Recent items - Tips to Customize

HOT: Check out the Idea Improvement of Recent Items functionality in the Customer Connection section of SAP Idea Place. If you can't access this idea reach out to your local SAP User Group. The goal of the idea is to get some features below into SAP standard without the need of enhancing the standard functionality.

Recent items functionality is a cool new feature available from SAP CRM 7.0 which  provides links dynamically on the navigation bar  to the recently navigated objects. These Recent objects are user specific.

Let's take a look at some tips on how to customize this feature to suit various requirements.

How to hide/show Recent objects on Navigation bar profile

This is the easiest.

If we want to show/hide the Recent objects for a particular business Role, we can control this with Navigation bar customizing. In Navigation Bar profile, the Group id REC_ITEMS in the Directlink group controls the display of Recent items on Navigation bar

.

How to increase the maximum number of entries shown on Recent items.

By default, the maximum number of Recent objects that is possible is 10.This can be  changed by a small enhancement.

In the Component workbench, Enhance component BSP_DLC_PERS. Then redefine method FILL_DLG_TABLE in view controller ZL_CRM_BSP_RECENTOBJECT0_IMPL (enhanced view controller from CL_CRM_BSP_RECENTOBJECT0_IMPL). Copy the original method. On line 60 of this method you'll find:

WHILE lv_index <= CL_CRM_BSP__RECENTOBJECT0_IMPL=>GC_MAX_ENTRIES_DDLB.

Change this  to

WHILE lv_index <= 15

This would make the maximum number of entries for Recent items to 15.

How to set a default value for the number of Recent Objects

Check out the instructions here: How to set a default value for the number of Recent Objects.

How to customize the id/description of links shown on Recent items

There are customizing tables for controlling the description which  is displayed for a particular object in the recent items list.

The SAP-delivery customizing table is CRMC_REC_OBJ_A, the corresponding customer customizing table is CRMC_REC_OBJ_AC which overrules the

entries made in the SAP table. In these tables attribute paths are maintained for different object types which determine the description in the recent items.
You can set up different attribute paths for different UI object types (but with the same object name).

For example,  the following screen shot shows how to show description of Task instead of  ID.

It is also possible to show both id and description by maintaining two attribute paths.

When adding the row to table CRMC_REC_OBJ_AC, do not specify the object name in the path. Define the path using only the relation names, suffixed by the attribute name, as below:

If the Object Name is specified as shown below, then the changes to the attributes displayed for each document listed in the Recent Items list are not displayed the first time the user log on to SAP CRM Web UI. Instead, only the default options are displayed. Once the document is open by clicking on the link in the Recent Items list, the correct information is then displayed.

Settings for Account, Contact and Employee

How to find the correct Object Types and Ext. Object Names for CRMC_REC_OBJ_AC

Sometimes it's not trivial to find out what Object Type and Ext. Object Name must be used for CRMC_REC_OBJ_AC. You can use this steps to find out what the correct settings are:

• In the WebUI open the business object for which you want to change the description in the recent items
• Navigate to the homepage so you see the business object in the recent items
• Log-out from the WebUI
• Set a external breakpoint in the Method GET_DESCRIPTION of class CL_BSP_WD_OBJECT_DESCR at the first occurence of crmc_rec_obj_ac
• Log-in to the WebUI again
• You should see the Object Type in the variable lv_object_type
• Use this value to search in the column OBJECT_TYPE of table BSP_DLC_OBJ_TYPE
• You will find the OBJECT_NAME (= Ext. Object Name of Table CRMC_REC_OBJ_AC) and also the COMPONENT which you can use for the GENIL_MODEL_BROWSER or GENIL_BOL_BROWSER

What to do when you get error "Dynamic navigation of object is not supported" when you hit  on Recent items link

This could mean that there is missing customizing entry for OP for component.

Check the following: 

1. Navigate to SPRO and follow path

Customer Relationship Management -> UI Framework -> Technical Role Definition --> Define Navigation Bar Profile.

2. Select relevant  Nav Bar Profile  say "SLS-PRO"

3. Double click on "Define Generic OP Mapping" in the Dialog Structure

4. Now go in edit mode and  Check if there is an entry for the object type you are trying to navigate.

5. If there is no entry, Maintain  the following values. ( example is for Mail form )
Object Type     : PML_MAILFORM
Object Action : B Display
Select radio button : Use target Id
By default this should be selected)
Target Id : TPMLFRM_ED
Highlighted Link ID : MKT-MF-SR

5. In addition if you want to set a default value for the number of Recent items for all users refer to wiki How to set a default value for the number of Recent Objects

How to adjust tooltip of the item in Recent Items list dynamically?

Enhance the view RecentObjects in the component CRM_BSP_RECOBJ. There is a method GET_SHORTCUTS. It should be redefined and adjusted accordingly. It's better to call the same method from super class (standard implementation) and in own implementation adjust the field TOOLTIP in the component LINK of the desired row (or rows) in the table GT_SHORTCUTS.