SAP User Types: The Five Types and Accounts

SAP, Systems Applications and Products, was created to provide customers with the ability to interact with a common corporate database for a wide range of applications. SAP users are divided into groups which are used for different reasons and in different way. There are five user types in SAP: dialogue, communication, system, service, and reference. As you will soon find out, users generally interact with these types on a regular basis through different means of media. If you’re a consultant, SAP team member looking to add another skill, IT member, or even just a beginner wanting to get into SAP, having SAP user training will benefit your career.

This course will teach you with live videos and other aids all the basic skills needed to be an SAP Security administrator in an organization. With this training, you will you have a good insight into all SAP routine administration tasks in no time! Below is a transcript of a part of the lecture which includes information on SAP user types and a definition of their accounts. At the completion of this course, which includes 11 sections and 27 chapters, you will acquire “recession-proof skills” as an SAP user and an expert at troubleshooting SAP security issues.

Lecture Transcript:

This links us to another interesting topic, the user types in SAP. There are five user types in SAP: dialogue, communication, system, service, and reference. As you can see, users generally interact with them systematically, either using a desktop, a laptop, or a smart device. Those accounts where the user is physically interacting with the system, those are generally dialogue accounts. The system also needs to carry out certain functions within itself. Those are system and service accounts. The SAP system alternates to communicate with another system, in that case, it’s communication account, and the system needs to be used from the internet in that time we can use reference account.

So let us look at features of each of these accounts. Dialogue is the most commonly used account. Whenever you create an SAP account for an end-user, it will be classified as dialogue account. In this, log on with the SAP-GUI is possible. So you go to the SAP graphical user interface, which is known as SAP-GUI, and you enter the user name and password, and log onto the system, and you interact with the system, you enter transactions, and you get reports. And you need to maintain the password from time to time, provided you are not using single sign on. The example of this type of account, like I said, is end users, support users, functional users, and employees in the company.

The second type of account is service account. Again, log on is possible with SAP-GUI. Passwords are generally set one time and is set by an administrator. There is no initial password, no concept of initial password or no reset by users, and multiple log-on is not possible. So there is a setting in the set up profile where you prevent multiple log-ons from happening. The most common example of service user is file factored. File factored is a user account and is actually a tool from SAP which is used when somebody needs emergency access in SAP, and as you can understand, every user has limited access in SAP, but there are times when he needs advanced access when he’s troubleshooting an emergency for the business, at that time a file factor ID is granted, using which, he can run a lot more transactions compared to the regular access he has. The advantage being, all the transactions that you run under that file factor ID get logged and a detailed log is available, and it’s sent out to all the system owners.

What is system account? This is the third category of account in SAP. It is an account which is required by the system for its own operations. It is an internal communication file system. Password, again, is maintained by the administrator. It does not change unless the administrator wants to make the change. Log-on, in this case, is not possible with GUI. It is not interactive, unlike the other account, and the classical usage of a system account is in central user administration, or work flow set up account. There is a function called ELE transport management system, and background processing.

The forth category of account is communication account. Again, log-on with Graphical User Interface is not possible in this case, also. It is used for external remote function calls, and CUE.

The last one is a reference account. This is mainly used for users logging on from the internet. It’s non-dialogue user. Those are the five categories of user accounts in SAP application. Thank you.

For more on SAP security, take this course today!