SAP GUI
A look at SAP GUI themes
Did you know you can change the way SAP GUI looks? You know, that basic SAP tool most of us use for hours each day? I really don’t like the looks of the standard theme, but you can easily change it into something else. I’m not sure if people know about this. All I see around me are those awful colors and/or 3D buttons (sometimes even with animations) like we are back in 2001 again.
In this post we will look at how to change your SAP GUI theme (which is very easy) and have a look at the different themes that are available.
To change the theme you have to go to the Options menu in SAP GUI. This is the most outer right button. You can also use the shortcut ALT+F12. Select Options here.
Here you can choose the theme from the dropdown box. You need to restart SAP GUI before the changes take effect.
Some themes, unfortunately only the older ones, have the option to use a different color set for each SAP system. This is very handy if you have to work with multiple systems at once. You can use for example a grey set for development, red for test and blue for production. Or you different colors for BW and ECC systems. All themes except for Corbu and Crystal Blue have this option.
So now let’s have a look at the various themes that are available for us with their “description”. I’ll start with the oldest theme first.
Classic: This is the well-known Windows design that was standard for Windows applications up to and including Windows 2000.
Pretty plain and basic, but ooooold.
SAP Logon hack: Make logging on to SAP easier and faster
I have to logon to a lot of SAP systems each day: SAP BW DAP (Development, Accept, Production), SAP ECC DAP, SAP Solution Manager, sometimes SAP PI DAP, SAP BusinessObjects BI4 Launchpad DAP, SAP BusinessObjects BI4 CMC DAP. Pffff. Each system asks for a username and a password that has to be changed every month or so. Who can remember all these passwords?
Now there is a way to improve this. I found this great blog by Peter Lagner which absolutely must be shared! The blog explains how you can use the application KeePass to store your SAP Logon credentials and to logon to your SAP system without having to remember and type in your username and password every time.
It is very easy to set up. Check Peter’s blog for the details, screenshots and video. In short:
- Download KeePass here (get the package version if you’re not allowed to install software on your computer).
- Create a new KeePass database with a master password.
- Add a new entry.
- Fill in a title (use the SAP system name), your username and password.
- In the URL box enter the following: cmd://sapshcut -system=BWA -client=100 -user={USERNAME} -pw={PASSWORD} Change BWA into your SAP system name and change 100 into the right client.
- Select the entry and use the CTRL+U shortcut to open the ‘url’ and logon to the SAP system. You can also double-click on the url.
- To logon to the web-based SAP BusinessObjects BI4 environments go to the url and use CTRL+ALT+A to let KeePass fill in the username and password.
This is a big improvement over logging in manually each time. The only thing that I’m missing right now is a way to assign a system/url to a specific system-wide usable hotkey. Now I still have to go to KeyPass and select a system, but I’d rather eliminate that step by using a shortcut. So if you know how to do this; please share and pick up some karma!
Posted in: Knowledge sharing, Lifehacking, SAPSAP GUI sessions 101 (updated)
The SAP GUI is the first application I start in the morning and the last one I close at the end of the day. Most of the time I use multiple sessions on multiple systems. Last week @pverstraeten saw me closing all these sessions one-by-one and showed me how to do this the right/fast way: Just type /nex in the transaction field. Thanks!
Update (11-2010): I added two fast shortcuts. TFTT @ron_nooren and @jurjen_heeck!
I listed the ‘session commands’ below:
/o Display list of all sessions
/o + transaction Open transaction in new session (/orsa1)
/n End transaction and go back to SAP Easy Access user menu
/n + transaction Open transaction in same session (/nrsa1)
/i Close current session
/i + number of transaction Close specific sessions (/i3)
/nend Close all sessions with prompt
/nex Close all sessions without a prompt
CTRL + (plus key) Open new session
CTRL / (forward slash) Put cursor in command field
