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rozytamary_n
Associate
Associate


Beginning of March 2021, the SAP EarlyWatch Alert service was enhanced to reflect application checks for SAP Extended Warehouse Management (EWM).
This new functionality was initiated via collaboration between the SAP Mission Control Center, SAP Extended Warehouses Management (EWM) experts, and SAP Customer Success targeting all SAP EWM customers who send data to SAP.
The automated service analyzes the essential administrative services of the customer systems, alerts on any critical situations and offers recommendations/solutions to improve performance and stability .

These alerts  can be viewed in the SAP EarlyWatch Alert Solution Finder by selecting the Category -> Application → Extended Warehouse Management .


The EWM (Extended Warehouse Management) Specific checks were introduced as part of the ST-SER release 720 with the aim to fulfill the following aspects:

  • Proactive update to Customers on issues and recommendations to prevent issues

  • Customers can react to issues such as bottlenecks before they become critical

  • Minimize risk of critical down time

  • Minimize risk of critical data consistency issues

  • Providing information about critical fixes and service packages required for safe system operations

  • Ensuring System Performance and Product Stability


Pre-requisite: Allow Online Collectors in your system with the report RTCCTOOL.

Checks which are already released to the customers are as follows:

  1. LIME Inconsistency check - Released in calendar week 10, 2021

  2. System Parameters check for Enqueue Server - Released in calendar week 17, 2021

  3. Capacity Update check for Non-final Storage Types - Released in calendar week 17, 2021, updated calendar 16, 2022

  4. Failed and Unprocessed Queues in SMQ1 and SMQ2 (older than 2 weeks) - Released in calendar week 17, 2021

  5. Failed and Unprocessed PPF Actions in EWM (older than 2 weeks) - Released in calendar week 24, 2021

  6. Update Termination due to missing Handling Units in TU - Released in calendar week 24, 2021

  7. Recommendation on Latest Support-pack for EWM - Released in calendar week 29, 2021

  8. Missing important EWM SAP Notes

    1. for Warehouse Order Processing related Inconsistencies - Released in calendar week 29, 2021

    2. for Physical Inventory related inconsistencies - Released in calendar week 12, 2022

    3. for Delivery Processing related inconsistencies - Released in calendar week 21, 2022



  9. Saved Queues in SMQ3 older than 365 days - Released in calendar week 29, 2021

  10. Recommended Background Jobs not set up in EWM - Released in calendar week 32, 2021

  11. Archiving not set up for EWM Objects - Released in calendar week 35, 2021

  12. Missing SAP Notes for EWM Correction Functionality - Released in calendar week 46, 2021

  13. Overdue Outbound Deliveries created more than a year ago - Released in calendar week 49, 2021

  14. Overdue Warehouse Tasks created more than a year ago - Released in calendar week 06, 2022

  15. EWM Check Monitor Statistics collection for inconsistencies correction - Released in calendar week 14, 2022

  16. Flexible Loading in EWM - Released in calendar week 20, 2022

  17. Missing Side Effect solving SAP Notes in EWM - Released in calendar week 26, 2022

  18. Mixed usage of metrics units of measure and imperial units of measure for same product in EWM - Released in calendar week 40, 2022

  19. Tiny Leftover Quantities (<0.001) of EWM Storage Bins which block put away - Released in calendar week 41, 2022

  20. Rounding residuals which should be posted from the EWM difference analyzer - Released in calendar week 13,2023


LIME Inconsistency Check

This check triggers an alert to customers who are at the risk of having inconsistencies due to overload on the Enqueue Server. The overload is a consequence of SAP Note 2582237.The SAP Note itself is delivered as part of the Support Pack upgrade or can be manually downloaded by the customer.

To prevent these inconsistencies on the Lime Table, implementation of the SAP Note 2857030 is needed.

Customers will have a decisive red alert in their EarlyWatch Alert report for this check in the chapter for Extended Warehouse Management.

Systems Parameter check for Enqueue Server

The check is introduced to alert customers by pro-actively checking their values set for parameters enque/table_size, enque/snapshot_pck_size and enque/snapshot_pck_ids for the ASCS instance profile of the Enqueue Server.

If the values are not as per the recommendation in the SAP Note 3061137 (enque/snapshot_pck_size * enque/snapshot_pck_ids / 1024 >= enque/table_size), this leads to an overhead on the Enqueue Server and caused inconsistencies in the EWM System.

Customers will have red alert and the corresponding details in their SAP EarlyWatch Alert report for this check.

