Author: saptechnicalguru

SAP GUI Scripting

Diverse tools use SAP GUI scripting: test tools to perform regression testing, load testing, solution manager CBTA, etc. Also robotizing tools often use GUI scripting.

Questions that will be answered in this blog are:

  • How to enable GUI scripting in the SAP system?
  • How to make sure only the allowed users run GUI scripting?
  • How can I record an SAP GUI script and execute a playback of the recorded script?

Server side enabling GUI scripting

First you need to allow GUI scripting on the server side. This can be done by setting system parameter sapgui/user_scripting to the value TRUE. This is done in transaction RZ11.

Client side enabling GUI scripting

In your SAP gui, goto the options. In the Accessibility & Scripting part, enable the scripting.

At the top part you can see the installation status of scripting tools from SAP itself.

Securing scripting

If you want to securely control which user is allowed to use and execute scripting, you have to set the system parameter sapgui/user_scripting to TRUE. Now any user who is having the authorization object S_SCR is allowed to perform scripting. User who lack the authorization object will cannot run the script.

More information can be found in OSS note 983990 – SAP GUI Scripting security: Enable Scripting per system user. And OSS note 2565390 – SAP GUI Scripting: Changed behavior for combination of profile parameters sapgui/user_scripting_set_readonly and sapgui/user_scripting_per_user.

Security guide for SAP GUI scripting can be found in this link.

Recording and playing an SAP GUI script

You can record a script by going to the button Customize Layout and selecting the option Script Recording and Playback..:

Now the GUI scripting record and playback tool opens:

By pressing record, you can start recording a script. When you are done stop it and save it. You can playback a script with the play button.

Sample applications can be found in OSS note 1441550 – SAP GUI scripting: Sample applications.

More background information

More information can be found in OSS note 2296251 – How can SAP GUI Scripting be enabled?. And 2811334 – Prerequisites to record a SAP Gui Script.

Restrictions of SAP GUI scripting are listed in OSS note 587202 – Restrictions when using SAP GUI Scripting.

Note search for messages

If you are in an SAP transaction and you are confronted with a strange error message, you would like to know if there are OSS notes for this message you are having.

As example we take a message in ME21N transaction. If you have the error, double click on the error message for the details:

Now press the SAP Notes/Search KBA button highlighted in the screen shot above. The system will now search in OSS notes for this specific message and situation. Since our case is simple we get a nothing found message:

More background on this tool: see OSS note 2096401 – FAQs: Performance Assistant – SAP Notes and KBAs search by PANKS.

SAP message server

System parameter rdisp/msserv_internal is used to set the internal message server port.

You can monitor the message server via transaction SMMS:

Here can see the internal communication port (3901 in this case) as well.

From the menu all the needed tools can be started.

Bug notes

Bug notes:

Debug batch programs

This blog will explain how to debug a background batch program with real background mode (SY-BATCH is X).

Questions that will be answered are:

  • How to debug a running job?
  • How to debug a completed job?

Starting the debug mode for batch job

First we plan a single run of the batch job. In our example we run program RSWAITSEC which does nothing more than wait.

In SM37 show the job run:

Select the job and in the command line enter the background debug command JDBG:

Now the debugger starts first in the batch job part. Hit F7 a few time (F7 = jump back out of routine) until you reach the real program:

As you can see here the SY-BATCH variable is X, which means you are debugging with real background mode on.

SM50 background debugging

If you want to debug a running job, you have to goto SM50 and select the background process. Then choose the menu option Administration / Program / Debugging. Confirm the prompt:

Wait until the running SQL statement has completed and debug mode will start.

Please be very careful with this kind of debugging in a productive system. If you cancel the debug session there might be a rollback work statement triggered, which can cause database inconsistencies.

Reference notes

573128 – Debugging programs in the background

Batch jobs tips & tricks

This blog will give tips and tricks on batch jobs.

