Report Painter selection variables sorting

Question

I have added a number of characteristics to my report painter report and set some as variables
i.e. plan version 1, plan version 2, plan version 3, plan version 1 year, plan version 2 year, plan version 3 year.
These variables appear on the selection screen in the following order;
plan version 1,
plan version 2,
plan version 3,
plan version 1 year,
plan version 2 year,
plan version 3 year.
What the business require is the variables to appear on the selection screen as follows;
plan version 1,
plan version 1 year,
plan version 2,
plan version 2 year,
plan version 3,
plan version 3 year
Has anyone any idea how the selection screen sorts the variables?
Can the selection screen sort order be changed for a report?
Your assistance is appreciated
John

Answer 1

For Selection Screen, you can try to use Selection Variant.
The steps are like this:
a. Go to GRR2 (change report painter)
b. Then choose the report you are developing
c. Execute the report
d. On the selection screen, choose Go To-> Variant -> Save As Variant
e. At Variant Attributes screen, you can do the following as your requirement:
    ·        Description
Enter a short, meaningful description of the variant. This can be up to 30 characters long.
·        Only for background processing
Select this field if you want the variant to be available for background processing but not in dialog mode.
·        Protect variant
Select this field if you want to prevent your variant being changed by other users.
·        Only display in catalog
Select this field if you only want the variant name to be displayed in the variant catalog (and not when the user calls the F4 value help).
·        System variant
This field cannot accept input. It is set automatically when a system variant (beginning with CUS& or SAP&) is created.
You can also assign the following further attributes to the selections in a variant:
·        Type
The system indicates here whether a field is a parameter (P) or a selection option (S).
·        Protected
Select this column for each selection that you want to write-protect on the selection screen. These fields are visible on the selection screen when the user starts a program with the variant, but do not accept user input.
·        Invisible
If you select this column, the system hides the corresponding field on the selection screen. This allows you to change the appearance of the selection screen.
·        Selection variable
If you select this column, you can set the value of the corresponding selection dynamically at runtime. The different ways of doing this are explained in the section Variable Values in Variants.
·        Without values
If you select this field, the contents of the corresponding field are not saved with the variant.
This is useful if you do not want to overwrite the contents of this field on the selection screen.
For example, suppose you create a report 'SAPTEST', with the parameter 'TEST', for which you create the variant 'TESTVARIANT'. In the variant, you set the 'Without values' flag for the parameter. Then, you run time program and enter the value 'ABCD' in the TEST field. If you now retrieve the 'TESTVARIANT' variant, the TEST field retains the value ABC instead of being overwritten by SPACE.
·        SPA/GPA
This attribute only appears if you created the corresponding selection criterion using 'MEMORY ID xxxu2019. You can switch the SPA/GPA handling on and off in the variant. This means that fields filled using SPA/GPA appear with their initial values after you have loaded a variant in which those fields have an initial value.
f. When you are finished, you can save it and name the variant (e.g.: Z_S_Screen for simpler selection screen)
After that, every time you want to have the selection screen, you can choose Get Variant or Go To-> Variant-> and select the variant you have saved.
More information at:
http://help.sap.com/erp2005_ehp_03/helpdata/EN/c0/980374e58611d194cc00a0c94260a5/frameset.htm
Hope it helps
Regards,
-=Meila.S=-