Capacity Update check for Non-final Storage Types

‘No capacity update check for Non-final storage types’ is introduced to alert with ‘YELLOW’ rating to customers who have non-final storage types without the flag ‘No Capacity update’ with the recommendation of SAP Note 3190865.

A 'RED' alert is triggered to customers systems where we identified long locks on the /SCWM/LAGP table as one of the top 5 SQL statements along with non-final storage types where the 'no capacity update' indicator is not set with the recommendation of SAP Note 3190865.

After evaluating the relevance of the flag for the non-final storage types and the business process impact, the customers can set the flag for “No Capacity Update” for the non-final storage types, thereby preventing unnecessary DB locks.

Failed and Unprocessed Queues in SMQ1 and SMQ2 (older than 2 weeks)

Due to lack of timely monitoring, customers only realize that there is a hanging queue when a delivery completion or a TU completion cannot be done. At this point, this issue becomes business critical.

This check is introduced to alert the Customers with a ‘RED’ rating in case of failed queues in SMQ1 and SMQ2 older than 2 weeks. An alert with ‘YELLOW’ rating is triggered in case of unprocessed queues in SMQ1 and SMQ2 older than 2 weeks .

This way, customers are made aware of the hanging queues pro-actively and they can act before it becomes critical.

Failed and Unprocessed PPF Actions in EWM (older than 2 weeks)

Unprocessed PPF actions which are scheduled but never executed and long running PPF actions are one of the key contributors in degrading the system performance.

On the other hand, failed PPF actions in EWM can have a serious business impact as they can prevent certain follow up actions and failure of communications which are dependent on the execution of the PPF actions.

Therefore, it becomes necessary that customer is aware of this well in advance to mitigate and fix such issues. Reference SAP Note 1423066, bullet point "Deactivation of PPF action definitions that are not used".

The EarlyWatch Alert check is introduced to alert the Customer with a ‘RED’ rating in case on failed PPF actions and a ‘YELLOW’ rating in case of unprocessed PPF actions.  Currently the first 50 entries for each of the entries is retrieved in the online collector and displayed on the EWA Report.

Update Termination due to missing Handling Units in TU 

This Check is introduced to alert the Customer with a ‘YELLOW’ rating in case the below conditions are fulfilled:

  • Customer uses yard management functionality and

  • Customer has implemented the SAP Note 2940387 and

  • Customer has not implemented the SAP Note 3008216


This way, customers are made aware of the SAP Note  3008216 which can prevent the unnecessary update terminations in EWM. It also ensures stability for custom code using this functionality.

Recommendation on Latest Support-pack for EWM 

This check is introduced to alert Customer with a 'YELLOW' rating in case the customer is on a support pack which is 5 Support-packs lower than the latest available Support-pack for the EWM version installed in their system.

Recommendation is for Customer to evaluate their upgrade strategy in order to get all new functionalities or latest corrections which may be relevant for their business process.

Missing important EWM SAP Notes for inconsitencies (Warehouse Order Processing , Physical Inventory ,Delivery Processing)

Missing / not implementing the important SAP Notes  could have many impacts in the Customer system.

This check is introduced to alert Customer with a 'YELLOW' rating in case they are missing the most important EWM SAP Notes that prevent inconsistencies and are relevant for the Support-pack installed on their EWM System.

There is plan to extend this check for other components of EWM in the near future.

Saved Queues in SMQ3 older than 365 days 

This check is introduced to alert the Customer with a ‘YELLOW’ rating in case there are queues saved in SMQ3 which are older than 1 year.

Recommendation is to evaluate all the queues older than 365 days saved in SMQ3. If the queues are relevant for Business, restore them to SMQ2, fix the error and process the queues.
If the queues are no longer needed, perform the necessary cleanup activities based on SAP Note 2558561

Recommended Background Jobs not set up in EWM 

This check is introduced to alert Customer with a ‘YELLOW’ rating in case there are some of the recommended background jobs missing and a ‘RED’ rating in case only 40% of the recommended background jobs are set up for EWM.

The check is performed for the Generic jobs on customer systems and link to the SAP Service Market place for EWM Operations guide for the scenario specific jobs relevant for the Customer is recommended.

Archiving not set up for EWM Objects

This check is introduced to alert Customer with a ‘YELLOW’ rating in case archiving is missing for some of the recommended EWM Objects (i.e. less than 70% of the recommended objects in EWM have the archiving set up) and a ‘RED’ rating in case only up to 20% of the recommended EWM Objects have the set up for archiving

Missing SAP Notes for EWM Correction Funtionality

This check is introduced to alert Customer with a ‘YELLOW’ rating in case they are missing the most important  SAP Notes for EWM Correction Functionality  relevant for the Support-pack installed on their EWM System.

