Maintaining General Structures

Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

Set up the organizational structure using the General Structures interface
Maintain evaluation paths to link objects in the organizational structure

General Structures

You can display and maintain other objects and structures in the organizational plan by using the General Structures interface in Organizational Management (OM). The interface works in the same way as the Simple Maintenance interface.

When you set up an organizational structure, you can map the holding company of your enterprise in the organizational plan. To do this, you use the Legal Entity (OR) object type and a new evaluation path.

A holding company is a corporation that possesses enough voting stock (common shares) in another company to influence its policies and management.

With the help of the root object type, object ID, and evaluation path, you can create, maintain, and display your structures. You can use the object type OR to map the legal situation of a holding company to the enterprises it manages. The object type OR is not included in any of the standard interfaces of OM. However, you can use the General Structures interface to represent these relationships.

General Structures Access

The General Structures interface allows you to use all the object types and relationships available in Customizing. The Simple Maintenance and Organization and Staffing interfaces do not allow the use of all object types and relationships unless you make extensive changes to the Customizing settings. You can create objects and relationships along selected evaluation paths based on the root object.

When you access the General Structures interface, you enter the following information:

Start object type
Relevant object ID

You then need to select a valid evaluation path. The evaluation path you select determines the relationships that are displayed in the tree structure, starting with the root object. It also determines which relationships can be changed or created.

Hint

If only one relationship has to be maintained between objects, the relationship itself is the evaluation path.

How to Set Up the Organizational Structure Using the General Structures Interface

Set Up the Organizational Structure Using the General Structures Interface

Business Example

You want to use the General Structures interface to depict a holding company within the organizational plan. (Alternatively you can also use the transaction PPSM).

Create a legal entity objecttype OR.

Note

Use your group number (##) as a prefix to all of your object names and abbreviations (for example, 01-Organizational Unit, 01-Position). Use 0101 of the current year as the start date of your editing period.

Choose (SAP Menu) on the SAP Easy Access screen before you start the exercise.

Steps

Create a legal entity (##-Legal) with effect from 0101 of the current year. Use the legal entity Holding Training International as your root organizational unit and evaluation path B400.
1. In the SAP Easy Access screen, choose Human Resources→Organizational Management→Organizational Plan→General structures→Change.
2. In the Object Type field, enter OR.
3. In the Object ID field, use the input help (F4) and choose Holding Training International.
4. In the Evaluation Path field, enter B400.
5. In the Editing field, enter 0101 of the current year through 31 December 9999 as the validity period and choose Enter.
6. Once the structure is displayed, select Holding Training International and choose the Create pushbutton.
7. In the Create Legal entity, enter ##-LEG in the Abbr. field and ##-Legal in the Name field.
8. Choose the Period pushbutton.
9. Check the validity period in the Validity Period dialog box and choose Continue.
10. Save your entries.
Link your ## Human Resources organizational unit with your legal entity ##-Legal as of 0101 of the current year. Use the evaluation path A401.
1. On the Structure B400: Change screen, under Legal entity, expand Holding Training International and then choose ##-Legal.
2. From the menu bar, choose Go to→New evaluation path.
3. In the Evaluation Path dialog box, enter OR in the via field and choose Execute. Then choose A401 and choose Transfer.
4. Choose ##-Legal. Choose Edit→Create→Relationship from the application toolbar.
5. In the Choose relationship dialog box, choose Organizational unit and then choose Transfer.
6. To search, in the Organizational Unit Restrict Value Range dialog box, enter ##* in the Search Term field and choose Start Search. Choose ## Human Resources and choose Copy.
7. In the Choose restriction dialog box, choose Objects valid in a period and choose Continue. Then choose the validity period.
8. In the Assign Organizational units dialog box, choose ## Human Resources. Choose Period. In the Validity period dialog box, enter 0101 of the current year to 31 December 9999 and choose Continue.
9. In the Assign Organizational units dialog box, choose ## Human Resources. Save your entries and return to the SAP Easy Access screen.
Display the structure of the legal entity (OR) Holding Training International using general structures. Use evaluation path Z_OR-O.
Note
Evaluation path Z_OR-O has been configured for this exercise using the customizing transaction OOAW.
1. In the SAP Easy Access screen, choose Human Resources→Organizational Management→Organizational Plan→General structures→Display.
2. On the Display Structure screen, in the Object Type field, enter OR. Using input help, choose Holding Training International and choose Copy.
3. Enter Z_OR-O in the Evaluation Path field and choose Enter.
4. Choose Display and you will see the entire structure.