Questions that will be answered are:

  • How to check a job is not running already before starting new one?
  • How to build in a wait step into a batch job?
  • How to set the RV variables automatically in table TVARVC?
  • How to validate that the basic batch job system is working ok?
  • How to analyze the jobs running in my system?
  • How to mass stop and start batch jobs?
  • How to set up batch job interception?
  • How to ignore large spool output of batch jobs?
  • How to see the batch job delay timing?
  • How to plan standard jobs in S4HANA?
  • How do I set up batch job server groups?
  • How can I mail the spool of a batch job?
  • How can I mail if job was successful or not?
  • How to check the consistency of the batch job tables and how to repair?
  • How can I archive a print list?
  • How can I archive a job log?
  • How can I get job statistics?
  • How to read content from batch job variants?
  • How to find batch jobs with deleted or locked step users?
  • How to debug a batch job?
  • How to find who deleted a batch job?
  • How to check in case of batch job delay?
  • How to quickly check health of batch job scheduler?
  • How to trigger batch job event?

SAP FAQ note on background jobs

SAP has FAQ note on background jobs: 3008195 – FAQ: Background Processing BC-CCM-BTC-*.

Prevention of same job still running

If you want to prevent same job from starting, while a previous instance is still running, you need to add program RSBTONEJOB or RSBTONEJOB2 as first step in the batch job. This step will detect if the previous instance is still running and abort to avoid the next steps from being executed. More background in OSS note 557610. The scope of both programs is in principle limited to be used for idocs and CUA. To extend the scope or in case of issues, read the instructions in note 3225033 – Behavior of program RSBTONEJOB, RSBTONEJOB2 not as expected.

Forcing a batch program to wait

If for some reason you need a batch program to wait between steps, you can use program RSWAITSEC as a step. This program will only do a wait for x amount of seconds.

Setting current date in the TVARVC table for the RV variables

The RV variables for current date, month and year are often used in month end closing batch jobs. Running program RVSETDAT will set the current dates for RV TVARC variables.

Checking basis background job system settings and working

If you want to validate if the background job system function itself is working properly, start transaction SM65 background processing analysis tool.

SM65 start screen

Result is shown correct working, number of batches and wait time:

SM65 result screen

Bug fixes for SM65:

Background job analysis tool

Start transaction ST13 and start tool BACKGROUND_JOB_ANALYSIS. Or directly start program /SSA/BTC.

Batch job analysis tool

Pending on your selection you get a graphical overview or a full list for you to speed up your analysis.

Mass stop and start of batch jobs

Also check this note for clean up of BTCDELAY table: 3222291 – Superfluos Entries in BTCDELAY Table.

In some cases you might want to find out who manually deleted a batch job.

Unfortunately you first need to activate the logging via program BTCAUX06:

To view job deletions you need to go to transaction SM51, menu option Goto, Trace, Instance Trace, Search Trace. Then look for pattern BP_JOB_DELETE.

More information in OSS note 850885 – Logging the deletion of jobs and 3325374 – How to log job deleted in Background Processing.

A batch job is not started immediately, but with a delay. This delay is set via RZ11 parameter rdisp/btctime and default setting is 60 seconds. More information can be found in OSS note 923228 – Background job scheduler: Use of processes that have become free.

See new note 3236046 – Test report for immediate start for program BTCAUX25 that will test immediate start.

Standard batch jobs in S4HANA

Standard batch jobs in S4HANA are planned via transaction SJOBREPO. For more details read the dedicated blog.

Batch job server groups

If you have a large production system with many application servers you can setup batch job server groups to have batch jobs run on a set of dedicated application servers. To set up batch job server groups start transaction SM61 and click the button Job server groups:

Job server groups

Here you can define the job server group and assign application servers to them. Background is in OSS note 612838 – Administration of job server groups.

job statistics

This gives statistical output:

Job statistics output

Batch jobs with deleted or locked step users

If a batch job step user is locked or deleted, that step will fail. To find such batch jobs, follow the steps as described in this blog.

Batch job delay

Batch job delay can be set with parameter rdisp/btctime. Default is 60 seconds.

See also OSS notes 3080021 – Jobs are started with delay and 3148846 – Background Jobs with status “No free batch work processes available”.