It is recommended to implement the listed SAP Notes because they do not affect the coding in production environment and will help in quick correction time from SAP for incidents.

Overdue EWM Outbound deliveries created more than a year ago

This check is introduced to alert Customer with a ‘YELLOW’ rating in case they have open outbound deliveries in EWM which were created older than a year.

Recommendation is to evaluate all the deliveries and assess the business relevance for these documents. If business relevant, then perform the necessary steps for completing the documents. If not, then check if they are inconsistent and raise an oss incident if needed or perform necessary clean up activity.

Overdue EWM warehouse tasks created more than a year ago

This check is introduced to alert Customer with a ‘YELLOW’ rating in case they have overdue warehouse tasks in EWM which were created older than a year.

Recommendation is to evaluate all the warehouse tasks and assess the business relevance for these documents. If business relevant, then perform the necessary steps for completing the documents. If not, then check if they are inconsistent and raise an oss incident if needed or perform necessary clean up activity.

EWM Check Monitor Statistics Collections for corrections

This check is introduced to alert Customers with a ‘YELLOW’ rating in case the SAP Notes that collect statistics on inconsistencies corrections are missing.

Recommendation is to implement the below two SAP Notes for Statistics collection

–UDO report:     3142402

–Functionality:  3066391

And also, to implement the SAP Note 3085447, if relevant for the SAP_BASIS component installed on the system

Flexible Loading in EWM

This check is introduced to alert Customers with a 'YELLOW' rating when they do not have the 'Flexible Loading ' functionality activated in EWM.

Due to some limitations the EWM outbound process of item split hierarchies can get stuck with loading inconsistencies. Resolving such situations can be complex and time consuming and may require additional manual workarounds or even support from SAP to complete the Loading process. By enabling the Flexible Loading option, such issues can be avoided in the future.

More details can be found on SAP Note 2501753.

Recommendation is to activate the 'Flexible Loading' functionality.

Missing Side Effects solving SAP Notes in EWM

This check alerts customers with a 'YELLOW' rating when they are missing SAP Notes which solve/fix side effects in the system due to already implemented SAP Notes.

Currently the SAP Notes with priority 'High' are checked for and recommended with SAP EWA. This will be extended further for the 'Medium' and 'Low' priority SAP Notes in future.

Recommendation for this check is to implement the missing SAP Notes which solve the side effects. In cases where there is already an impact detected in the system, oss incidents may have to be created.

Mixed usage of metrics units of measure and imperial units of measure for same product in EWM

This check alerts customers with a 'RED' rating when they use both imperial units of measure and metrics units of measure for the same product in EWM which lead to rounding residuals.

Recommendation to prevent these issues is to implement the functionality as described in SAP Note 3138922, section 5. 'Activation of Rounding Residual Processing & Initial Cleanup'

Tiny Leftover Quantities (<0.001) on storage bins in EWM which block put away

This check alerts customers with a 'YELLOW' rating when they have tiny leftover stock in their EWM Bins (i.e., <0.01) which can block put away. This is one of the side effects of using both metrics units of measure and imperial units of measure for the same product.

Recommendation to prevent these issues is to implement the functionality as described in SAP Note 3138922, section 5. 'Activation of Rounding Residual Processing & Initial Cleanup'

Rounding residuals which should be posted from the EWM Difference Analyzer

This check alerts customers with a 'RED' rating when they have too many entries for rounding residuals on the EWM difference analyzer for certain combinations of stock attributes whose aggregated quantity is greater than 0.0005 and therefore should be posted to inventory management.

Recommendation to prevent these issues is to implement the functionality as described in SAP Note 3138922 , section 5. 'Activation of Rounding Residual Processing & Initial Cleanup' and section 6. 'Removal of Rounding Residuals from Difference Analyzer'

Further checks are under development and will follow on a regular basis, refer to the SAP Note 3018957.

SAP EarlyWatch Alert tool also provides application specific checks for Transportation Management (TM) are available since July 2021 - TM Blog.

For SAP EarlyWatch Alert activation details please refer to this blog post.

To get a comprehensive overview about the customer landscape SAP offers the SAP EarlyWatch Alert Workspace in the SAP ONE Support Launchpad. To view the latest alerts that have been raised in your system, you can access the SAP EarlyWatch Alert Solution Finder
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