Change of time zone in BW -> impact on BW system

In case of multinational companies a BW system serves as global system. This means users are using it around a clock depending on their time zones. To support different loading times to satisfy user communities from different systems it makes sense to put the system time zone to UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). This time zone then serves as base time zone from which loads for different user communities can be derived.

Change of time zone in BW, needs to be done by transport which moves following table entry: R3TR TABU TTZCU (Customizing time zones)

However more important is impact on BW system while time zone change. There are multiple places in the BW system that might be impacted by this. Therefore on such an event the BW system as whole must be carefully checked. Also all BW applications (InfoAreas) must be checked as well.

More over below are areas that must be also thoroughly checked:

1. Load schedules – in case some Ipacks/DTPs/Process Chains are scheduled at particular time that will be schifted while the time zone change

2. ABAP Logic in BW transformation/routines/formulas/user exits/DTP(Ipacks) filters - which deals with system field related to time zone (e.g. sy-datlo, sy-tzone, sy-zonlo, etc.)

3. Loads notification delays – in case there is a workflow in place that notifies user about progress of loads. In case email/sms that must arrive on time and that time might change by the time zone shift..

4. BWA/HANA rollups delays – also if particular rollup must be on time makes sure that that time doesn’t change

5. Broadcast runs – similar as in point no 4

Automatically Repeat Red Requests in Process Chains

Similarly to possibility to repeat DTP in case its previous run failed that I described here – it is also possible to enable in similar way repetition of step within process chain. A kind of automatic re-start of failed steps in the PC thing. This helps to improvements running of the PC and overall maintenance effort of SAP BW systems.

Normally in case the process step fails someone must go process chain log via Administration t-codes and manually restart the step. If certain settings are maintained for the process then after it failed depending on the settings automatic repeat of process chain steps happens.

Following is a procedure to maintain the settings for particular process in the PC:

In change mode of the PC and there is an item in right click menu available for the process -> "Automatic Repetition". In next pop-up window following parameters need to be maintained:

Seconds: a time in seconds is specified here how long the process needs to wait before repeating the task.

Number of Repetitions: The maximum number of times this process should be repeated

After maintain the settings the PC must be activated in order to enable this feature.

Technically the settings are implemented in table RSPCCHAIN and its fields AUTO_REPEAT and REPEAT_TRIALS. 

Automatically Repeat Red Requests within DTP

Within DTP there is a new flag available on Execute tab. It is called “Automatically Repeat Red Requests in Process Chains”. This feature helps to speed up administration of BW system. 

Imagine a case if the flag is NOT set and the DTP terminates. Normally an error message appears explaining that no new request can be started until the previous request is either repaired or deleted. 

Now if the flag IS set the previous request that contains errors is automatically deleted and a new one is started.

Technically the flag is implemented in table RSBKDTP and its field AUTORESTART. Data dictionary domain behind is RSBKAUTORESTART - DTP Request: Automatic Repetition of Terminated Request.

How to find in which TRFN particular ABAP INCLUDE is used

In order to decouple of application logic used in BW’s Transformation ABAP code is sometimes not placed into the Transformation’s Start/End Routine directly but instead this an ABAP INCLUDE is used. So custom logic is complete placed into the INCLUDE that is included in the particular routine.

One may wonder how to find out what is/are Transformations where that ABAP INCLUDE is used. To find out this below is procedure:

1. Display INCLUDE in t-code SE38 and perform either Where-Used function (CTR:+SHIFT+F3 or icon on toolbar) or syntax check shows a list of GP* programs where the ABAP INCLUDE is used.

2. Particular GP* program shall be looked up in table RSTRAN in field TRANPROG. Notice that has to be the GP* program ID used but w/o prefix of GP. In field of TRANID field an ID of Transformation is then found.

Or

3. Display the GP* program in t-code SE38.

4. Move up in the ABAP editor into beginning of the GP* program where comment having Tran ID information is display (e.g. at line 31)

5. Take Tran ID information and use Find function of RSA1 to find a particular Transformation.

How to delete process variant of Process Chain

It is an often case that an process variant within process chain is created but later on for whatever reason it is not needed anymore. The process variant should be deleted in such a case. So how to delete an old process variant that is not needed?

Basically within t-code RSPC1 (or via RSA1 -> Modeling -> Process Chain) any PC needs to be displayed in the PC maintenance mode. Then depending on Process Type of process that needs to be deleted such a Process Type needs to be found within the displayed PC.

1. Right Click -> Exchange Variant

2. Select the process variant that needs to be deleted from available pop-up list

3. Double click on selected process variant

4. On next screen of the process variant maintenance - click on change button and Delete the selected process variant via Delete button

Slovak (and Czech) blogs related to SAP

As starting on next year (just tomorrow) this blog is celebrating its 10 year anniversary I was thinking to see whether there are some other people blogging about same topics I do – SAP. Therefore I took to google collected below list of blogs and web pages created/maintained by people in Slovakia and Czech Republic region and of course related to SAP. Here’s what I found. A list is not so long; even some blogs are not active anymore. However I hope I keep an eye on this from time to time and going forward I will be updating it.

URL                                         Person                       Status

abapacademy.com              Ladislav Rydzyk        Active

oprsteny.com                    Miroslav Oprsteny     Active

fanores.blogspot.com          Stefan Misik             Last activity in 10/2012       

jaros.in                            Pavel Jaros              Last activity in 04/2016       

mojsap.sk                         Miloš Volek              Not active since 10/2016

abap.cz                            unknown                 Not active since 08/2011

adamka.sk                        Lubos Adamka         Active

sapconsultant.cz                 unknown                 Not active since 08/2014

abap.sk                            Juraj Sukupa           parked domain only

sap-portal.sk                     Michal Rehák            Not active since 02/2016

sap-cz.blogspot.com           Milan Sedlácek

Tomáš Marný           Not active since 06/2013

abapista.cz                        Ludvik Spilka            Not active since 04/2016

abap pre zaciatocnikov        unknown                 ABAP tutorial for beginners in Slovak language

projectik.eu                       Peter Jarunek          2 articles on very basic SAP topics

last update: Dec 31th 2016

Can DTP be pushed to HANA DB for execution?

Usually one of very first things that are checked once the BW system is migrated to HANA database is to find out what are data loads that can be pushed to HANA easily without any modification. To do this check SAP offers within the set of tools for migration to BW on HANA tool called SAP BW Transformation Finder (ABAP report ZBW_TRANSFORM_FINDER).

The tool is quite a complex and it offers to identify redundant data layers like "1:1" or "N:1" transformations. Through this tool the transformations that can be pushed to the DB can be found. Although a list of the TRFN is definitely useful I was wondering whether there is a way to identify a list of the DTP for the same – push to the HANA DB. As I blogged in my older post Pushing DTP execution to HANA DB there is a button available in the DTP maintenance screen that allow to find it out. To check this for many DTPs at one shot I developed short program. The program can be found in my github - DTP_TO_BE_PUSHED2HANA.

My tool similarly to SAP one utilizes a call of method CLARIFY_REALIZATION of class CL_RSTRAN_DB_STAT. If DTP particular DTP is compatible with SAP HANA Execution then it is listed out in tool’s output screen. Hope someone will find the tool useful.

More information:

github - DTP_TO_BE_PUSHED2HANA.

1908367 - SAP BW Transformation Finder

Data load request deletion logs

This is a short post about how to find out a data deletion related logs in SAP BW. Mostly details about data deletion operations that happened can be revealed by t-code SLG1. 

SLG1 ->provide following input on its selection screen:

Object:                   *

SubObject:              *

External ID:            value1:         CHECK_DM    

Value2:         MON:PROTOCOLL_ACTION   

value3:         *DELETE_FROM_PSA

value4:         ERRORSTACK_REQUEST_*

value5:         *-DELET-*

value6:         *req_no*

1/ CHECK_DMRX…:

FB RSM1_CHECK_DM_GOT_REQUEST called from PRG LRSM1F08; row 004240

Request '                                          1259141'; DTA 'RX…'; action 'D'; with dialog 'X'

Leave RSM1_CHECK_DM_GOT_REQUEST in row 70; Req_State ''