And these notes:

3275278 – Background jobs are started with delay / 3355049 – Correction for Note 3275278.

How to read content from batch job variants

In quite some cases the basis team is asked: in which batch job variant is this company code XXXX used? Or we need to add another sales organization to all the batch jobs, can you provide us a list with jobs using sales organization YYYY? How to get this data is answered in this dedicated blog.

How to check health of batch job scheduler

Start transaction SM61. Now select the Time-Driven scheduler. Select the server and choose the health check tab. Now press the check button:

Batch job event triggers

Batch jobs can also be triggered using events. Read more in this blog on batch job event triggers.

Batch job monitoring

Batch job monitoring can be done with SAP Focused Run. Read more in this blog.

Background OSS notes

3008195 – FAQ: Background Processing BC-CCM-BTC-*

S4HANA readiness check 2.0

SAP has released the S4HANA readiness check 2.0.

This blog will answer the following questions:

  • How to install S4HANA readiness check 2.0?
  • How to run the S4HANA readiness check 2.0?
  • How to see the results for the S4HANA readiness check 2.0?
  • Where to find more background information on the SAP readiness check 2.0?

How to install S4HANA readiness check 2.0?

SAP OSS note 2758146 – SAP Readiness Check 2.0 & Next Generation SAP Business Scenario Recommendations and 2913617 – SAP Readiness Check 2.0 contain all the installation instructions.

Short sequence of steps:

  1. de-implement OSS note 2310438 – SAP Readiness Check for SAP S/4HANA – Managed System if it was applied
  2. Implement OSS note 2745851 – Business Process Improvement Content for SAP Readiness Check 2.0 and Next Generation SAP Business Scenario Recommendations
  3. Update or implement OSS note 2185390 – Custom Code Analyzer
  4. Update or implement OSS note 1872170 – ABAP on HANA sizing report (S/4HANA, Suite on HANA…)
  5. Update or implement OSS note 2399707 – Simplification Item Check
  6. Implement OSS note 2769657 – Interface Discovery for IDoc as part of Readiness Check
  7. Implement OSS note 2612179 – DVM API to trigger and monitor DVM ST14 analyses for Readiness Check
  8. Implement OSS note 2972792 – Financial Data Quality: Trigger Data Collection Reports to Check Your Financial Data Quality and to Enable the Financial Data Quality Check in SAP Readiness Check
  9. Implement OSS note 2903677 – SAP Readiness Check: Effort Drivers of Simplification Items Check
  10. Implement OSS note 3010669 – Enhancements to SAP Readiness Check Dashboard for Business Partner/CVI
  11. Implement OSS note 2758146 itself

Next to these notes, if you are using ATC, it is wise to also apply OSS note 2781766 – Enabling ATC check result export for SAP Readiness Check 2.0.

Also apply the notes mentioned in OSS note 3061414 – Enabling extended integration impact analysis for SAP Readiness Check, if you want to include ALE scenario’s in your analysis.

As you can see from the list of OSS notes there are improvements in the area of idocs, data volume management and business process analysis.

For this reason SAP recommends to run the S4HANA readiness tool on productive system.

It is possible to run on a recent copy, provided you copy the ST03N data from production to the recent copy. This process is described in OSS note 2568736 – SAP Readiness Check for SAP S/4HANA – copy ST03N data.

Troubleshooting guide is OSS note 2968380 – SAP Readiness Check Report 2.0 – troubleshooting guide.

Other notes to check:

Run S4HANA readiness check 2.0

There are 2 data analysis programs to run: SYCM_DOWNLOAD_REPOSITORY_INFO and RC_COLLECT_ANALYSIS_DATA.

First you run SYCM_DOWNLOAD_REPOSITORY_INFO on development system to fetch information about your Z coding:

The tool will launch batch job. After job is done download the zipfile to your local PC.

If you are asked to regenerate the ABAP indexes run program SAPRSEUC in the background and be very patient. See blog on ABAP where used index for more background information. See also OSS note 2655768 - Custom Code Analyzer - The where-used list index for customer objects is not up to date.

