Conversion of industry-specific short texts
Overview:
The SAP short texts in SAP Industry Solution Systems are adjusted tomeet the requirements of the industry. Users in the industry encounterfamiliar industry-specific terms and do not have to learn SAP-specificterms. They can then orientate themselves more easily in the SAPSystem, understand SAP functions better and navigate more quickly.
The tool described here finds such industry-specific short texts andconverts them appropriately.
Aim:
The aim of this procedure is to create a text pool containing allindustry-relevant short texts and assign them to the appropriate SAPSystem table entries.
The text pool is a table (BRATEXT) containing the following informationper entry:
language key, industry ID, table name, field name, table key, originalshort text, industry short text.
The text pool allows an SAP System to be activated in an industrydialect.
The following tasks must be performed:
Terms to be swapped must be specified and replacement terms for themmust be defined.
Industry-relevant texts must be located using these definitions.
The texts must be replaced interactively.
The performance of these tasks requires the following functions:
Specification of character strings for finding industry-relevant terms.
Creation of a proposal pool of all replaced texts.
Procedure:
The procedure distinguishes between character string, specifications,replacement terms, proposals and short texts.
We start with character strings. For example, the SAP term 'material'is to be replaced by the industry term 'article'. All compound termscontaining material, e.g. Material Master must be replaced by ArticleMaster, so all such compound terms must be found.
You enter 'Material' or perhaps only 'mat', and other terms to bereplaced, as character strings, and search all short texts for theseterms and compounds.
The search produces a list of words and compound terms which must beprocessed. You must decide which of the words found are to be replaced(e.g. 'Raw material' should not be replaced by 'Raw article').
When all terms have been specified, their replacement terms must bedefined. These definitions can be specified for generic developmentclasses, e.g. 'Material' can be replaced in the development classes M*only, or further filtered to the development classes MA*, MAB*, orMABC. Any number of different replacement terms can be defined for eachterm for different groups of development classes. The developmentclasses *, M*, MA*, MAB*, and MABC are different, but they form ahierarchy. The replacement term in the lowest hierarchy level whichapplies to its development class is used for each short text. In theexample above a replacement term for a short text in the developmentclass MABC is first sought in MABC. If no term was defined here thesearch continues in the order MAB*, MA*, M* and finally * until a termis found.
When all replacement terms have been defined, a proposal pool worklistcan be created. A new search is made for the short texts which containthe replacement terms.
The worklist is then processed. The short texts are translated into anindustry dialect as in a language translation. The translation is lineby line. Each line already has a proposal created by machinereplacementof terms in the short texts.
The translation is made by a special editor. After translation, textshave the status translated. If a text cannot be translated immediatelybecause its meaning is not yet clear, it has the status postponed andcan be processed again later.
The editor checks each text to be translated and accepts only thosewhich contain defined replacement terms.
The worklist must be regularly regenerated to include texts whicharrive in the system during the translation phase. Already translatedtexts may need to be updated if the definitions of their replacementterms has changed.
Before a new worklist is generated, the existing proposal pool ischecked to see whether each proposal pool source text has a definedterm to be replaced and the translated text contains the replacementterms. If not, the proposals are deleted from the proposal pool. Theregenerated worklist then only contains current texts with currentreplacement term proposals.
When the worklist is completely processed, the translated texts in thetext pool can be distributed. The text pool contains the originalversion and industry version of all the short texts to be converted pertable and table key. The translated texts in the proposal pool aredistributed to their tables.
This ends the text conversion.
Procedure:
All functions are called via transaction ST62.
1. Define character strings
Go to the editor via Goto --> Char.strings.
1.1 Call transaction ST62
1.2 Choose Goto/Char.strings
1.3 Enter a search string per line (it should be at least 3characters)
1.4 You can exclude character strings
1.5 Save the specified terms (F11).
1.5 Search: Utilities --> Find char.strings
2. Specify terms
Specify terms after the search for character strings. Go to the editorvia Goto --> Define terms.
2.1 Call transaction ST62.
2.2 Choose New entries.
2.3 Choose Goto/Define terms.
2.4 Flag the terms found with Yes if you want to define a replacementterm for this term, otherwise No. Terms left flagged New are reset whenyou Save.
2.5 Save the specified terms (F11).
2.6 When you have defined all terms, copy the terms flagged Yes for thedefinition of replacement terms via Utilities/Transfer terms
3. Define terms
You can specify terms when you have copied all specified terms fordefinition. Go to the editor via Goto --> Define terms.
3.1 Call transaction ST62.
3.2 Choose New entries.
3.3 Enter a replacement term for each term.
3.4 Save your definitions (F11).
4. Convert texts
4.1 Call transaction ST62.
4.2 Choose New entries.
4.3 Maximize your window.
4.4 Edit the proposed translations.
4.5 Save your converted texts-
5. Create text pool
You can create the text pool when you have converted all texts.
5.1 Call transaction ST62.
5.2 Choose Utilities -> Distribute short texts.
Prerequisites:
1. Authorizations:
You need authorization S_SBRN_UMS to call transaction ST62. Thisauthorization is in a profile with the same name.
2. Distribute worklists:
Work lists are distributed by development class to persons responsible,whose names must be entered in the table (BRAN1).
3. Data backup:
A directory should be setup for data backup. Enter the completepathname in the table TSKTF.
Function descriptions:
Selections:
Industry selection:
Choose language and industry.
You choose from among the entries in the tables BRANT and T002T.
Text selection:
You can choose special texts for editing. For generic selection use *.
Default is space (everything).
Short text:
e.g. *mat*: all texts which contain the string 'mat'. The search iscase-sensitive.
Development class:
e.g. M* : Texts in development classes which start with 'M'.
Field length range:
e.g. from 20 to 30: Texts in fields of between 20 and 30 characters.
Qualitative selection:
New entries:
This selection affects specifications, replacement terms and proposals.You edit automatically-identified new text entries.
Entries already edited:
This selection allows you to edit texts which have already beensuccessfully replaced.
Conv. directly
This selection only affects replacement terms. You go to an editor inwhich you can enter replacement terms directly , i.e. in addition tothe automatically identified ones.
Postponed entries:
This selection provides you with the texts that you could not yet editin the new entries and that you marked accordingly.
Quantitative selection:
No. of entries:
You use this selection to define how many lines you wish to edit.
Date:
Time interval for the selection of terms and proposals.,,
Converter name:
This selection affects terms and proposals for edited and postponedtexts respectively.,,,,
Editing:
You have four editors at your disposal for editing character strings,term definitions and text conversions. You can access the editor fortext conversions via Edit, and you can access the other editorsvia Goto.
Editor for character strings:
Here you enter typical character strings for the terms to be exchanged,e.g. mat for Material.
In order to ensure that the search program does not indentify too manyterms, you can exclude specific character strings from the search
(Column Exclude, Default is include).
Each time you make a new entry you receive further empty lines.
You can change existing character strings by overwriting them and youcan delete them by overwriting with space.
Only the industry and text selections (without development class) havean effect on the selection of the character strings.
Note: the search string should be at least three characters long.
Editor for term definitions:
Here you specify which of the terms that have been found you want todefine as terms to be exchanged.
Newly found terms have the Status New.
You identify terms that are to be exchanged in the column Yes. You markterms that are not to be exchanged with No. Terms that remain unmarkedare given the status Postponed when you save.
Note: the quantitative selections have no effect in this editor.
Editor for text conversions:
Utilities:
Find character strings:
This function is used to schedule the background program that searchesfor the specified character strings in all SAP short texts and thenenters the terms it finds in the table for the terms to be defined.
Runtime: several hours.
Transfer terms:
This function is used to schedule the background program that transfersthe terms that have been defined to the table for the
exchange terms.
Runtime: several minutes.
Create worklist:
This function is used to schedule the background program that searchesfor the terms to be exchanged in all SAP short texts and then entersthe texts that it finds in the proposal pool and the text pool.
Runtime: several hours.
Note: You will increase the runtime of this program dramatically if youspecify a large number of terms to be exhanged that consist of morethan one word. The fewer terms consisting of several words that youenter, the shorter the runtime will be.
Distribute short texts:
This function is used to schedule the background program that transfersthe converted texts of the proposal pool to the text pool.
Runtime: 1 to 2 hours.
Transfer to file:
This function is used to make data backups for character strings,definitions, exchange terms, proposals and text pool. The programs arestarted in the background. You need to have defined the file namesbeforehand using Goto -> Path name.
Runtime: a few minutes for each backup.,,
Note: You can use Goto -> Job iverview to change the schedulingfor these jobs to jobs that run at regular intervals.
Load from file:
If loss of data occurs, you can use this function to reload the databackup from the files you have defined under Goto -> Path name.
Runtime: a few minutes for each backup.,,
Note: The data in the database tables are not deleted before the databackups are reloaded from file. Existing database entries thereforeremain unchanged and are also not overwritten by reloading the backup.
Overview:
Statistics:
Display of the currently available entries for character strings,definitions, exchange terms, proposals, text pool.
Text pool:
Display of the text pool entries.
Exchange terms:
Display of the exchange terms
Industries:
Display of the industries that have been entered, along with theirindustry ID.
Converters:
Display of the industry converters entered for each industry.
Implementation:
Character strings, definitions, terms, proposals and text pool are eachstored in transparent tables:
Character strings in table TSKTU
Definitions in table TSKTV,,
Terms in table TSKTW
Proposals in SBM132
Text pool in BRATEXT.
On the basis of the entries in TSKTU, table TSKTV is filled by means ofthe program Find character strings.
The program Transfer terms transfers the entries from TSKTV toTSKTW.
Localize terms to be exchanged in short texts (Program SAPRSBRA)
Generate proposals for proposal pool (Program SAPRSBRG)
Convert short texts in the proposal pool (Transaction ST62)
Distribute texts of the proposal pool in the text pool (Table BRATEXT)