SAP Note 28504 - Table maintenance in R/3 (SM31, SM30)

Symptom:

Data is to be maintained in tables. The transaction SM31, which was available up to now for this, does not function as required, or does not work at all (in the latter case, the message TB 056 appears).

Other terms

Extended table maintenance, SM30, SM31, view maintenance SV023

Reason and Prerequisites

The table maintenance via SM31 offers only a very limited functionality, it is not particularly user-friendly. In addition, there are some technical problems.
Therefore, a new, extended table maintenance was developed in R/3, the development of SM31 was stopped, and maintenance reduced to a minimum. For these reasons, SAP recommends using the extended table maintenance instead of SM31.
The extended table maintenance can be reached via the menu System -> Services -> Ext. table maint. (transaction SM30) or from programs, via function modules.
It offers several advantages, as compared to the previous, more simple table maintenance:

1. Table names are no longer restricted to 5 characters, the first of which must be a 'T'.

2. Data maintenance is possible on the basis of maintenance views defined in the repository (view maintenance)

3. Comprehensive maintenance functionality, interface to the correction and transport systems, comparison options with data from other clients or systems

4. Interfaces to application programs via function modules, whereby several call levels exist (function modules VIEW_MAINTENANCE_CALL, VIEW_MAINTENANCE, VIEW_MAINTENANCE_LOW_LEVEL)

These advantages are achieved with little extra effort when creating the maintenance interface. The SM31 generated the maintenance interface automatically during the transaction call. The user interface for extended table maintenance must be explicitly generated. In addition to the following information, please also note the section on "Table maintenance" in the "System administration" manual.
The maintenance interface for extended table maintenance should be created as follows:

1. Up to and including Release 2.*

a) Generate an entry for the view or the table in table TVDIR:

Transaction: SM31, table TVDIR

Field contents:

View name:
Name of the view or the table

Funct. grp.:
Name of a function group

The function modules for data maintenance are generated in this function group. If this function group does not exist, it is automatically created.

Please note the customer name ranges.

Dev. class:
Development class of the table or the view

The development class is only used at this point for analysis purposes.

1-/2-level:
Number of maintenance screens (see field documentation)

1 -> there is only one screen for the tabular overview of data (overview screen)

2 -> in addition to the overview screen, a further screen is generated, on which only an individual entry is shown in each case (detail screen)

Scr. 1: Number of the overview screen

Scr. 2: Detail screen number, if '2' was entered in the field '1-/2-level'

No.:
You do not need to fill this field.

b) Start the generation program 'RSVIEWGN'

Transaction:
SE38 or SA38

Program:
Execute RSVIEWGN

Program parameters:

Name of view/table:
Name of the table or the view

Function: Generate (default)

Test mode: " " (SPACE)

c) Data maintenance is possible with transaction SM30. The maintenance screens can be revised (mask design, and so on)

d) To transport the generated modules into other systems, create a request manually and enter the following objects:

1. ) R3TR FUGR fugr

2. ) R3TR TABU TVDIR/name

Replace fugr by the name of the function group (see TVDIR entry) and name by the name of the table/view.

2. As of Release 3.0:

a) Creation of the maintenance interface via transaction SE54 or the menu option Tools -> ABAP/4 Workbench -> Development -> Other tools -> Gen.tab.main.dialog or from table maintenance in the ABAP/4 Dictionary via Environment -> Generate table desc. via the menu Help - Extended help, you can view the documentation for this transaction. As the fields to be filled in this transaction are documented, you should refer to the online documentation at this stage. Because of the integration of the Workbench Organizer, all objects required are automatically written to a change request when they are changed. It is thus possible to transport them into other systems without problems.

3. As of Release 4.6

a) Transaction SM31 is no longer available in its old form. When calling SM31, SM30 is called directly now. Transaction SM31_OLD is still available for calling the old MST maintenance programs.

b) The new view maintenance Transaction SM30 now also includes the customizing functionality which can be used to display the IMG activities associated with the corresponding table/view.

4. As of Release 6.10

a) Transaction SM30 now also includes a pushbutton 'Find view maintenance'. This function is an improved version of pushbutton 'View maintenance' in the old Transaction SM31. Here, views are searched for where the given table can be maintained. View clusters and view variants are taken into account now as well. In addition, a flag for describing the maintainability of a table/view was introduced in the Dictionary definition (Transaction SE11). This flag may assume three different values:

Display/maintenance allowed: The table/view can be maintained using SM30.

Display/maintenance restricted: The table/view is part of a view cluster and can only be maintained via this cluster. A view cluster is called via the IMG or via Transaction SM34.

Display/maintenance not allowed: Maintenance via SM30 is not possible.

This flag is considered when displaying the views for a table: Only views are displayed that can be maintained via SM30 or via a view cluster.

Solution
Use of the extended table maintenance instead of the out-of-date, more simple table maintenance. Transaction SM31_OLD is still available for calling old MST maintenance programs.