Daily problems – Starting a transaction from SAP webgui in S/4HANA

Scenario

From your S/4HANA System you access the SAP webgui (SAP GUI for HTML).

From there you can start a transaction by entering its code in the OK code field. In case you do not know the transaction code, the input field comes with an assisted search. This works fine for the usual transactions like CV04N. Enter part of the transaction name, select the transaction form the result list, press enter and the start working with the transaction. Let’s take a transaction with a namespace. Like the UI5 theme designer: /UI5/THEME_DESIGNER.

Problem

Enter “theme” in the input field and a list of matching transactions codes is shown. Including: /UI5/THEME_DESIGNER.

Selecting the entry from the list puts the value into the input field.

Press enter. You’d expect that the transaction is started.

The result however is an error: no, you cannot do this.

Solution

Add /n in from of the transaction code that you get from the dropdown list: /n/UI5/THEME_DESIGNER.

Voilà: it is working.

Starting transaction should be simple

Maybe this is just because the theme designer transaction starts a web app? Let’s try it with the personas theme app. Selecting the transaction code /PERSONAS/THEME form the dropdown list and pressing enter.

Same result:

Same workaround: Adding /n (/n/PERSONAS/THEME) starts the transaction.

Root cause

Somehow, I’d expect that when selecting a transaction code from the dropdown list, that this is the value I need. Selecting from list -> press enter -> transaction starts. I understand that when the transaction code is entered manually, that SAP might not know what the user is doing and demands that a /n or /o is added by the user. But when selecting the value from a list of transactions? From a list that clearly is meant as an input help for the user? What does SAP expect me to do with the selected search result? Not running it?

Better solution

Does SAP expect their end users to adjust the suggested transaction codes? Where is the value in the search result list when you cannot use it for all search results? This the intended behavior? Why not adding /n or /o by default for transactions that cannot be started directly? Having for each possible transaction a tile seems like an option, but this is not doable for all users or scenarios. Why not offer a better UX and make transactions runnable when selecting their code from the search result list? Independently if there is a namespace included or not. An end user should not care about this. Search for a value, selecting it, that’s all that should be needed.