What Are Ranked Lists?

If you were to review the SAP help documentation's definition of ranked lists in the standard SAP glossary at http://help.SAP.com, you might end up scratching your head for days, trying to determine what a ranked list is:

With statistics, numerical values (for example, sales) belonging to particular key terms (for example, an airline carrier or a charter flight) are added together. The result is displayed in a table that gives you an overview of how the numeric values are distributed across the individual key terms. Ranked lists are special types of statistics. Here too, numeric values for key terms are added together and displayed in a table. However, a numerical value is always used to sort the data. This value is called a ranked list criterion. Only a certain number of items are displayed. Ranked lists are therefore useful for asking questions such as: "Which 10 flight connections have the highest sales?" When you choose a numeric value as the only sort criterion in a statistic, the result is practically a ranked list. With statistics, however, you cannot restrict the number of items that are displayed.

The easiest way to think of a ranked list is to think of putting items in order and then ranking them in terms of highest to lowest or vice versa. For example, let's look at a real-world example involving some fictional associates from Mama Tricarico's restaurant, which was used in earlier examples (see Table 14.1).

Table 14.1. Fictional Associates of Mama Tricarico's

Last Name	First Name	Employee Group	Employee Group Text	Position Title	Hourly Rate	Shift
Smith	Nicholas	1	Active	Menu Designer	$8.50	1
Stone	Michelle	1	Active	Chef	$14.50	1
Black	Nicole	2	Leave	Waitress	$4.25	1
Murphy	Janeen	1	Active	Hostess	$6.50	2
Lancer	Patricia	1	Active	Waitress	$5.65	1
Cane	Casey	2	Leave	Pot Washer	$5.00	1
Whalen	Irene	1	Active	Waitress	$5.65	1
Yankee	Kevin	1	Active	Waiter	$4.25	2
Lawrence	William	1	Leave	Chef	$16.50	2
Caldwell	Cindy	3	Terminated	Waitress	$4.25	2
Count =	10			Total	$75.05

You could quite easily rank the three highest-paid associates from the list in Table 14.1 by manually reviewing the list:

1. Lawrence, William ($16.50)

2. Stone, Michelle ($14.50)

3. Smith, Nicholas ($8.50)

However, for a very large list, you might want to create a report that automatically ranks everyone in order. That is exactly what ranked lists do: They rank lists in either ascending or descending order.