What is transaction-code, role and user master record in SAP ?

LETS MAKE IT EASY TO UNDERSTAND

 
TRANSACTION CODE : In SAP a transaction code is a string or a set of characters and numbers for example PFCG/SUIM/SU01. As name suggest, we can divide the name into two parts to understand it well. Transaction means an activity which involves reading or writing of data from database. Code refers to a small piece of characters or character+ Number. So a code which is responsible to carry out a transaction is called TRANSACTION CODE. For example, in a bank website all the tasks are carried out simply by clicking on links provided on a webpage  and entering the data like user id, account number and amount. Similarly in SAP all such activities are carried out by executing a t-code(synonym for transaction code). E.g, SU01, SUIM, PFCG, SE16 are some t-codes used in SAP. 

 
USER MASTER RECORD : To understand what a user master record means in SAP we first have to understand what a user means in SAP. As SAP systems are highly secured in terms of data and applications thereby in order to access the system and data stored in it to carry out business activities a user should have a unique user id and a valid password by which he/she can login into the system. Without a user id and a password no one can login into a SAP system. When you are hired to work on SAP system, your manager raises a request to SAP Security team to create a user id for you into the system. This user id creation means that a user account is being created for you in the SAP system. This account will contains all business information relevant to you like your name , phone number, office address, designation ,work profile, user
group , your access start and end date, roles etc.

 
ROLE : Once a user account/user id is created for you in SAP system you will be able to login into the system.Now you would require to perform certain business activities/transactions relevant to your job profile. You will have to use several t-codes to perform the actions into the systems. So for you a set of transactions is clubbed into a container and that container is assigned to you via your user master record. Container here does not means any box but a physical entity into the SAP system which is called as ROLE. The access to perform all your job tasks is granted to you through roles only. These roles contains t-codes and all authorization data for you.
 

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