Getting Directly to a Transaction

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Every SAP R/3 screen has a transaction code. You might find it helpful to jump right into a screen to check a value such as a price or a stock level.

Plain English

Transaction Code A shortcut that takes you directly into the SAP R/3 screen that begins a particular transaction.

Here is how you use a transaction code to go to a particular screen and find the information you need:

From the first SAP R/3 screen, click the command field to move your cursor there (see Figure 18.1).

Figure 18.1. Enter the transaction code in the command field.
Type /n followed by the transaction code, and press Enter. For this example, type /nme52 in the command field. (I'll explain the reason for /n later in this lesson. Note that the slash is a forward slash, not a backslash.) Because me52 is the transaction code for the Change: Purchase Requisition screen, the Change Purchase Requisition : Initial Screen appears.

CAUTION

Should You Use Them?

Some users find that using transaction codes rather than the menus makes moving directly to a screen convenient . Although experienced users often use transaction codes, you shouldn't use them when you're learning SAP R/3 menus are a less intimidating way to learn the system. Transaction codes are a throwback to the "old days" in computing, when you had to memorize lists of cryptic commands. The problem is, if you know how to get to a screen only by using transaction codes and then forget a code, you won't know how to find your way back to that screen.

Finding a Transaction Code

After you're comfortable with SAP, you may find that you prefer using transaction codes to get around. But suppose that you don't know the transaction code for a screen you need to access. No problem. You can find the transaction code for any screen your system uses. Here's how:

Go to the screen for which you want to find the transaction code.
Choose System, Status. SAP displays the System: Status screen (see Figure 18.2). The transaction code is clearly labeled here ”in this case, it's ME52 . If you want, write down the transaction code for future reference.

Figure 18.2. The System: Status screen.

TIP

Transaction, Not Screen

The transaction code is not really specific to a screen, but to a transaction. For example, Create Purchase Requisition is a transaction that can include several screens. If several screens are required to complete a transaction, entering the code simply takes you to the first one.

Using Transaction Codes to Open a New Session

At the beginning of this lesson, you typed /nme52 in the command field. But you knew that ME52 is the actual transaction code. So what does the /n prefix do? It tells SAP how you want it to use the transaction code. There are two ways of using a transaction code. You indicate which code you want by preceding the transaction code with /n or /o :

/n tells SAP that you want it to abandon the screen you are currently on and move to a new screen, which is identified by this transaction code.
/o tells SAP that you want to go to a new screen identified by the transaction code, but that you want your original session to remain open (so you can have two open sessions). To try this method, in the main SAP R/3 screen type /ome52 (o as in orange ). The same Change: Purchase Requisition: Initial screen appears on top of the previous screen (see Figure 18.3).

Plain English

Session

An independent job running in its own window. You can have several sessions open at once.

Figure 18.3. You can have two sessions open on the desktop at once.

Why is having more than one session open important? Sometimes when you are midway through one transaction, you need to check something in another part of the system. Suppose that you're creating a requisition and want to check something on the vendor master. If you know the transaction code for displaying the vendor master, you can open a second session while still keeping the first one open.

When you have more than one session open, you can move back and forth between them as you would between other programs and documents open in Windows 95/98.

Opening a New Session Another Way

Sometimes you may want to open another session, but you might not know the transaction code you need to get there. You can start another session from any screen by choosing System, Create Session. SAP opens a new session that starts at the initial SAP R/3 screen. Then you can use the menus to navigate to where you want to be.

You can close any session by clicking the Close ( —) button or by repeatedly clicking the Exit tool button.

TIP

I Can Do That from the Desktop!

Of course, you could just open another session from the Windows desktop by clicking the icon you used to launch SAP R/3 in the first place. But if you do that, you must log on again with your user ID and password. It's much easier to create a new session from within SAP R/3.

In this lesson, you learned how to find and use transaction codes. You also learned how to open and close new sessions and how to move between them. In the next lesson, you learn how to customize your user ID.

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Getting Directly to a Transaction