...................................................................................................................... 11
Display technical names in the Tree menu ......................................................................................... 14
Display Favorites at the end of the SAP Menu .................................................................................... 14
Setup a start transaction.................................................................................................................... 15
Create a shortcut for a transaction in the desktop ............................................................................. 16
Maintain user own data ..................................................................................................................... 17
Change SAP layout ............................................................................................................................. 18
Stop any transaction that has long run time ....................................................................................... 19
Display authorization check ............................................................................................................... 20

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Introduction
Lets learn about some basics in SAP such as SAP Logon, Shortcuts, easy transactions and some features
that you can use in SAP.

SAP Logon

Just like any other softwares installed in your computer, once SAP is installed you will see below
Icon appear in your desktop

You can also access SAP Logon from Start / All Programs / SAP Front End / SAP Logon

When you double click on the SAP Logon Icon, you will get the SAP Logon Pad as below. Depend on how
many SAP systems were configured for your access, you will see them appear in the logon pad. Normally
you will get development, quality and productions clients.

You can add new SAP systems by using button

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 Click on button

You need to maintain below details that will receive from the SAP system administrator to
create the new SAP system in your logon pad

Once system is setup, you can double click on the Name to open the logon screen from the
logon pad

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 You will get the SAP login screen as below

Login for the first time:

Maintain the client no (3 digit number) / User Name and the password you have received from
your SAP system administrator

What is a SAP Client?

Some customers depend on their system landscape, we maintain multiple clients for a single
system. For example, for development system you might have 2 or 3 clients.
o Golden client Only configuration can be done in this client. No master data /
transactional data available therefore no testing can be done
o Unit testing client Once the configuration is completed in the golden client, you need
to move your transport request from the golden client to unit test client using
transaction SCC1 (This transaction should be called in the unit test client).
This step is required only for customizing configuration. If you do a workbench
configuration (Such as pricing condition table creation) or any ABAP development; those
will be considered as cross-client configuration/development and will automatically
appear in the unit testing client.
You do not have to release your transport request prior to move to unit testing client
using SCC1. Therefore you can change your configuration multiple times and save under
same transport request based on your unit test results. But after every change you need
to again use transaction SCC1 to move the change. Once unit testing is completed, you
can release your transport in the golden client and move it to quality client.

If you want to login with a different language to SAP, you can specify the language under

field
If you dont maintain the language, system will consider the user default language for login

Press Enter key or click on button

System will automatically prompt you below popup to enter your new password

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 Once new password is entered twice you can press button to login to SAP
Once you see below screen, means you have successfully logged to SAP. This screen is knows as
the SAP user Interface (SAP GUI)

If you enter incorrect password more than 3 times in a row, system will lock your user name. You will
have to contact the system administrator to unlock you.

When incorrect password is entered, you will get below message in the status bar

How to change the password in SAP

You can change your password in SAP from the login screen

Enter the 3 digit client ID, user name and the current password and press button

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 System will prompt you below popup to enter your new password

Once new password is entered twice you can press button to login to SAP

SAP User Interface (SAP GUI)

When you login to SAP system successfully, you will see the SAP user interface as below.
This screen comprise of below key menu and fields

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Menu Bar

button at the beginning of the menu bar will give you below listed additional menus

Explore each menu to see all available options

Standard Tool Bar

button acts like the Enter key in your keyboard

Command field

button is for save. Short cut key is CTRL+S

button is used to go back to the previous screen

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 button is to Close the transaction without save

button is used to cancel a transaction

Print

Search

Page Up / down

Create a new session

Create a shortcut

Help

Customize local settings

Command Field
SAP has assigned a transaction for most of the programs that you need to use. Those transactions can be
called by typing it in the command field in the standard tool bar. Alternatively you can use the Easy
access menu to locate that transaction as well. Below listed are very common shortcut transactions
which will useful to you.

o /n Close current window

Eg: If youre in the MM02 (Material change screen and call sales order change (/nVA02)
transaction, system will close the material change transaction (MM02) and call sales order
change transaction directly in the same session
o /O Open another session
Eg: If youre in the MM02 (Material change screen and call sales order change (/OVA02)
transaction, system will open a new session and call sales order change transaction directly in
that session
o /I End current window
o /nEX Log off from the system without asking a confirmation
o /nEND Log off from the system with a confirmation message shown below

Title Bar
In most of the cases, you will see the name of the transaction youre accessing under the title bar.

