Learn SAP‎ > ‎

Free Tutorial

It is assumed that you have access to an SAP system. If you don't have access to SAP system, you can search for vendors on internet which charge fee for providing you the online access. I will try to find a reliable one and post it here. You can keep on watching this space for updates. I will categorize our SAP access requirement in 2 groups : 

A- SAP Technical (involving ABAP programming) 

  1. SAP Community Network provides free download of various softwares based on SAP products from SAP Software Download Catalog including SAP Netweaver trial software. There is this blog "SAP NetWeaver 2004s ABAP miniSAP - installation" which can be helpful in the installation.
  2. SAP Netweaver 2004s ABAP trial version on DVD, on Buying the book "ABAP Objects : ABAP Programming in SAP Netweaver" from SAP Press. This is the greatest and most authentic book on ABAP I have come across and any person whether starting new or experienced must have it for reference.The 1000+ pages book from Horst Keller and Sascha Kruger covers ABAP development in SAP Netweaver environment, whether you are new to ABAP programming or an experienced developer and describes all concepts of modern ABAP up to Release 7.0  and includes a "sneak preview" of Release 7.10. But right now don't worry about the SAP versions. The market has SAP versions ranging from 4.7EE till 7.10. And most of the ABAP consultants are working on the same things over all these versions.

B- SAP Functional (Refer the Section Limitations of SAP versions for Developers for "what is meant by Functional")

  1. There is a free-of-charge access to IDES ERP 6.0 (Internet Demonstration and Evaluation System). This system allows consultants, project managers and users to familiarize themselves with SAP or to develop in-depth knowledge, without installing any software, simply via a web interface. But for the time being because of licencing issues, they are unable to create new user ids. It may be available in some time. You will not have authorizations for even many common transactions. So for learning SAP, it's not a good option but in order to have a feel of SAP, thats good option.
  2. I found something interesting while searching the net for cheap options for SAP access when I stumbled upon this SAP Training program without SAP access !!! - Starter Training for SAP® Software. Then I realized that they have developed a tool with simulated SAP screens for SAP version ECC 6.0. If you need exposure to SAP screens and transactions (for starting your learning into SAP or for your next job) or you are a beginning user wishing to brush up on more efficient methods and shortcuts to make your job easier, you can think of buying this program (hardly $67 at the time of writing this tutorial- even less than the cost of many a SAP Press books on SAP). SAP access and training is a costly affair and the cost is prohibitive if you just want to explore or need basic information. I will definitely recommend this creative solution, to meet such demands, looking at its price tag (for which this tutorial is intended) - You can go through the details of Starter Training for SAP® Software by clicking here.

SAP Program

If you are following through the previous steps, you are ready to write your first SAP program in ABAP language. It is customary to create a program displaying "Hello World". We will follow the same custom here but loaded with ABAP functionalities. If you have the book mentioned above, you can refer it for writing your first ABAP program. Otherwise, We will refer to the book "ABAP Basics' by Günther Färber, Julia Kirchner whose chapter-2 is freely available as a pdf document. The chapter 2 at page 72 gets you started with basics of ABAP programming and you will be able to write your first ABAP program. With this brief tour, you will get acquainted with the world of SAP ABAP and we are ready to discuss a few important things further.

Flight data model

As a demonstration, a simplified form of a flight booking system has been provided with SAP system. This model is used to demonstrate many features of ABAP. For example, it is used in SAP Help files and ABAP training classes. ... Read more

Limitations of SAP versions for Developers

If you have access to full SAP, you can carry out various business transactions and write ABAP code addressing business problems. With miniSAP you can't work in these modules but it's not entirely useless. It comes with a Flight data model around which you can build your programs and see results. The purpose is to provide ABAP consultants something to experiment with newly added programming features (e.g Webdynpro for ABAP) which they can use at their projects ultimately benefiting SAP and clients. If you are learning ABAP it is highly advisable to understand Flight Data Model. Actually many online resources for demonstration of language capability and even SAP Help (available with SAP including miniSAP) use the database of Flight Data Model to make their point. So this knowledge is indispensable and without it you will miss something.

I will finish this tutorial here. You are now ready to explore further in the world of SAP. There are many SAP resources on the internet which can be helpful in your journey and a few of them are listed on this website.

 

Sign in|Report Abuse|Print Page|Remove Access|Powered By Google Sites