Second program you need to run on production. So you first need to transport all the notes to production. The notes are large and can take up to 20 minutes import time. So take a quiet time at the productive system to import them.

Start program RC_COLLECT_ANALYSIS_DATA in your productive system:

Select your target version and press execute. This will launch multiple batch jobs. Wait for all the jobs to finish and start program again to download the ZIP file to your PC.

CVI integration

As explained in OSS note 3071549 – Buttons in the report RC_COLLECT_ANALYSIS_DATA the report RC_COLLECT_ANALYSIS_DATA now has a link to the CVI integration (customer vendor).

Financial Data Quality (FDQ)

The newer version of S4HANA readiness report has option analyze the financial data quality. This is important, since a lot of time and effort during the conversion is spend on the financial data migration.

Follow the instructions in OSS note 2972792 – Financial Data Quality: Trigger Data Collection Reports to Check Your Financial Data Quality and to Enable the Financial Data Quality Check in SAP Readiness Check to enable this function.

Data profiling

More information the data profiling done by the readiness check can be found in OSS note 3112362 – SAP Readiness Check for SAP ERP Usage and Data Profiling.

Uploading the data

SAP OSS note 2758146 – SAP Readiness Check 2.0 & Next Generation SAP Business Scenario Recommendations contains the upload URL. The current URL is https://me.sap.com/readinesscheck.

Hit the start New Analysis button and upload the file from the RC_COLLECT_ANALYSIS_DATA program. Wait for the SAP site to finish the analysis. It will be visible on the site as Recent Analysis.

Don’t forget to push the update analysis button to upload the second file with the custom code analysis from program SYCM_DOWNLOAD_REPOSITORY_INFO.

The results

Now you can start to enjoy the results:

You can use the settings button to allow more people to view the analysis results.

The results are subject to authorizations. This is explained in OSS note 3310759 – Revised Authorization Concept for SAP Readiness Check.

File interface discovery tool

In the result section for interfaces you might see that the Flat File interface section is empty and refers to OSS note 3322944 – File interface discovery for SAP Readiness Check – incl. corrections for ST-A/PI 01V* SP01 or SP02 (or SP03 if AIX).

These steps are explain in this dedicated blog.

New functions

SAP keeps on improving the readiness check 2.0. The new features are published in SAP blog.

Background information

More background information can be found at:

More S4HANA conversion preparation steps

For more S4HANA conversion preparation steps, read this blog.

Table logging

Table logging captures all table changes. This blog will answer the following questions:

  • How to activate table logging in general?
  • How to check if for specific table the logging is active?
  • How to check table changes for a specific customizing action?
  • How to check general table change?
  • How to delete table logging?
  • When not to use table logging?
  • How can I review table logging for audit purposes?

Table logging activation

In RZ11 system parameter Rec/Client determines the table logging for the complete system. Make sure the value is set to ALL.

See also OSS note 2437986 – SCU3 | How to enable logging in the system. And explanation note 3000730 – Impact on enabling table logging with profile parameter rec/client.

As of new S4HANA 2021 installations or upgrades the activation is done by default: 3093760 – Table Data Change Logs In ABAP Platform.

Table logging per table

In transaction SE11 enter the table you want to check and then go to the technical settings. As example table T000:

SE11 technical settings table logging

At the section Data Changes you can see that Log Changes has been activated.

Mandatory table logging

In OSS note 112388 – Tables with obligatory logging the mandatory table logging is explained. Which tables are logged is explained in OSS note 2543478 – SCU3 | Which tables are logged?.

How to view table changes?

The common way to view table changes is via transaction SCU3. At the start screen press the button analyze logs:

In the next selection screen enter the table to analyze. In this example we analyze table T000:

T000 table changes

Make sure to set the radio button to Tables. Output of the changes to table T000 then looks as follows:

T000 table changes output

Here you can see changes done by user ILLEGALUSER. At which date and time they were done, and the old and new value.

See also OSS note: 3311577 – SCU3 | How to find out, if table change logs exists for a specific time interval.

