All About ABAP Query

The ABAP Query application is used to create reports not already present in SAP system. It has been designed for users with little or no knowledge of the ABAP programming.
ABAP Query offers users a broad range of ways to define reports and create different types of reports such as basic lists, statistics, and ranked lists.
The ABAP Query comprises four components:

1. Queries
2. InfoSets
3. User Groups
4. Translation of Query

Lets look into them in detail:-

Queries

The Queries component is used by end users to maintain queries. One can create queries,change queries and execute queries. Transaction SQ01

InfoSets

InfoSets are special views of data sources. An InfoSet describes which fields of a data source can be reported on in queries. An InfoSet can be assigned to several roles or user groups.
Advantages-

• By creating InfoSets and assigning them to roles or user groups, the system administrator determines the range of reports that the individual application departments or end-users are able to generate using the SAP Query.
• End-users are able to work only with those InfoSets that are relevant to their particular area, as designated by the role or user group that they are assigned to.

USER Groups

The User Groups component is used to maintain user groups (from a security standpoint).
Users working in the same application are assigned to the same user group.It does not matter who actually defined a query in a user group. Every user assigned to the user group is able to execute the query.
Users in a user group need to have the necessary authorizations before they are able to change or redefine a query.
Every user in a system can be assigned to several user groups.

Translation/QUERY Component

A lot of texts are generated when defining queries, InfoSets, and user groups. These texts are displayed in the language that we chose when we log on to the SAP system.We can compare the text/languages using this component.

Data processing in Queries

Data can be processed and presented in 3 ways:-

1. BASIC LIST – Presents data in the order defined by the functional area ( supports sorting and summation ).
2. STATISTIC – Shows the statistical figures calculated from the basic data.
3. RANKED LIST – A ranked list is a specialization of a statistic. E.x. Top ten customers of a travel agency.

A query can have one  basic list , upto nine statistics and upto nine ranked lists.

CREATING A QUERY

Step 1. Goto SQ01. Give a name to the query and click on the Create button.

Step 2.Give the description of the query in the next screen. Specify the output length and select the processing option from the Further Processing Options box. The data can be displayed in various formats such as table, download to a file, and display in Word etc.

Step3. Click on the next screen, select the field group to be used.

Step4.Click on the next screen, select the fields you want displayed

Step5.On the next screen, select the selection fields and then chose one of the output types ( basic, statistics, ranked ) .
In each of the lists, you can select various options.( eg. Sort order of fields, change output length, column color,totals,page header, page footer etc. ) .

Step5. After providing all the above options you can save the query and execute it .

Note:
Transaction to Create/Maintain Infoset -SQ02
Transaction to Create/Maintain UserGroup -SQ03