Zaidi R. - SAP ABAP Advanced cookbook

Rehan Zaidi has more than 13 years of SAP experience and has been writing about SAP topics since 2001. He co-authored an ABAP programming training manual for a course taught in North America and has written a number of SAP books and articles about ABAP, workflow, HR functional and technical users, and SAP user experiences. Rehan has carried out support and implementation projects involving various areas of ABAP and workflow, and has worked in technical and functional areas of SAP ERP HCM. He holds bachelor and masters degrees in computer science. You may reach Rehan via e-mail at <>.

I am very thankful to my parents, especially my mother, whose prayers are with me all the time. I am grateful to the many friends and well-wishers who have supported and encouraged me both through the duration of this project and throughout my life as a whole.

In the preparation of the book, I would like to thank Rukhsana Khambatta for turning a book idea (that began in my mind) into reality. In addition, I am indebted to the entire team at Packt Publishing, including Susmita Panda, Sai Gamare, Arshad, and others. Last but not least, my thanks to those who reviewed this book and provided me with feedback, especially Steffen Macke for his invaluable suggestions.

I apologize to anyone whom I have failed to mention. There are many people who have helped me in this process and who have encouraged the creation of this book. To all of you, I extend my most heartfelt thanks.

Steffen Macke is a Civil Engineer and Software Developer. After several years of work on water supply projects in the Middle East, hes now back in Germany and has joined the software industry.

Maps and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) played a key role in his hydraulic analysis and customer database activities. They served him as an entry point to the world of programming, relational databases, version management systems, and web technology. The complexity of the projects he encountered made him embrace diversity, active communities, and practical approaches. Thats why he doesnt have a favorite programming language, operating system, or database management system.

Steffen is actively involved in a number of open source projects, among which the general purpose drawing software Dia is the most popular (http://dia-installer.de). His passion for open source does not mean that hes ignorant to the advantages of commercial software development models, he believes that theyre great to make a living. If youre interested in Steffens views and projects, make sure that you visit his website http://sdteffen.de.

Alvaro Tejada Galindo worked as a Senior ABAP Consultant for 11 years, then he moved to SAP Labs in Montreal where he works as a Development Expert. Besides his SAP background, Alvaro is very proficient in scripting languages like PHP, Python, Ruby, and R and considers himself to be a regular expressions hero.

Alvaro has worked in Peru and Canada for some of the best consultant companies, namely Stefanini IT Solutions, ActualiSap, and Beyond Technologies. Presently, he is working for SAP.

Alvaro has published several programming books on http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/blag.

I would like to thank my wife Milly and my daughter Kiara for all their support while I was doing this books review.

Alexey Tveritinov graduated from Moscow State University of Informatics and Craftsmanship in 2008. After that he was hired by NVIDIA in a GPU and driver testing team as Junior Software Engineer, where he undertook development of various tools for tests automation and performance measurement. After spending one year at NVIDIA he left the company as his work on the software had finished, and he wasnt involved in other developments.

After that he was hired by a medical company named Trackpore Technology where he developed embedded software for plasmapheresis medical units using Linux and C++.

In 2011, he was hired by SAP CIS as Developer Associate and started to work on implementing the framework for XML reports according to specifications of legal units of Russia, Ukraine, and other CIS countries, without the limitations of DMEE.

I would like to thank Vasily Kovalsky, a teacher at the SAP training center, for his patience and knowledge. In addition, I would like to thank my managers Vadim and Juri for the trust in me and my skills. Also I would like to thank all developers in the GS unit of SAP, who were open to share their knowledge and experience. Also, I would like to thank my girlfriend Olga Tupikina for her patience and understanding while I was working on several projects and had little time to share with her.

Eric Wildenstein is a SAP independent Consultant, who has been working on ERP implementations for blue chip companies in Western Europe and North Africa regions since 1997. He mainly specializes in ABAP Object programming, NetWeaver XI/PI and SAP Business Workflow, providing technical expertise across the core business modules of SAP. Prior to being self-employed in 2000, he worked as an in-house Programmer Analyst on behalf of PricewaterhouseCoopers, U.K. and Andersen Consulting, France, on both SAP R/3 and C/S architectures.