The ERP Report Test Case is a collection of Report Test Variants.

^{Creation of ERP Report Test Case}

After you click on Variants button a screen for Report Variants selection is displayed.

Report Variants Selection

^{ERP Test Case variant selection screen}

Here you can create a new or add existing Report Variants into an ERP Report Test Case. All these functions are accessible from the toolbar menu.

Create New Report Variant

Screen for creating a new Report Variant is displayed by clicking on the Create New Report Variant button (Ctrl + F3).

^{Create a new Report Variant screen}

In this screen you can define:

RFC Destination – RFC destination that will be used for Report Variant execution.
Variant Description – The description of the new Report Variant. Following placeholders are allowed in the description:
- <REPORT> - will be replaced with the name of the report defined in this variant
- <VARIANT> - will be replaced with the name of the report variant defined in this variant
- <DATE> - will be replaced with the current date on the system
- <TIME> - will be replaced with the current time on the system
Report (required) – Technical name of the report to be used for image creation.

Validate creates before and after images from the report execution spool. Only reports that create such spools when executed in a background job should be used
Report Variant (ABAP Variant) – Variant of the specified report to be used when the report is executed. These variants can be managed in transaction SE38.
After Image Variant ID – ID of the Report Test Variant that is used for the after image creation. This allows you to compare the output of different Reports/Report Variants or outputs from different systems.

By clicking on Advanced Settings we can define comparison settings, that will be used at the comparison stage of the variant. If nothing is changed in comparison settings, the default Simple Report Comparator will be used. We can change the following settings:

Ignore Date and Time - Each report comparator is capable of ignoring timestamps in several standard formats that often cause the difference in the output of reports as they are executed at different times. Following date format patterns are recognized with all date notation (using delimiters '.', '/' and '-' ): mm*dd*yyyy, dd*mm*yyyy, yyyy*dd*mm, yyyy*mm*dd, mm*yyyy, yyyy*mm. Following time format are recognized: hh:mm:ss, hh:mm.

Each recognized date and time is internally not removed but replaced with special character '#' in appropriate character length, e.g.: '16.04.2020' with '##########', '04/2020' with '#######' or '21:56:06' with '########'
Compare Only Data – Each report comparator can ignore lines that don't contain any alpha-numerical character (0-9, a-z, or A-Z).
Report Comparison Type – Datavard Validate comes by default with five report comparators:
- Simple Report Comparator compares the report output in B-image and A-image row by row so matching lines have to be in the same position. This comparison is suitable for auditing if frozen data was affected by some change on the same system after a time.
- Advanced Report Comparator searches for the exact match of a row from Before Image in After Image rows independent of the position of row. Each row in the before image and after image is normalized before comparison. The process of row normalization depends on selected comparison attributes and defined mapping if was chosen.

- Report Comparator with Threshold compares each line of Before Image with each line of After Image and calculates their similarity. It evaluates if the line has a match according to the line similarity threshold with default value 1 which represents the exact match. The overall similarity of reports is calculated as the arithmetic mean of matched values.
- Custom BADI Report Comparator allows you to implement your own comparison logic. To create your own BADI comparator you need to create an implementation for BAdI /DVD/EQS_BADI_REP_COMPARE. Example BAdI implementation class /DVD/EQS_CL_BADI_REP_COMPARE is set by default with the same processing as used in Advanced Report Comparator.

- Python Report Comparator uses language Python on the application server layer to compare before and after image. To use this comparator there must be Python version 2.7 or higher installed on the application server (or remote application server) then appropriate python script loaded to Validate repository and finally some additional expert setup has to be done. This option of the comparator is switched off by default in Validate Backend Settings. The python comparator does the same as Advanced Report Comparator with using predefined mapping and custom specific mapping but also with the option to propose (generate) mapping from deep analyses of before and after image report output. The alpha version of the python comparator script is available on demand.

4. Use Predefined Mapping – is used to match some of the known differences in standard report outputs caused by different versions of the SAP system. The option is available for all Report Comparator Types except Simple Report Comparator.

5. Mapping Name - input for the name of the custom-specific mapping. It allows you to define your own mapping to match some report's specific differences in standard report outputs caused by different versions of the SAP system or caused by custom changes and setup. The option is available for all Report Comparator Types except Simple Report Comparator. A combination of predefined mapping and custom-specific mapping is allowed. In such a case, the predefined mapping is applied first on all rows. How to define custom specific mapping is described in the section Define mapping for report comparison.

6. Line Threshold - available only with Report Comparator with Threshold. It sets the threshold to evaluate the minimal similarity of the line from before image to any line from after image to consider it as a matched line. Valid input is float value of range from interval 0.01 to 1. The default value is 1 which means the exact match of lines.

7. Report Threshold - available only with Report Comparator with Threshold. It sets the threshold to evaluate the minimal similarity of report outputs to consider them as identical. Valid input is the float value of range from 0.01 to 1. The default value is 1 which means the exact match of report outputs.

8. Preset ID - available only with Python Report Comparator. When choosing Python Report Comparator as comparison type, Preset ID must be defined.

