Field Visibility Settings Not Working in SAP PA Infotype

It’s been a while since we last dug into the mothball-covered dust. And sometimes you just feel the urge to poke around there once again. I present to you a quick note on why the field visibility settings might not work in a PA infotype, for instance, after transporting your configurations to the target system.

You created a custom infotype for Personnel Administration and configured field visibility for each of its subtypes. You followed your checklist, which should include:

Item #1. Creating the infotype itself

See: Creating a PA Infotype

Item #2. Configuring subtypes in table T591A
Configuration of infotype subtypes in table T591A

Item #3. Defining the subtype table for the infotype in table T777D
Setting up view T777D

You can also access this table via transaction PM01 by clicking on the Technical Attributes button.

Item #4. Verifying the configurations in table T582A
Check that the settings are reflected in the corresponding section of table T582A

Item #5. Configuring field visibility in table T588M

See: How to hide a PA infotype field?

Item #6. Testing
During testing, you see the following result:

Item #7. Transporting the settings and testing in the target system
After transporting the settings and repeating the test, you are horrified to discover that now your infotype behaves something like this:

To be thorough, the first step is of course to go through the same checklist provided above. Pay particular attention to whether the feature has been activated. This can be checked in transaction PE03 (the status should be set to Active).

Next, verify what was actually transported into table T588M. Pay close attention to the presence of a record with an empty variable key corresponding to the module pool of your infotype. This missing record is what causes the field visibility settings to not work. Transport the missing configuration entry into the target system.

Now, repeat the test: