A Tour of the New Enhancement Framework: A Guide for SAP

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A Tour of the New Enhancement Framework: A Guide for SAP

What`s new with the Enhancement Framework in NetWeaver? Rehan Zaidi provides us with a guided

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August / September 2008 Volume VI Issue 4

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A Tour of the New Enhancement Framework:
A Guide for SAP Developers and Consultants
By Rehan Zaidi, Siemens Pakistan
Editors Note: Whats new with the Enhancement
Framework in NetWeaver? Rehan Zaidi provides
us with a guided tour that truly defines the word
enhanced. From understanding new BAdIs and source
code plug-ins, to creating and implementing Explicit
enhancement options, if this article doesnt get you
pumped up for learning more about the new Enhancement Framework, well, we dont know what else will.
Ready to take a tour with Rehan?

The New Enhancement Framework: An

Overview

The new Enhancement Framework (incorporated in

NetWeaver 2004s) lets you avoid modification of the
standard system. It provides all new enhancement
technologies such as new business add-ins (BAdIs) and
source code plug-ins. Due to the ease with which the
new Enhancement Framework may be deployed, learning this new technology is a must for SAP developers
and consultants.

The new Enhancement Framework

The goal of this article is to provide an explanation

of the new Enhancement Framework. I will start by
presenting some background information, then go over
the technologies that are allowed by the framework. I
will also discuss, in detail, the steps required in creating
explicit enhancement options, as well the steps required
in implementing them.

the standard system.

These are some of the questions that this article will

address:
What are the two types of Enhancement Options
available within the new Enhancement Framework
terrain?
What are the various enhancement technologies supported by the new Enhancement Framework?
How are Explicit Enhancement options created and
implemented?
This article is primarily intended for ABAP developers
and consultants. I will assume that the reader is familiar
with basic ABAP concepts, and has some knowledge of
enhancements and modifications. For more information,
refer to the SAP documentation on http://help.SAP.com. All
the screen shots have been taken from ECC 6.0.

The new Enhancement Framework lets you enhance

original SAP programs by inserting your customerspecific code, without the need to modify the standard
system. The Enhancement Builder is a new tool for
managing these enhancements. This tool is fully embedded in the ABAP Editor and does not require a launching transaction code.

lets you enhance original

SAP programs by inserting your
customer specific code,
without the need to modify

SAP has provided enhancements in such a way that you

may now apply them in many of the circumstances in
which modification of the object was previously done.
The new Enhancement Framework provides a number
of advantages:
There is no original source code modification involved,
so no access key is required.
A switch framework lets you switch the changes on
and off.
The upgrade effort required is very minimal as compared to modifications. At the time of transports and
upgrades, there are no problems faced. When you
transport enhancements from a number of systems to
your own system, you can keep the existing enhancement along with those transported to the target system. None of the enhancements are lost or affected.
It supports a number of enhancement technologies.
The enhancements can be organized in meaningful
structures and proper documentation may be added.

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August / September 2008 Volume VI Issue 4

There are two options for enhancements, namely

Explicit and Implicit enhancement options. Implicit
options are supported by the Enhancement Framework
and are not provided explicitly by the developer of the
application. On the other hand, the explicit enhancement options are added to the source code explicitly (at
a particular point), and must always reside in a container. At the implementation end, all implementation
elements (of both implementation and explicit options)
belong to containers. The containers on the definition
and implementation side are assigned to each other.

Note: For more information on the new Business Addins, refer to my article Enhancing Standard Programs
Quickly & Easily Via Business Add-Ins (BADIs) in the
ABAP, Java, and J2EE Development category of the
SAPtips Document Library.

Note: In this article, we will cover the Explicit enhancement options.

hooks or portions in their

Developers (both SAP and

non-SAP) may provide special
code where enhancements

Supported Enhancement Technologies

may be applied.

The Enhancement Framework supports a number of

different enhancement technologies, including:
Class Enhancements. Class enhancement lets you
add new methods to a class. Moreover, you may also
add optional parameters to existing methods.
Function Group Enhancements. You may add new
parameters to a function module via function group
enhancements.
Source Code Enhancements. These may be
enhancement points in the source code where source
code plug-ins may be attached. These plug-ins contain the code that enhances the given program, and
are treated as an addition to the original code of the
program in question. On the other hand, the code
with the enhancement section may be substituted with
the source code plug-in code used.

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Business Add-ins. Business Add-ins are object-oriented enhancement options (or plug-ins). The new
Business Add-ins are part of the enhancement framework. These BAdIs are based on interfaces that may be
implemented by classes that may then be transported.

Explicit Enhancement Concept

Developers (both SAP and non-SAP) may provide special hooks or portions in their code where enhancements
may be applied. These are known as explicit enhancement options, and are mostly created by SAP at specific
points of standard programs. A typical enhancement
point is shown in Figure 1.
The statement ENHANCEMENT-POINT represents an
enhancement option. Figure 1 shows an enhancement
point RIAUFMVK_G5 called in program RIAUFMVK.
Each enhancement option belongs to a simple enhancement spot indicated after the SPOTS keyword (in our
example, ES_RIAUFMVK). The ENHANCEMENTPOINT statement denotes the definition as well as the
call of an element definition within ABAP source code,
and is known as an enhancement option. In other
words, each option is comprised of an enhancement
spot element definition and a call within the ABAP
source code.

Figure 1: A Program Showing an Explicit Enhancement Option

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