Evaluation Paths for General Structures

An evaluation path represents a chain of relationships between particular object types. Evaluation paths define the relationships with which a structure is created. Objects can have several relationships. Consequently, not all the relationships of an object are displayed in one view.

For example, to view staff assignments along the organizational structure (evaluation path O-S-P), you can start with an organizational unit and identify relationships to positions. Then, from the positions, you can identify persons holding those positions. After this cycle is complete, you progress to a subordinate organizational unit, where you start the cycle again. Cost centers and their relationships to organizational units are not displayed for this evaluation path.

Evaluation Paths: Search

You can search for existing evaluation paths by using the object types you know. To enable you to choose the correct evaluation path, the General Structures interface allows you to enter up to three object types that exist in the evaluation path as selection criteria. To enter the object types, you can use the F4 help.

Enter the objects you want to find in the evaluation path as the selection criteria.

Evaluation Paths: Maintenance

You can create evaluation paths in Customizing for OM under Basic Settings. Relationships form the navigation paths for an evaluation. These relationships enable you to evaluate structural information, for example, the organizational plan or the reporting structure.

In the Skip field in the Individual Maintenance interface, you can specify that a particular navigation path must be evaluated, but that the results of the skipped object are not displayed. You can create alphanumeric evaluation paths with a maximum of eight characters, starting with Z.

Caution

Do not change any existing evaluation paths unless they are evaluation paths you have created yourself. These changes affect all programs and reports that use the evaluation path that you have changed in the background. Any changes you make could lead to system problems.

If you do not want to use a standard SAP evaluation path for reports that use an internal evaluation path, you can specify the alternative evaluation path in the Value Abbr. column.

How to Maintain Evaluation Paths

Maintain Evaluation Paths

ExerciseStart Exercise

Business Example

You want to maintain an organizational plan by using the General Structures interface. For this, you need to add a new evaluation path.

Create a new evaluation path. (Alternatively you can also use the transaction OOAW).

Note

Choose

(SAP Menu) on the SAP Easy Access screen before you start the exercise.

Steps

Extend the evaluation path Z_OR-O to include the positions and their holders.
1. In Customizing, choose Personnel Management→Organizational Management→Basic Settings→Maintain Evaluation Paths. (Alternatively you can also use the transaction OOAW).
2. On the Change View "Evaluation Paths": Overview screen, choose the Position pushbutton.
3. In the Another entry dialog box, enter Z_OR-O in the Evaluation Path field and choose Copy.
4. From the EvalPath column, choose Z_OR-O and then choose the Copy As pushbutton.
5. In evaluation path, to include your group number, rename the evaluation path as Z_OR-O## in the EvalPath column and press ENTER.
6. In the Specify object to be copied dialog box, choose the Copy all pushbutton. In the Information dialog box, choose Continue.
7. Save your entries and return to the table containing all the evaluation paths.
Select your new evaluation path from the table and choose Evaluation Path (Individual Maintenance).
1. On the Change View "Evaluation Paths": Overview screen, choose the Position pushbutton.
2. In the Another entry dialog box, enter Z_OR-O## in the Evaluation Path field.
3. Choose Z_OR-O## from the EvalPath column.
4. Then choose Evaluation path (individual maintenance) from the Dialog Structure.
5. The details of your evaluation path are displayed. Choose the New Entries pushbutton, and enter the required information to add positions and holders to your evaluation path. HINT: Pay attention to the sequence numbers. You should set up new entries in the chart below, to add lines 14 and 18, which are depicted in the chart below as the second and third lines. The other lines already exist from the copy process
  Once you have done this, your evaluation path on the New Entries: Overview of Add Entries screen appears as follows:
  Obj.Type A/B Relat'ship Relat'ship Rel.obj.type
  OR A 401 * O
  O B 003 * S
  S A 008 * P
  O B 002 * O
  OR B 400 * OR
6. Save your data and return to the SAP Easy Access screen.
Use your new evaluation path to view your legal entity structure ## Legal in General Structure maintenance.
1. In the SAP Easy Access menu, choose Human Resources→Organizational Management→Organizational Plan→General structures→Display.
2. On the Display Structure screen, enter OR in the Object Type field.
3. In the Object ID field of the Legal Entity dialog box, choose Holding Training International from the input help and choose Copy.
4. Enter Z_OR-0## in the Evaluation Path field. Press ENTER to display the structure.
  View the structure for your ## Human Resources by changing the object type to O and search for the object ID of ## Human Resources.
5. Display the structure.

Obj.Type	A/B	Relat'ship	Relat'ship	Rel.obj.type
OR	A	401	*	O
O	B	003	*	S
S	A	008	*	P
O	B	002	*	O
OR	B	400	*	OR

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