Schedule recurring background job – CRM_TERRMAN_PROC_REL

Introduction to Business Requirement:

I felt this need while working on SAP CRM upgrade project where the customer was making use of territory management and they were making changes to the customer <-> territory relationships very frequently. In CRM 7 where the territory solution is rule based, making changes to the customer assignment in territory on web UI and updating this relationship in table CRMD_TERR_ACCREL are two different steps. You cannot expect the right territory manager to be determined while creating an order before both steps are executed. Step 2 is executing report CRM_TERRMAN_PROC_REL in background. According to SAP best practices you should be scheduling this report to execute in background at regular interval (of say 3 hours) but what happens to the orders which are created after a change is made to the customer assignment to territory and before program CRM_TERRMAN_PROC_REL executed in background as per the schedule?

Here comes the need for scheduling this report program to execute in background forever.

I wanted to achieve this by configuration (it’s a best practice) so I started a discussion on SCN for this where I got a satisfactory answer but it landed me into another issue. Below is the link to that discussion:

http://scn.sap.com/thread/3884326

Conclusion: There are different ways of achieving this

Solution 1: By configuration (as answered in the discussion/thread above)

1. Create a custom event using SM62
2. Schedule a job using SM36. It should be a two-step periodic job
   1. Step 1: the main program which needs to run as background job
   2. Step 2: the program BTC_EVENT_RAISE to raise the custom event
3. Raise the custom event manually once by executing BTC_EVENT_RAISE (in background or foreground)

Pros:

1. It doesn’t need any coding

Cons:

1. Event created for this purpose can only be used for execution of one program. For more than one program more events needs to be created.
2. If the report execution in background takes very small time then it is very difficult to stop the job execution. It keeps executing in background forever

Solution 2: Write a custom program which keeps executing main program in background

Pros:

1. This single program can be used to schedule different programs’ execution in background
2. The recurrence can easily be controlled by stopping execution of custom program in SM37

Cons:

1. It needs a custom program

Program code:

*&———————————————————————*
*& Report  ZSCHEDULE_RECURRING_JOB
*&———————————————————————*

REPORT zschedule_recurring_job.

DATA: lv_jname          TYPE btcjob,
lv_jcnt           TYPE btcjobcnt,
ls_prn_param      TYPE pri_params,
lt_joblist        TYPE TABLE OF tbtcjob,
lv_active         TYPE boolean.

PARAMETERS: p_pause     TYPE i DEFAULT 10,      ” Pause between execution of two instances
p_prog      TYPE PROGNAME DEFAULT ‘CRM_TERRMAN_PROC_REL’,
p_var       TYPE BTCVARIANT DEFAULT ‘INITIAL’.

DO.

IF lv_active EQ abap_false.

WAIT UP TO p_pause SECONDS.

* Prepare job name
lv_jname = p_prog.

* Job open
CALL FUNCTION ‘JOB_OPEN’
EXPORTING
jobname          = lv_jname
IMPORTING
jobcount         = lv_jcnt
EXCEPTIONS
cant_create_job  = 1
invalid_job_data = 2
jobname_missing  = 3
OTHERS           = 4.
IF sy–subrc = 0.

* Submit the report to execute in background
SUBMIT (p_prog) USING SELECTION–SET P_VAR TO SAP–SPOOL
SPOOL PARAMETERS ls_prn_param
WITHOUT SPOOL DYNPRO
VIA JOB lv_jname NUMBER lv_jcnt
AND RETURN.

IF sy–subrc = 0.

* Job close
CALL FUNCTION ‘JOB_CLOSE’
EXPORTING
jobcount             = lv_jcnt
jobname              = lv_jname
strtimmed            = ‘X’
EXCEPTIONS
cant_start_immediate = 1
invalid_startdate    = 2
jobname_missing      = 3
job_close_failed     = 4
job_nosteps          = 5
job_notex            = 6
lock_failed          = 7
OTHERS               = 8.
ENDIF.

ENDIF.

ENDIF.

lv_active = abap_true.
CLEAR lt_joblist.

CALL FUNCTION ‘BP_FIND_JOBS_WITH_PROGRAM’
EXPORTING
abap_program_name             = p_prog
status                        = ‘R’                             ” Running
TABLES
joblist                       = lt_joblist
EXCEPTIONS
no_jobs_found                 = 1
program_specification_missing = 2
invalid_dialog_type           = 3
job_find_canceled             = 4
OTHERS                        = 5.

IF lt_joblist IS INITIAL.
lv_active = abap_false.
ELSE.
WAIT UP TO 2 SECONDS.
ENDIF.

ENDDO.