Incorrect Master Data Deletion

In this document I’ll discuss about an efficient method suggested by SAP to delete incorrect or obsolete master data from the system.

Need

There are many scenarios, in which we will get incorrect master data in the BW system due to incorrect entries maintained in the source systems or wrong configurations during the data load.

Consider a business scenario in which it has quite large amount of vendors for service. After a period of time, these vendors may have opted out for this business.  So, these vendors are become obsolete.

The BW system maintains all the vendor master data most of which has become obsolete. So, it’s a good practice to delete incorrect master data as and when needed.

Program to delete Incorrect Master data

SAP has suggested a program to delete incorrect master data from the system.  This program can be executed in SIMULATE mode also where in we can keep a tab on what are all the master data that are deleted.

Program: RSDMDD_DELETE_BATCH

Detailed Description

Step 1: Go to transaction SE38 and execute the program RSDMDD_DELETE_BATCH

Step 2: Enter your InfoObject name for which the incorrect master data has to be deleted. Once you have entered the name of the infoObject, you can choose the selection conditions using ‘Filter Data’ for which the master data has to be deleted.

Besides, there are some options which we should be aware of.

1. P_DELSID
2. P_DELTXT
3. P_SIMUL
4. P_LOG
5. P_PROT
6. P_SMODE          

P_DELSID – Checking this option will delete the entries in the SID table of the characteristic. This is optional. If we have to reload the particular master data, SID will be generated again and hence consuming more time during data load.

It is always a good practice not to delete the entries in the SID table as deletion of SID table may in some cases lead to data inconsistencies.

P_DELTXT – Checking this option will delete the texts of the corresponding master data

P_SIMUL –This option allows to run the program in a simulation mode. Checking this option will not actually delete the master data, but will give a result of master data that are deleted or not deleted due to references in any other infoproviders and not found.

We can run a simulate mode by which the master data that are deleted for our selection criteria.

This option avoids accidental deletion of used master data.

P_LOG – This option will generate logs for the deletion of master data

P_PROT – This option will generate logs for the detailed usage of the protocol, that is in what manner, the master data has been deleted.

P_SMODE : Where-used check mode. The available modes are

• O – One usage per value is enough
• E – Existence Check
• A – All usage of the values
• C – Consistency check

We can choose option O, (One usage per value is enough). If a master data is used in any of the infoprovider, the first search hit will be taken for logs and will not search in any other infoproviders. This saves time in searching the used master data again in other infoproviders.

The rest options for P_SMODE is self explanatory.

Deletion of Master Data

Once selecting the infoObject with filter conditions and choosing appropriate options for deletion, we can go for deletion of the master data. We can run it in foreground or can be scheduled in background also.

Checking logs for the Master data deletion

Goto transaction SLG1 and give object type and subobject type as below with appropriate date/time parameters.

After giving the needed input, the logs will be displayed as below.

Clicking the details icon in the Details column from the below log will give the list of master data deleted by the program.