Bug fixes:

Checking table changes from customizing

If you are in a customizing action and you want to see who did perform changes, select the menu Utilities and then option Change Log. Select date and time frame to analyze and press Execute. As example here changes to Plant Definition (table T001W):

T001w changes

See also OSS note 3195801 – SPRO | SM30 | How to check the result of a customizing transport and 1834956 – SCU3 | How to enable logging for importing to the system via tp (or R3trans).

Custom tables and standard SAP tables

By default a lot of SAP configuration and important setting tables have the log changes activated. But not all. It is not uncommon to activate table logging for standard SAP configuration tables important for your business. For important custom configuration Z tables you might want to activate table logging.

Table logging is not a replacement for change documents. Standard SAP generates change documents for changes to documents that must be kept for tracking and audit purposes. This is common for all major transnational objects and its underlying tables. That is why for example for an important table like VBAK (sales order header) the table logging is off: change documents are already generated.

It is very bad practice to make use of table logging for business data reasons. Table logging is used for recording changes to configuration and if all theses logs are deleted there should be no business impact.

Background OSS note: 3153906 – SCU3 | How to enable logging for tables in customer name space.

Deletion of table logging

Table logging can be deleted with transaction SLG2.

Make sure only very limited amount of people have access to SLG2 and the below program SBAL_DELETE.

SLG2 can run for a long time. For background read OSS note 2507213 – SBAL_DELETE runs too long. 

Please be aware the deletion is cross client! See OSS note 3000914 – SCU3 | RSTBPDEL | Caution: The table is cross-client.

Other bug fix notes:

Review of table logging for audit

OSS note 112388 – SAP system audit | Tables requiring logging explains the audit relevance of table logging and explanation about program RDDPRCHK.

Table logging can be reviewed with program RDDPRCHK:

Bug fixes for RDDPRCHK:

SAT ABAP runtime analysis for ABAP web applications

SAT ABAP runtime analysis is a great tool for analyzing performance issues. This tool can also be used to analyze ABAP web dynpro and FIORI applications. For more background on SAT tool itself, read this blog.

Questions that will be answered in this blog are:

  • How to run SAT tool for ABAP web applications?

Running SAT tool for ABAP web applications

Start transaction SAT, and press the button Schedule in the block For User/Service.

You now reach the measurement overview screen:

Now select the Schedule Measurement button. In the next screen fill out the user to trace and very important: switch the object type to URL and process type to HTTP:

Do not press the schedule measurement button yet. First go to the ABAP web application to the part you want to measure for performance. Afterwards delete the browser, since it will keep on sending data.

No you have to go back to the SAT start screen and click on the tab Evaluate:

Double click on your measurement line. The system will now read the measurement log files and process them. This can take some time. The end result screen looks again like a normal SAT result screen:

SAT ABAP runtime analysis

The SAT ABAP runtime analysis tool can be used to identify performance problems in ABAP programs.

Questions that will be answered in this blog are:

  • How to run the SAT tool?
  • How to read the results of the SAT tool?

Starting the SAT tool

The SAT ABAP runtime analysis tool can be started with transaction SAT:

Top left there is a Tips & Tricks button. This will bring you the to the following tool:

Here you can compare the optimal and not optimal way of coding. By hitting measure runtime button you can actually compare in real time the difference between the 2 methods.

The performance issue program

To test the tool, we first write a simple test program:

REPORT zperftest2.

DATA: zlt_vbak TYPE TABLE OF vbak.
DATA: zls_vbak TYPE vbak.
DATA: zlt_vbap TYPE TABLE OF vbap.
DATA: zls_vbap TYPE vbap.
DATA: zls_vbap2 TYPE vbap.

SELECT * FROM vbak INTO TABLE zlt_vbak UP TO 100 ROWS.

LOOP AT zlt_vbak INTO zls_vbak.
  SELECT * FROM vbap INTO zls_vbap.
    DO 10000 TIMES.
      zls_vbap2 = zls_vbap.
    ENDDO.
  ENDSELECT.
ENDLOOP.

Now we start the SAT tool, enter the program name. Make sure the tick box evaluate immediately is on and press Execute.

