/IQX/FAB - Development Workbench

Owned by Charles Evans
Last updated: Jul 16, 2020 by Adam Miles
4 min read

Step-by-step guide

Accessing the workbench is done by:

  • Navigating to the Command Bar, entering the workbench transaction code (/IQX/FAB) and selecting the green tick or clicking enter, or
  • Launch IQX FAB Workbench from the SAP Easy Access menu

Opening the /IQX/FAB Transaction

If it is the first time you have uses the FAB Workbench you will be presented with the following:

Enter your user name and password in the preview window and then you will be presented with the next screen.

To get started creating a new application, press the 'Create' button in the toolbar.
After you have already used the FAB Workbench to create applications, when you start the Workbench there will be a Welcome Dialog box that provides the following options:
  1. Displays the name of the last opened application
  2. Open the last opened application in Change Mode
  3. Open the last opened application in Display Mode
  4. Browse for an existing application to open in Change Mode
  5. Browse for an existing application to open in Change Mode
  6. Create a brand new application
  7. Cancel the operation
  8. List of recently open applications.  Clicking on one of these open that application in Change Mode.


Workbench Overview

  1. Form Structure
    • The Form Structure is essentially the design of the application's User Interface (UI).  It provides a visual representation of all the controls on the page as well as their hierarchy.
  2. Data Structure
    • The Data Structure represents the data model of your application. 
    • You can add as many fields here to support the application you are building. 
    • You can add Structures that can help to neatly categorize certain groups of fields.
    • You can add Tables that will allow for multiple rows of data to be stored for this particular instance of the application. 
  3. Property Editor
    • As nodes are selected from the tree, their properties are displayed in the Properties area, where each element's property can be set and modified.
  4. Application Preview
    • Contains an embedded browser that allows immediate preview of changes once the application is saved. Alternatively, it can immediately update after each edit if Live View mode is enabled.
Please note:
  • When FAB Workbench is launched for the first time, the application's definition and preview sections will be blank. To display sections, a new application must be created and saved. Once this is done these sections will display on-going.



Toolbar

The FAB Workbench toolbar contains a set of useful buttons that provides easy access to core program functionality. If the screen is minimized, some buttons will collapse into a menu structure accessible on the right-hand side of the bar.


  1. Open: Used to open existing applications by launching the form search dialogue box.
  2. Create: Starts the creation of a new app by launching a dialogue box to capture the new application's form properties. 
  3. Change/Display: This button toggles between change and display. When opening an existing application, it will default to display mode. 
  4. Save (new iteration): This function creates and saves new iterations (major versions) of the application and can only be invoked when the application is in change mode. Prior iterations of the application can be retrieved via the Open for search dialogue box. The current iteration number displays alongside the name of the form.  Use the comment feature to add comments. The comments are visible when choosing an Iteration to open in the Workbench.
  5. Transport: This feature assigns the application changes to a transport request. This should always be selected before a version of the application is sent to a new environment.
  6. Export to File: Exports the application into an XML file format.
  7. Import from File: Allows the importation of an XML application file.
  8. Properties: Launches the application's form properties dialogue box. 
  9. Code: Launches a dialog box for the associated ABAP methods executed by the application.
  10. Workflow: Launches the dialog box for configuring workflow stages and action buttons.
  11. Recording: Allow the recording of a transaction via BDC and inserts the fields into the form application. 
  12. View in Browser: Opens a web browser to preview the application, similar to the application preview section.
  13. Live View Reload: Refreshes the WYSWYG display with the latest changes in the workbench. 
  14. Help: Links to the FAB help site, which contains in-depth FAB documentation, release notes and demo scripts.