A new column in transaction SM37 – Job Documentation
Wouldn’t it be nice if the SAP backend system could tell you whether a comprehensive job documentation for a background job exists, or not? Wouldn’t it be even nicer if you could access this documentation from within the backend system?
Actually it is possible, and this blog will tell you how.
The concept behind
Still today the large majority of SAP customers document their background jobs via MS Excel. But this documentation is usually not sufficient and not really following Best Practices.
If you have followed the topic “job management” over the last two years you will have already learned that the SAP Solution Manager provides a Best Practice functionality for central Job Documentation. SAP is first vendor to provide a comprehensive Job Management Suite
The Job Documentation provides also many small features that should solve many problems from daily operations that remained unsolved up until now, e.g.
- Jobs always come easily into a system but they get hardly out of the system again because they are forgotten. That’s why the Job Documentation provides a “Validity Date” and the Job Management Work Center provides a standard query to show all documents that should be reviewed based on this “Validity Date”
- Customers are always struggling on creating naming conventions for background jobs and then applying them consistently for their thousands of jobs. That’s why the Job Request as well as the Job Documentation provide a feature to suggest and even check a given naming convention for a background job. You can learn more about it in the SDN blog Implementation of a naming convention in Job Scheduling Management
Now that said, I would like to mention one of the latest integration features. If you document background jobs in SAP Solution Manager and schedule these jobs via the Job Documentation alone or via the Job Documentation and SAP Central Process Scheduling by Redwood then this information will be transferred to the respective SAP backend system and you can see and access this information via transaction SM37.
How does it look like?
So what you need to do is accessing the scheduling part within the job documentation and schedule the job directly via the Job Documentation (as shown below) and hence the BC-XBP interface or indirectly via SAP Central Process Scheduling by Redwood.
Within transaction SM37 on the backend system you can find a new column Job Doc. Every background job that you documented in SAP Solution Manager and that was scheduled in a way described above shows a documentation icon in this new SM37 column.
This answers basically my first initial question “Wouldn’t it be nice if the SAP backend system could tell you whether a comprehensive job documentation for a background job exists, or not?”. With the help of the new SM37 column Job Doc you will know if a documentation exists or not. Hence in the future it will be very easy for you to identify which background jobs are properly documented and which are not, because they are perhaps bypassing your central scheduling (see also An easy way to identify end-user scheduled jobs which bypass your central scheduling tool).
What about my second question “Wouldn’t it be even nicer if you could access this documentation from within the backend system?” is this also possible? Yes, it is. Simply by clicking on the documentation icon in SM37 a browser window opens and after logging on to your SAP Solution Manager system you directly access the respective Job Document.
Technical Prerequisites
So what are the technical prerequisites? From SAP Solution Manager side you need to have software component ST400 on support package level 21 or higher. The new column for SM37 and hence the integration described above was only released recently. Your backend system requires one of the following support package levels
|
Support Package |
Release | Package Name |
|
SAP_BASIS
|
700
|
|
|
SAP_BASIS
|
701
|
|
|
SAP_BASIS
|
710
|
|
|
SAP_BASIS
|
711
|
If you want to use the scenario together with SAP Central Process Scheduling by Redwood then you will need to have SAP CPS Build M31 which is not yet released for customers but shall be available soon.
Related previous blogs:
- Re-directing transactions SM36, SM37, SA38: Controlling end-user scheduled jobs – Part 1
- Re-directing transactions SM36, SM37, SA38: Controlling end-user scheduled jobs – Part 2
- Job Interception: Controlling end-user scheduled jobs
- SAP is first vendor to provide a comprehensive Job Management Suite
- “Hidden” tool: Analyzing workload caused by background jobs
- Implementation of a naming convention in Job Scheduling Management
- An easy way to identify end-user scheduled jobs which bypass your central scheduling tool
I am not sure if I really get your question. Yes, clicking on the icon opens a separate Job Document (as described and shown in the blog). This Job Document needs to be maintained in your SAP Solution Manager which is connected to your backend system.
You should also have a look into the SDN blog SAP is first vendor to provide a comprehensive Job Management Suite
and you should possibly visit the SAP Service Marketplace http://service.sap.com/jsm where you find an overview presentation in the Media Library which contains most important SAP notes to get started.
Best Regards
Volker
I am thinking there is some setup (maybe just RFC, or config) that says how to point back to the SolMan system. I didn't see this listed in any of the docs in the links you sent (or in doing searchs on SDN, google, etc.). I suspect it is just an RFC needed, but not sure if it is just SM_SIDCLNT###_READ, or something else similar that I don't know about. I do have SM_SIDCLNT###_TRUSTED.
Thanks for your help, I don't mean to make this a long involved posting.
Jake
Most likely you are missing a BACK-RFC connection. Please refer to SAP note 1383398 section 3c:
"Logon to the managed system and execute function module
BP_OPTIONS_SOLMANDEST_SET, enter the RFC destination to the SAP
Solution Manager system (BACK destination, ideally without logon screen using a communication user) into parameter field
SOLMAN_DESTINATION_NAME and execute it.
Please grant authorization to function group AGS_EJR_JOB_REQ_API to the (communication) user of the RFC (BACK) Destination as otherwise the information how to call SAP Solution Manager cannot be retrieved by the managed system."
Regards
Volker
Thanks, I think this is what was missing. Thanks for your help.
Jake
If I'm not mistaken, there is a new menu choice in the Work center -> JSM called Administration. There it is something called Back Destination. Haven't figured out what it's for yet, no search push button on the text field "Define Back Destination" to help me out. But could be that this would fix the problem with destination missing (I get the same message myself)
In the "Define Back Destination" I put in the RFC name from SM59 to Solman itself. The job was also scheduled on Solman, so not sure what would be the result when pressing the job doc icon in SM37 when the job is scheduled on a remote system. But it works great!
All I need to figure out now is when showing the work center in another language than English, all the text won't be a lovely mesh of English and German.