Now the measurement will start.

Result of the trace tool

The result of the trace tool is as follows:

On the left side you see the split in where the program spends it time. Here you can see that most of the time is spend on internal processing and not on SQL statements. SQL statement can be analyzed from the SAT tool or from the ST05 SQL trace tool.

By double clicking on the the internal access the right hand side of the screen is filled. Here you can see in which code blocks the most net and gross time is spent. It does not always point you to the exact statements that are not ok, but it can point you to the program that is causing the biggest delay.

In our case the DO 10000 TIMES loop is the performance killer. With only SQL tracing this cannot be found.

Runtime analysis for web applications

For runtime analysis for web applications, read this dedicated blog.

Relevant OSS notes

Check and if needed you can apply these OSS notes to solve bugs in the SAT tool:

ST05 SQL performance tracing

Performance issue solving is an important job for ABAP and basis consultant. One of the helpful tools is ST05 SQL performance trace tool.

Questions that will be answered in this blog are:

  • How to switch on ST05 SQL trace?
  • How to read the results from the ST05 SQL trace?
  • How to use the ST05 SQL trace with multiple application servers?

The test program

First we create a small test program for our performance analysis.

REPORT zperftest.

DATA: zlt_vbak TYPE TABLE OF vbak.
DATA: zls_vbak TYPE vbak.
DATA: zlt_vbap TYPE TABLE OF vbap.
DATA: zls_vbap TYPE vbap.

SELECT * FROM vbak INTO TABLE zlt_vbak UP TO 1000 ROWS.

LOOP AT zlt_vbak INTO zls_vbak.
  SELECT * FROM vbap INTO zls_vbap.
    DO 10 TIMES.
      CALL FUNCTION 'BAPI_MATERIAL_EXISTENCECHECK'
        EXPORTING
          material = zls_vbap-matnr+0(18).
    ENDDO.
  ENDSELECT.
ENDLOOP.

Off course this program is written very badly to be really slow and making performance issues.

ST05 SQL trace

Start the ST05 SQL trace tool with transaction code ST05.

You can activate the trace for all users with the button Activate trace. But this is usually not needed and will only give you a long trace to analyze.

The usual method is to activate the trace with a filter, mostly on user name to trace a specific user action:

If the authorization team already started on ST01 authorization trace, you cannot start the SQL trace. First stop the ST01 trace.

Now you can start the performance test program in a different session. Just wait until it is finished. It is important the user you are tracing is only doing this action and does not perform any other action, since these other actions are also recorded and will make the analysis harder to read.

When completed go back to the ST05 and click Deactivate trace.

Trace analysis based on duration

Now press the Display trace to see the results. If your trace is large you will get this screen:

This is quite common and click yes. If your result is really too big, change the 5000 on the first screen in to a good maximum, or try to record a smaller time frame.

Result now looks like this after sorting on the column duration:

You can see that the total SQL commands took 48 seconds in total. The longest SQL single command took 78 milliseconds (which is very fast, so long running SQL’s are not the issue in this example).

In your case you might find very large single SQL commands. By selecting the line and pressing the button Display ABAP call location, you can jump to the place in the coding that fired the SQL command.

Summarized trace analysis

Since we have many records and many small ones, we need to use the summary tools. In the trace analysis select menu path Trace and then Structure Identical statements. This will give the following surprisingly short overview:

In the third column you can see that there are 100 identical calls, and also a high number of redundant calls.

If you now click on the second line to the ABAP call position you jump to our badly performing program and see that the majority of the delay is coming from the do 100 times loop. The first line is coming from standard SAP in the BAPI call.

This happens in real live as well that not all calls will point you into the right program. You might have to check multiple lines to find the right program causing the issue.

Multiple application servers

Development systems normally have only 1 application server. Productive servers can have more. If you have to analyze a performance issue directly on production with ST05, you have to be aware that the performance trace is per application server. If needed, you can select in ST05 as specific server, or you can select all. The trace display is still per server.

Relevant OSS notes

Notes to check or to apply: