All about Variant principle in SAP

Variant is a group of settings which executes something in the system. Variants are predefined parameter which can be assigned to an object. For example, K4 is a very common fiscal year parameter as default defined in SAP. There are 3 steps of variant principle:

1. Define variant

2. Define value of the variant

3. Assign variant to object

In other words, variant principle is a three step method used in SAP system to assign particular properties to one or more objects. That means once a variant is defined in SAP the same variant can be assigned to various or several business objects. All the variants are defined at the Client Level in the system, hence it can be used by all the company codes in that client.

For example, if we define a Fiscal variant K4, we can assign the same variant to several company codes. We need not recreate the fiscal year variant K4 for each company.

In SAP variant principle is used for

1. Field Status variant
2. Posting period variant
3. Fiscal year variant etc.

Whenever you start a program in which selection screens are defined, the system displays a set of input fields for database-specific and program-specific selections. To select a certain set of data, you enter an appropriate range of values. If you often run the same program with the same set of selections (for example, to create a monthly statistical report), you can save the values in a selection set called a variant.

You can create any number of variants for any program in which selection screens are defined. Variants are assigned exclusively to the program for which they were created. You can also use variants to change the appearance of the selection screen by hiding selection criteria. This is particularly useful when you are working with large selection screens on which not all of the fields are relevant.

Variants are an interface between the user and the selection screen. They can be used both in dialog and in background mode, although their uses are slightly different.

Variants used for save time

When any information give through variant it will not stored at database,

It will not generate program.