2/ MON:PROTOCOLL_ACTION

Request ID                                           1259141 from data target RX… scheduled for deletion

3/ DTPR_7TQYDLHVH8KTJ5A6QDBVV2F3Q-DELETE_FROM_PSA

Request DTPR_7TQYDLHVH8KTJ5A6QDBVV2F3Q deleted from PSA; RSREQICODS entry also deleted

Request DTPR_7TQYDLHVH8KTJ5A6QDBVV2F3Q not found in IC RX…; RSREQICODS also deleted

4/ ERRORSTACK_REQUEST_1259141

MON:PROTOCOLL_ACTION-DELET-RX…

Delete is running: Data target RX…, from 1259141 to 1259141

P-DIMID 156 deleted from table /BIC/DRX… (InfoCube RX…)

P-dimension index read; number of records: '26'

Number of request entries to be deleted: '1'

'1' records indexed

Prepare optimize and commit optimize executed

Request with P-DIMID 1259141 from InfoCube RX…deleted (27000242 data records)

Delete was successful: Data target RX…, from 1259141 to 1259141

Delete is finished: Data target RX…, from 1259141 to 1259141

5/ DTPR_7TQYDLHVH8KTJ5A6QDBVV2F3Q-DELET-RX…

Delete is running: Data target RX…, from 1259141 to 1259141

P-DIMID 156 deleted from table /BIC/DRX… (InfoCube RX…)

P-dimension index read; number of records: '26'

Number of request entries to be deleted: '1'

'1' records indexed

Prepare optimize and commit optimize executed

Request with P-DIMID 1259141 from InfoCube RX… deleted (27000242 data records)

Delete was successful: Data target RX…, from 1259141 to 1259141

Delete is finished: Data target RX…, from 1259141 to 1259141

6/ *req_no*

Scalability – scale out/in vs up/down

One of important aspects of computer system is scalability. It is a capability of the system to handle expanding amount of tasks that need to be completed by the system. Prerequisite is that the system must function in same way after scaling as it was before the scaling. The system in this terms can be computer, network etc. Scalability is sometimes referred as extensibility.

There are two basic approaches to scaling of the computer systems. It is horizontal and vertical scaling.

In first case – horizontal scaling it means to add or remove a computing unit (node) to/from the system. This is so called quantitative change. As example a new computer can be added into distributed system. The horizontal scaling is also called as scale out/in.

The latter case – vertical scaling it means to change a property of the existing system by adding or removing resources to/from the computing unit (the node) of the system. This is so called qualitative change. As example it can be about adding more CPUs or memory to existing node. The vertical scaling is also called as scale up/down.

Difference between the two can be noted on following example. There can be a system of having an 8TB of memory in total in one node – a scale up approach. While as scale out example there can be 8 nodes having 1TB of memory each.

In terms of scaling of SAP HANA both approaches can be used as the HANA is designed for scale up and as well for scale out since the beginning.

How big a generated ABAP program can be?

In some of ABAP applications that generate pretty heavy volume of ABAP code while generation there can be following ABAP dump observed:

GEN_BRANCHOFFSET_LIMIT_REACHED

The dump refers to fact that ABAP code is too large to get it generated. Means there are too many lines of code that generated program gets too big and thus cannot be compiled.

Messages observed here can be like following:

"Jump distance is too large and cannot be generated."

"Jump is too great and cannot be generated."

In BW this may happen in very large ABAP includes ZXRSRU01   (FM EXIT_SAPLRRS0_001) where all custom BEx variable are stored. Here is a large CASE/ENDCASE statement where all the BEx variables are stored. Solution is here is to split one big CASE/ENDCASE into several ones e.g. per different projects or inforareas available in the system.

What it is actually means from technical point of is that there are so called jumps within the generated code and in case there is not enough space to store whole content of jump then the ABAP code can’t be generated. The jump represent smallest logical unit of code that must be placed in one generated code (jump). E.g. IF/END or CASE/ENDCASE statement. Code inside of these statement must be exists within same jump. The jump should not be greater than 32768 bytes (32kB) for internal load format. The 32kB roughly corresponds to around 10,000 of ABAP statements.