Getting Data from Multiple Data Sources

In most cases, a generic inquiry you are creating needs to display the data of some entity combined with the data of other related entities, so that the users of the inquiry form can explore the relationships between different types of entities. Thus, you need to combine data from multiple data sources.

You can use data access classes (DACs), which are referred to as tables on the user interface of the Generic Inquiry (SM208000) form. Similarly, you can specify generic inquiries as data sources for a generic inquiry. That is, you can create multiple simple generic inquiries and reuse them as data sources for a generic inquiry. You can build a complex request by combining the simple inquiries into one. You can use both DACs and inquries as data sources for an inquiry and combine then into query by setting relations between the sources.

In the topics of this chapter, you will learn how to create a generic inquiry that uses data from two tables.