This blog post is a part of the multi-part series of blogs on the Define Compliance Reports application. In this set of blog posts, we cover the end-to-end process of creation and interconnection of various artifacts required for reporting compliance via SAP Document and Reporting Compliance – Statutory Reporting (Formerly ACR). This blog post will cover how to extend a standard “Report Definition” and a standard “Report Category”.
This blog post assumes that by now you already know how to create a report definition, reporting activity and a report category. If not, please go through the previous blog posts in this series.
Before this blog post delves into the process of extending a report definition or a report category, let's first see when you would need to create these extensions.
A standard report definition or a standard report category should be extended when the behavior of the report needs to be slightly modified to conform to the business processes of an organization while retaining the core behavior of the report. Let’s take two use-cases to understand this better.
Use Case 1
The standard report definition enables a “Total Non Deductible Tax” field for manual adjustment irrespective of its content whereas your organization needs it to be enabled for manual adjustment only in the case of the field being blank or empty.
Use Case 2
The standard report category contains three reporting activities – Manage Tax Items, Creation of Report and Post Tax Payables. While your organization needs all the aforementioned reporting activities, the business process mandates that there should be an additional reporting activity to verify the documents before the report is generated.
Let us tackle these use cases one by one and see how the Extensibility capabilities of the Define Compliance Reports application can help us solve these problems.
For the first use case, the behavior can be achieved by extending the standard report definition and then changing the “Manual Adjustment Options” column for that field in the mapping section of the “Document Definition” section. Extending a report definition this way ensures that the expected report behavior is achieved by just making a few changes in the existing report definition thus eliminating the need to create a report definition from scratch.
How to extend a report definition
1. Open Define Compliance Reports Application and go to the “Report Definition” tab.
Click on ‘Add’ to extend an existing report definition
Choose the checkbox “Do you want to extend an existing report definition?”
In the “Reference Report Definition” field, enter the report definition which you want to extend
In the “New Report Definition” field, enter a name of the report definition as per your choice
Click on “Continue”
2. This previous step will bring you to the screen of Report Definition. As the extended report definition is the same as that of the reference report definition at this point, the “Inheritance Status” column will say “Inherited”
Navigate to the “Document Definition” section
Click on the “Summary1” document
3. The previous step will bring you to the “Document” screen.
Navigate to the “Mapping” tab
4. As per the use case, the field “Manual Adjustment Options” for the element “0000000006 – TOTALNONDEDUCTIBLE” needs to be modified.
Navigate to the “Properties” tab
5. For the element “0000000006- TOTALNONDEDUCTIBLE”, select the option “Editable if Data Source or Value is blank”
This will ensure that in the report, this field will be available for manual adjustment only if there is no data in this field
Verify and Activate
6. The completion of the previous step results in the navigation to the “Edit Report Definition” page.
As the “Document Definition” has been modified, the “Inheritance Status” column for the document “Summary1” is now changed to “Redefined”
The extension of the standard report definition is now complete.
Note: The extended report definition will automatically get all the changes that SAP delivers for a standard report definition if the section has not been redefined i.e. all the sections which are still in status “Inherited” will get any SAP-delivered changes for that particular section in the standard report.
How an extended report definition can be used
There are two ways an extended report definition can be used.
1. Create a new report category and assign the report definition to this category as a reporting activity. This new report category would then need to be assigned to a reporting entity as well
2. Modify the existing report category by changing the “Valid To” date for the reporting activity for the standard report definition and assign the extended report definition as a new reporting activity. In this case, modification of the reporting entity is not required
For the second use case, a custom reporting activity can be added by extending the standard report category. One can only add new reporting activities while extending a report category. Other properties of the report category cannot be modified.
How to extend a standard report category
1. Open Define Compliance Reports Application and go to the “Report Category” tab.
Click on ‘Add’ to extend an existing report category
Choose the checkbox “Do you want to create a report category extension?”
In the “Report Category” field, enter the report category which you want to extend
In the “Report Category Extension” field, enter a name of the report category as per your choice
Click on “Continue”
2. This previous step will bring you to the screen of Report Category. As the extended report category is same as that of the reference report category at this point, the “Inheritance Status” column will say “Inherited”
Navigate to the “Reporting Activity” tab
3. Click on “Assign” to assign a new reporting activity to this report category
Fill all the requisite fields to assign the “Verification of Documents” reporting activity and click on “OK”
4.The new reporting activity is now assigned to the report category and the “Inheritance Status” for this new reporting activity is “New”.
The newly added reporting activity can be moved to the desired position by using the “Move Up” and “Move Down” buttons. However, the standard activities cannot be modified in any way. Even their sequence cannot be changed by using the aforementioned buttons.
Save and Activate the extended report category
The report category extension is now complete.
One major advantage of extending the report category is that no configurations need to be changed. Any reporting activity added in the extended report category in the “Define Compliance Reports” App will automatically reflect in the standard report category as well in the “Run Compliance Reports” App.
In this blog post, we have learned how a report definition and a report category can be extended using two specific use-cases. The major advantage of extending these objects is that if SAP delivers any changes to the properties of standard report definition or report category, these changes will also reflect in the extended objects, given those properties have not been “redefined” during the extension.
