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SAP Banking |
SAP Banking |
SAP Financial Closing Cockpit |
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In cooperation with major European banks, SAP has developed an account management solution with SAP for Banking. AE developers have been working on integrating this new SAP solution into the well-proven Process Management.
The result is the AE agent for SAP AM/BCA which provides comprehensive process management power for banking transactions. AE integrates the new SAP solution into its centralized process management and secures business processes at enterprise-wide level and across all platforms.
A particular feature of SAP Transaction Banking is that entire processes can be stored in the Customizing. The process definition corresponds to a kind of JobPlan (tabular maintenance). These processes are mainly called end-of-day processes.
When controlling these processes you must consider the following factors:
Process network
A process network is created and monitored via a menu function from within a process definition in Customizing. It has a unique ID which must be specified for each run. A process network contains a set of processes. A process is an application function which technically is always processed in two steps:
The entire application (including the monitoring part) can be processed synchronously or asynchronously.
Synchronous processing
The application function including monitoring is processed synchronously from within a function module i.e. the function module ends synchronously with the application function.
Asynchronous processing
The application function and the monitoring are both started as background jobs with the monitoring job always following the application job.
Processes with parallelization
Paralleled processing (similar to IS-U/IS-T) is provided for particular processes (with mass data). Unfortunately there is no basic functionality for this kind of request.
A process with parallelization creates parallel background jobs i.e. a parallel background job and a subsequent monitoring job. If the process starts asynchronously, an additional parent job is created (followed by a monitoring job) which is active for the entire runtime of the process.
Processes have an application return code. A normal technical status (e.g. Job ended) cannot sufficiently ensure successful processing. The individual components of a process (function module, ABAP, monitoring ABAP, etc.) are also written to an application log.
Process networks are integrated in dialog functions and initiated by them. Depending on the individual application, processes are initiated synchronously or asynchronously (jobs running a long time are always asynchronous).
An AE workflow corresponds to the processing definition in SAP's Customizing. Workflow tasks represent processes.
SAP's basic job control does not provide the appropriate means to control processes in AM/BCA. Standard background jobs are not suitable for controlling individual processes as the application function's monitoring part would not start. Thus, no application return code would be created.
Adjusting all application programs in a way that the monitoring function could run implicitly would have been counterproductive. It would have resulted in many programs and the application return code would have been communicated via the job log.
The alternative was to create a process network with an individual ID for each task in the SAP system from within an AE workflow. This process network always contains only one process. If this process starts via the process network, two asynchronous batch jobs are created in the SAP system, the application function and the monitoring function.
New script elements are available in AE for controlling such processes (BCA_ACTIVATE_PROCESS).
In order to enable AE monitoring (status checks), SAP has extended its interface by a corresponding function.
Starting and monitoring processes
This function uses a single process in a process network, while also starting and monitoring it. When the process ends, the process network also ends because it only contains this single process.
Analyzing application return codes
Single processes supply application return codes. AE can analyze them (e.g. in post script) and react to them.
Analyzing application logs
Processes of a process network write to application logs. Unfortunately, there is no 1:1 relation between a process or process network and an application log.
Thus, the AE analysis of application logs provides different information.
This AE function can be used to select application logs according to particular criteria (the results are log numbers). Application log messages and texts can then be read using these log numbers. Text outputs are written to a text file or report.
Integration into job networks
AE integrates processes in SAP AM/BCA into enterprise-wide JobPlans. Interdependencies with processing in other SAP or non-SAP systems can easily be implemented and monitored.
Comprehensive statistics
Comprehensive statistics are provided for all AE-controlled processes. They can be used for later analyses and future planning. This also applies to processes in SAP for Banking.
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Script Element |
Description |
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Starts and monitors a process which runs in a separate process network. |