Eg: In transaction MM02:

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Tree Menu
The left side of the screen is called the tree menu and you can access each transaction by navigating
though the tree

Area Menu
Common business transactions are grouped together in SAP and called as area menu. You can access
specific area menu by calling the transaction under command field in standard tool bar.

Eg:

o Transaction WEDI will call the area menu of EDI transactions

o Transaction VA00 will call the area menu of sales transactions

You can find the area menu of a respective transaction by using below method.

Locate the transaction in the easy access tree menu

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 Use the menu option Extras / Technical details

As shown below transaction MM01 is listed under area menu VS00

Sales order creation transaction (VA01) is listed under area menu VA00

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Status Bar
This section appear at the bottom of the screen and displays system messages at the left side and
system information on the right side.

Add / remove favorites

You have 2 options add or remove a new favorite to the list

1. Using Menu bar options

Locate the transaction in the area menu and use the menu option Favorites / Add

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You will see the new transaction listed under Favorites section

2. Directly adding the transaction

If you know the transaction that you want to add as a favorite, right click on the Tree menu
Favorite and select Insert Transaction option

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 Enter new transaction and press enter key

It will also be listed under Favorites section

Now you can double click on the respective favorite and access the transaction

You can do the same form the menu shown below.

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Display technical names in the Tree menu
Sometime you know how to navigate through the Tree Manu and find the transaction you want. But its
always beneficial to know the transaction associated with it, so that you can directly call it under
command field. You can display the transaction code under tree menu using below method.

Click on Extras / Settings

Mark check box and press or Enter key

You will see the transaction code listed under each menu

Display Favorites at the end of the SAP Menu

If you want to display your favorites at the end of the SAP menu, you can achieve it by using below

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 Click on Extras / Settings

Mark check box and press or Enter key

Favorites menu will be listed at the end

Setup a start transaction

Lets say you have a transaction that you immediately execute soon after you login to SAP system. You
can set such a transaction as a start transaction using below menu option

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Lets say I want to access sales order creation transaction (VA01) immediately after I login to SAP. I can
maintain VA01 here.

Next time when I login, system will automatically call the VA01 screen

Create a shortcut for a transaction in the desktop

If youre working with very limited number of transactions and if you dont want to navigate those via
SAP Easy Access Menu, you can create shortcuts for those in your desktop. Below steps will explain how
you can create such a shortcut in your desktop

First navigate the transaction in the Easy Access Menu

Select that and go to menu Edit / Create Shortcut on the desktop

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 You will get a new Icon in your desktop as below

When you double click on it, if you already logged in to SAP (For that client which created this
shortcut) VA01 screen will be loaded
If youre not logged in to respective client, then system will give below login screen for you to
login first

After you enter your password and press enter key, system will display the VA01 screen

Maintain user own data

You can maintain user default values under your user profile. This can be accessed via transaction SU03
or else you can do same via below menu path

You will see your user profile under this.

Under defaults tab you can maintain the Logon language, decimal notation, Date format, etc

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 If you have a system where users login from multiple time zones, then you can specify the users
time zone under Personal time zone section

Under Parameters tab you can maintain various parameters that SAP has given for various
purposes. Please click here to view more info about how to use Parameter IDs in SAP.

Change SAP layout

If youre accessing multiple SAP systems such as development, quality and production; sometimes it is
very useful to identify those using various color schemes. You can achieve that in SAP using below steps.

Click on the button in the standard tool bar and selection menu Options..

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 You can change your color scheme using Colors in the System option shown below

Stop any transaction that has long run time

Sometime when you try to execute certain transactions, depend on the data volume it get hang. In that
case you need to cancel such a transaction and change the selection criteria appropriately or else
execute that program as a background job.

When youre in such a long run time transaction, you can cancel that process using below method.

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This Icon available in all transactions and popup screens

Display authorization check

The mechanism of who can access which transaction and which organization data is controlled via
authorization objects in SAP.

Sometimes when you try to access a specific transaction, you might get an error message in the status
bar as below

In such a case if you know that you should have access to this transaction, follow these steps

Type /nSU53 in the command field and press enter key or press

Expand all lines using button and send the complete list to your SAP system administrator.
He/ She can find what authorization is missing for you using that authorization trace.

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You can access same using below menu path

Author: Anupa Wijesinghe

E-Mail: [email protected] / [email protected]

Website: www.learnsaptips.com

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Disclaimer

This article is done based on my research and readings, unless otherwise stated. The views expressed
are my own and not of anyone else.
Author accepts no liability for the content of the articles in this website or for the consequences of any
actions taken on the basis of the information provided. Using this information is at the users own
discretion and responsibility.

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