Please go through the previous blog posts in this series to understand how the “Define Compliance Reporting” application works. If you have any questions/queries, you can post them here.
This blog post assumes that by now you already know how to create a report definition, reporting activity and a report category. If not, please go through the previous blog posts in this series.
Before this blog post delves into the process of extending a report definition or a report category, let's first see when you would need to create these extensions.
A standard report definition or a standard report category should be extended when the behavior of the report needs to be slightly modified to conform to the business processes of an organization while retaining the core behavior of the report. Let’s take two use-cases to understand this better.
Use Case 1
The standard report definition enables a “Total Non Deductible Tax” field for manual adjustment irrespective of its content whereas your organization needs it to be enabled for manual adjustment only in the case of the field being blank or empty.
Use Case 2
The standard report category contains three reporting activities – Manage Tax Items, Creation of Report and Post Tax Payables. While your organization needs all the aforementioned reporting activities, the business process mandates that there should be an additional reporting activity to verify the documents before the report is generated.
Let us tackle these use cases one by one and see how the Extensibility capabilities of the Define Compliance Reports application can help us solve these problems.
For the first use case, the behavior can be achieved by extending the standard report definition and then changing the “Manual Adjustment Options” column for that field in the mapping section of the “Document Definition” section. Extending a report definition this way ensures that the expected report behavior is achieved by just making a few changes in the existing report definition thus eliminating the need to create a report definition from scratch.
How to extend a report definition
1. Open Define Compliance Reports Application and go to the “Report Definition” tab.
Click on ‘Add’ to extend an existing report definition
Choose the checkbox “Do you want to extend an existing report definition?”
In the “Reference Report Definition” field, enter the report definition which you want to extend
In the “New Report Definition” field, enter a name of the report definition as per your choice
Click on “Continue”
2. This previous step will bring you to the screen of Report Definition. As the extended report definition is the same as that of the reference report definition at this point, the “Inheritance Status” column will say “Inherited”
Navigate to the “Document Definition” section
Click on the “Summary1” document
3. The previous step will bring you to the “Document” screen.
Navigate to the “Mapping” tab
4. As per the use case, the field “Manual Adjustment Options” for the element “0000000006 – TOTALNONDEDUCTIBLE” needs to be modified.
Navigate to the “Properties” tab
5. For the element “0000000006- TOTALNONDEDUCTIBLE”, select the option “Editable if Data Source or Value is blank”
This will ensure that in the report, this field will be available for manual adjustment only if there is no data in this field
Verify and Activate
6. The completion of the previous step results in the navigation to the “Edit Report Definition” page.
As the “Document Definition” has been modified, the “Inheritance Status” column for the document “Summary1” is now changed to “Redefined”
The extension of the standard report definition is now complete.
Note: The extended report definition will automatically get all the changes that SAP delivers for a standard report definition if the section has not been redefined i.e. all the sections which are still in status “Inherited” will get any SAP-delivered changes for that particular section in the standard report.
How an extended report definition can be used
There are two ways an extended report definition can be used.
1. Create a new report category and assign the report definition to this category as a reporting activity. This new report category would then need to be assigned to a reporting entity as well
2. Modify the existing report category by changing the “Valid To” date for the reporting activity for the standard report definition and assign the extended report definition as a new reporting activity. In this case, modification of the reporting entity is not required
For the second use case, a custom reporting activity can be added by extending the standard report category. One can only add new reporting activities while extending a report category. Other properties of the report category cannot be modified.
How to extend a standard report category
1. Open Define Compliance Reports Application and go to the “Report Category” tab.
Click on ‘Add’ to extend an existing report category
Choose the checkbox “Do you want to create a report category extension?”
In the “Report Category” field, enter the report category which you want to extend
In the “Report Category Extension” field, enter a name of the report category as per your choice
Click on “Continue”
2. This previous step will bring you to the screen of Report Category. As the extended report category is same as that of the reference report category at this point, the “Inheritance Status” column will say “Inherited”
Navigate to the “Reporting Activity” tab
3. Click on “Assign” to assign a new reporting activity to this report category
Fill all the requisite fields to assign the “Verification of Documents” reporting activity and click on “OK”
4.The new reporting activity is now assigned to the report category and the “Inheritance Status” for this new reporting activity is “New”.
The newly added reporting activity can be moved to the desired position by using the “Move Up” and “Move Down” buttons. However, the standard activities cannot be modified in any way. Even their sequence cannot be changed by using the aforementioned buttons.
Save and Activate the extended report category
The report category extension is now complete.
One major advantage of extending the report category is that no configurations need to be changed. Any reporting activity added in the extended report category in the “Define Compliance Reports” App will automatically reflect in the standard report category as well in the “Run Compliance Reports” App.
In this blog post, we have learned how a report definition and a report category can be extended using two specific use-cases. The major advantage of extending these objects is that if SAP delivers any changes to the properties of standard report definition or report category, these changes will also reflect in the extended objects, given those properties have not been “redefined” during the extension.
Please go through the previous blog posts in this series to understand how the “Define Compliance Reporting” application works. If you have any questions/queries, you can post them here.
- SAP Managed Tags:
1 Comment