Report Test Variant is created after you click on the Continue button (Enter).

Add Existing Report Variant

The Add Existing Report Variant button displays all of the existing Report variants in the system and you can select one or more variants to be added to the current Test Case.

Add Report Variants of Run

The Add Report Variants of Run button displays all of the ERP Reports that have been run in the system and you can select one of these variants to be added to the current test case.

Copy Report Variants of Run

You can create copies of Report variants by selecting multiple variants in the selection table and then clicking on Copy Report Variants toolbar button. For each selected variant new variant is created with the same settings as the source variant.

^{Message log from copying variants}

Generate Report Variants

The screen for the generation of Report Variants is displayed after clicking on Generate Report Variants button (Shift+F7).

^{'Generate Report Variants' screen}

In this screen you can define:

Reports – In this table, you can specify individual report variant pairs. You can use wildcards in the variant definition - '*' and '+'. These will get translated into proper variant names after clicking on a Check or Continue button.
Descriptions - These descriptions will be added as a description for all specified report variants - you can specify a different description for before and after image.
RFC Destination - this defines the system where report variants are located.
Comparator Settings - Here you can define the type of comparison to be used and its related parameters.

Report Test Variants are created after you click on the Continue button (Enter). You can also check entered data using the Check button. However, keep in mind that Check button will remove all incorrectly defined variants.

There is a possibility to import standard reports by clicking on the Import standard reports button.

Generate by standard

The screen for the generation of Report Variants from a predefined list of standard reports is displayed after clicking on Import standard reports button.

^{'Import standard reports' screen}

In this screen you can define:

Report Variant name - for both before and after image. You can use wildcards '*' and '+' in them.
Reports selection – List of currently supported standard reports in various SAP modules. Select the checkbox to choose reports for the generation of test variants.

After you click on the Continue button (Enter), Report Selection is sent to the screen for a generation of Report Variants, where you can check your Reports selection again. Test Variants are created after you click on the Continue button in the Report Generation screen.

Create After Images as copies

Select multiple variants and create after image variants for them. To access this functionality, in the context menu of the selected variants choose 'Create After Images as copies'. A dialog is then displayed where you can define the RFC destination that will be applied to all of the generated after image variants. All other settings are also copied from source variants.

_{Create After Image Variants as copies}

Edit Report Variant

You can edit the existing Report variants by double-clicking on them in the table view. Only Variants that are not already in use in Test Runs can be edited. If a Report Variant is already used in the Test Runs, then the details can only be reviewed, but not changed.
When variant details are displayed, you can check where this variant is used. By pressing the Where Used button a table is displayed that contains all Test Plan/Test Case/Run ID information where this variant is used.

_{Where Used List for Variant}

Mass Edit Variants

You can edit more Report variants at once. Mass edit is done by selecting the required variants in the list and clicking on 'Mass Edit Variants' button, a Dialog for mass edit of variants is then displayed.

These are settings for comparison and variants, which are applied to every variant user selected. Changes to these values are done after clicking on the 'Continue' (Enter) button. By marking the 'Edit' checkbox (on the left) only the values, which you want to be changed will be replaced in selected variants. Only variants that are not yet used in test runs can be changed by mass edit. Before the change, mass edit checks if the variant is used as before or after image in any test run. If the variant is not editable or has another problem, a warning/error message is displayed in the log.

Report Variant Editor

Variant editor

(DV-2111) Variant Editor provides a central location where you can manage all the backend-testing variants

Delete Report Variants

Deleting the existing Report Variants can be done easily by selecting the desired rows and clicking on the delete button in the ALV toolbar.

Any Report Variants that are still in use in the Backend Testing will be locked; therefore it is first necessary to delete these Report Variants from the given runs (or specific runs) before proceeding in deleting them permanently from the Report Variant Editor (i.e. system).

Transport Report Variants

It is possible to add the specified Report Variants to a transport to be transferred to another system (with Validate installed). To specify which of the Report Variants are to be transported you need to select them from the list. There are options for filtering and sorting in the ALV table that can be used to select the specified Report Variants more easily.

_{Selecting Report Variants to be transported}

After selecting the desired Report Variants and clicking on the Transport Report Variants button, choose your transport request. You can select the request and confirm the transport for the selected Report Variants.
It is important to note that the Report Variants only carry information about Validate-related items, and not the transformation structures themselves so they should be imported only to the system where Validate is installed and the same SAP reports variants with the same structure exist.

Cleanup Report Variants

You can delete all unused Report variants by clicking on Cleanup Report Variants button. The first screen with preselection filters of variants is displayed and you can restrict which variants should be checked for deletion. After you confirm this screen, a check is done to find all unused variants. A variant is unused if it is not assigned to any Test Case or Test Run.

^{Report Variant Cleanup Preselection}

All variants evaluated as not used are displayed in the dialog window. When you confirm the selection in this window variants are deleted from the system.

Define a mapping for report comparison

Mapping is maintained via table maintenance (transaction SM30) in DB table /DVD/EQS_REPMAP.

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