E-Mail communication is very common business requirements in day-to-day life. SAP understands that and comes up with very interesting feature in S/4 HANA (cloud and on premise both) - E-Mail Templates. In this article, I will provide a little overview and a demo of E-Mail templates.
What is E-Mail templates ?
With S/4 HANA Output Management, SAP provides E-mail templates to be configured which will be mapped to output types in BRF+. We can maintain HTML and Plain text in different languages in these E-Mail templates and also, can map a CDS view for handling dynamic variables. This feature would save a lot of hardcoding or other custom ways to maintain E-mail content as done in past. Although in S/4 HANA, SAP uses E-Mail templates specifically in output management, still we can use this feature independent of output configurations and we will see in Demo section below for its usage.
Prerequisites:
How to create E-Mail Template?
There is no specific transaction to create email templates but we can create it as a repository object in SE80 transaction as follow:
Different Component in E-Mail templates:
Header -
Texts-
Dynamic Variables in E-mail Content:
For maintaining dynamic variables, we would need to create a CDS view which would contain the required data. For each different email variables, we can pass CDS key with Name/Value pair to Email Template API classes and replace the variables with desired content very easily.
Email Preview-
We can always preview our email template how it will look once sent to customers by clicking on "preview" button as highlighted:
How to call E-Mail Templates ?
Till now, I have created E-mail templates in system. Now, I would like to integrate this in one of the calling programs which send email to customers and email content will be taken from templates. For the demo purpose, I created a simple program where I can pass receiver email address, E-Mail Template, Language and CDS Key ( Billing Document in our case ).
SAP has provided E-Mail template API class which can be instantiated and used to get email content. Steps are as follow:
Selection-Screen of Demo Program :
Result Email with replacement of dynamic variables :
What is E-Mail templates ?
With S/4 HANA Output Management, SAP provides E-mail templates to be configured which will be mapped to output types in BRF+. We can maintain HTML and Plain text in different languages in these E-Mail templates and also, can map a CDS view for handling dynamic variables. This feature would save a lot of hardcoding or other custom ways to maintain E-mail content as done in past. Although in S/4 HANA, SAP uses E-Mail templates specifically in output management, still we can use this feature independent of output configurations and we will see in Demo section below for its usage.
Prerequisites:
- Basic Knowledge of CDS views.
- Good knowledge of ABAP.
- Basic understanding of HTML.
How to create E-Mail Template?
There is no specific transaction to create email templates but we can create it as a repository object in SE80 transaction as follow:
- Select the package ( or Local objects ) and right click.
- Select "Create" -> "More" -> "Email Template"
However, we can always view/Edit the existing E-Mail templates from program SMTG_WB_START.
Different Component in E-Mail templates:
Header -
- We need to maintain a name / description for the email template.
- Also, we can maintain a CDS view which should be pre-delivered and can be used to provide dynamic variables in email content (body or subject).
Texts-
- Languages Maintain Email in different languages
- CDS Fields Set of CDS view fields used in Email content
- Email Subject Email subject description
- Body HTML Email body content in HTML
- Body Plain Text Email body content in plain text
Dynamic Variables in E-mail Content:
For maintaining dynamic variables, we would need to create a CDS view which would contain the required data. For each different email variables, we can pass CDS key with Name/Value pair to Email Template API classes and replace the variables with desired content very easily.
- Create a CDS view ZRSCDS_INVOICE_DATA (for demo, I took reference of billing document header and Item tables).
@AbapCatalog.sqlViewName: 'ZRSCDS_INVDATA'
@AbapCatalog.compiler.compareFilter: true
@AccessControl.authorizationCheck: #CHECK
@EndUserText.label: 'Invoice Data Line Item wise'
//@VDM.viewType:#BASIC
define view ZRSCDS_INVOICE_DATA
as select from vbrk as zzrs_vbrk
join vbrp as zzrs_vbrp
on zzrs_vbrk.vbeln = zzrs_vbrp.vbeln
{
key zzrs_vbrk.vbeln,
key zzrs_vbrp.posnr,
zzrs_vbrk.fkart,
zzrs_vbrk.vbtyp,
@Semantics.currencyCode: true
zzrs_vbrk.waerk,
zzrs_vbrk.vkorg,
zzrs_vbrk.fkdat,
@Semantics.amount.currencyCode: 'waerk'
@DefaultAggregation: #SUM
zzrs_vbrk.netwr,
zzrs_vbrk.kunag as kunag,
zzrs_vbrp.fkimg,
zzrs_vbrp.vrkme,
zzrs_vbrp.meins,
zzrs_vbrp.matnr
}- Add this CDS view in Email template Header.
- Assign CDS view fields in E-Mail Body and Subject where ever required.
Email Preview-
We can always preview our email template how it will look once sent to customers by clicking on "preview" button as highlighted:
How to call E-Mail Templates ?
Till now, I have created E-mail templates in system. Now, I would like to integrate this in one of the calling programs which send email to customers and email content will be taken from templates. For the demo purpose, I created a simple program where I can pass receiver email address, E-Mail Template, Language and CDS Key ( Billing Document in our case ).
SAP has provided E-Mail template API class which can be instantiated and used to get email content. Steps are as follow:
- Create instance of class CL_SMTG_EMAIL_API.
DATA(lo_email_api) = cl_smtg_email_api=>get_instance( iv_template_id = p_em_id ).- Create instance of class CL_BCS.
DATA(lo_bcs) = cl_bcs=>create_persistent( ).- Prepare CDS view Key table with Key Field name and value.
DATA(lt_cds_key) = VALUE ty_gt_data_key( ( name = 'vbeln' value = p_vbeln ) ).- Integrate E-Mail subject and body with email instance
lo_email_api->render_bcs( io_bcs = lo_bcs iv_language = p_spras it_data_key = lt_cds_key ). - Set Sender, receiver and send the email.
" Set Email Sender
DATA(lo_sender) = cl_sapuser_bcs=>create( sy-uname ).
lo_bcs->set_sender( i_sender = lo_sender ).
" Set Email Receiver(s)
DATA(lo_recipient) = cl_cam_address_bcs=>create_internet_address( p_rec ).
lo_bcs->add_recipient( EXPORTING i_recipient = lo_recipient ).
" Send Email
lo_bcs->send( ).
Selection-Screen of Demo Program :
Result Email with replacement of dynamic variables :
- SAP Managed Tags:
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