SAP Data Archiving Changes in ERP 60 EhP 6

I am currently testing SAP data archiving in ERP EhP 6 SP 3 and have found some issues as well as noticed several changes (from ERP 60 EhP 3) that I want to share with the SAP Community.  This information will be grouped by Configuration Issues, New Functionality for Current Archive Objects, New Archive Objects, and Updated Documentation.

Configuration Issues

In past tests (upgrades, previous enhancement packs, OSS Notes, etc.) I have found configuration related issues with archive objects that have been touched by IS Oil.  Multiple changes/fixes were needed in order to even begin testing data archiving.  For examples, archive job variants were missing for MM_EBAN, MM_EKKO and MM_EINA.  This was easliy resolved by recreating them via SARA/Customizing Settings.  The archive write job/program failed for SD_VBAK, MM_EKKO and MM_EBAN.  This was resolved by following the instructions in OSS Note 945459 (the note states that it is for SRM, but, SAP verified that it could also be followed to fix this ERP issue).  The archive write job/program also failed for MM_EINA with “Archiving object or class MM_EINA does not contain structure OICQ4”.  I compared the MM_EINA archive object structure definition within transaction AOBL from the EhP 6 system with one in a system that had not been upgraded yet.  I found that it was missing 3 segments in the EhP 6 system.  I added those segments and the archive write job then completed successfully.

New Functionality for Current Archive Objects

MM_EKKO:

I noticed that this archive object has new write, delete and preprocessing programs:

I did have to manually change the Preprocessing program to reflect the new program name per OSS Note 1646578.

The new version of the preprocessing and write job programs provide an additional option of “Residence Time Check Creation Date”.

If this new option is not selected, the residence time check is carried out against the last change date of the purchase order instead.

SD_VBAK:

The archive preprocessing and write jobs have a new option of “Check Valid-To Date”.

This option only applies to sales documents with a valid-to date (like a quote, scheduling agreement, contract, etc.) and the program assumes the end of validity has been maintained.

WORKITEM:

The archive write job has a new option of “Delete Unnecessary Log Entries”.

I have not been able to determine exactly what this means yet as there isn’t any SAP Help for this option.

PM_ORDER:

The preprocessing job has a new field of “Revision”.

The write job has the new Revision field as well as an additional section for “PS:Project”>

BC_DBLOGS:

The archive write job now provides the functionality to specify by table name, which changes get archived.  Prior to this, ALL customizing tables that had logging turned on were archived.

PM_QMEL:

The preprocessing program has added fields “Planning plant (IWERK)” and “Revision(S_REVNR)” as well as adding the capability for getting detailed logging information to assist with determining why a notification was not eligible for archving, and saving this information in the application log.

The write job also includes the same new functionality as the preprocessing program.

The detailed log and log output functionality has also been added to the preprocessing program and write program for SM_QMEL.

New Archive Objects with EhP 6

I found that there are almost 200 new archive objects that are delivered in EhP 6.  I will not be going over all of them in this blog 😛 , I will be picking a few of them to highlight.

Virsa Firefighter Logs:

Depending on how you use firefighter id’s, you may or may not need to control the growth of the log tables.  OSS Note 1041912 provides some Firefighter Best Practice Archiving Strategy information.

If you do use firefighter id’s extensively, you can use data archiving for these tables:

/VIRSA/ZFFTNSLOG – Firefighter Transaction Log

/VIRSA/ZFFCDHDR – Firefighter Change Document

/VIRSA/ZVIRFFLOG – Firefighter Action Log

To archive, use transaction /VIRSA/FFARCHIVE (not through SARA).  Before you can run this transaction, you will need to follow the instructions in OSS Note 1228205 to maintain the path where the archive file will be written as indicated in the “Application Server File’ parameter in the below image:

Additional information on this can be found in the Firefighter User Guide available on the SAP Service Marketplace.

BC_E071K:

Starting in SAP_BASIS Release 7.x, you can now archive transport information.  Archive object BC_E071K is standard in SAP_BASIS Release 731.  For 70-72, you will need to be at the relevant support package as indicated in OSS Note 1340166.

Note that only the entries from table E071K will actually be archived out of the system.  The related entries from tables E070 and E071 will only be written out to the archive file, but not deleted.

CA_SE16NCD:

Per OSS Note 1360465:  If you use transaction SE16N to make changes to tables, they are updated in separate change document tables.  Depending on the number of changes, the change document tables can be very large.

The tables in this archive object are:

SE16N_CD_KEY Table Display: Change Documents – Header

SE16N_CD_DATA             Table Display: Change Documents – Data

It is recommended to archive this data using date intervals.

The archived data can then be displayed/analyzed with report RKSE16N_CD_DISPLAY.

Archiving in GRC Access Control 10.0:

There are several new archive objects related to archiving GRC Access Control related data.  They are:

Updated Documentation

The Data Management Guide has been updated as of December 2011.  If you have not downloaded this from the Service Marketplace recently, you should check it out (logon required).

To find out what has been added or updated, go to Chapter 2 “Which Tables are Examined”.

Here you can quickly find out what is new in this version of the document by checking the “Last Changed in Version” column.

There are a lot of changes related to SAP Data Archiving in ERP EhP 6.  This blog just highlights a few of them.  I hope you find this information useful.