Potential impact of report HRBCI_ATTRIBUTES_BUFFER_UPDATE

The report HRBCI_ATTRIBUTES_BUFFER_UPDATE is used to improve performance during normal processing of transactions which access org data. Like org data determination during a sales transaction. The report pulls all the data from the normal ‘database’ tables of HR (ie most information you enter in ppoma_crm transaction, kindly note not all) and packs it into a ‘cluster table’ also referred to as buffer table.  This makes reading Org data faster in transactions.

A common issue with this report is it could cause org data to be missing in business transaction. Sometimes you might encounter that some sales org cannot be found in a business transaction, and later, it appears again.

This happens if the buffer update report is running. Because when buffer update report is running it deletes the data in buffer table i.e. INDX and fills it again. So the whole time when the buffer update report is running no data is available. Typically customer will say that problem is random and not reproducible.

To confirm this, do the following –

– See the date and time when the problem surfaces.
– Go to se38 run the report HRBCI_ATTRIBUTES_BUFFER_UPDATE, you will see the date and time when this was last executed.
– If both the times are same then this was the most likely cause of the issue.

To avoid this issue, this report must be executed everyday past midnight. It must be ran at a time when no other transaction/report which might access org data is running.