Process Step Journal (FS-FND-PSJ)
As an application for message logging and message evaluation of asynchronous communication, the Process Step Journal (PSJ) plays an important part in monitoring complex business processes that are decentralized decentrally and run across all systems in multiple applications. Each application performs one or more subprocesses and is separate from other applications that participate in the process as whole.
Composite Applications, which are higher-level applications, take on the control the entire business process. They use their own logic to ensure optimum interaction between the individual applications. For this, you need the current status information for all process steps for each participating application. For example, a composite application needs to know whether an application has successfully completed all process steps of its subprocess. This information is needed to trigger other subprocesses which are based thereon. The composite application also needs to know whether errors have occurred in a process step. The composite application can then trigger follow up measures such as process steps for error handling.
The Process Step Journal provides this information in two phases: Logging and Evaluation. During logging, the PSJ saves locally all the required process step data for a cross-system business process. During the evaluation, it derives the aggregated process step status for each service message (and for each process step) across all systems from the existing data. Then it provides the results to the Composite Application in the Process Activity Overview to determine the overall process status and for additional process control
If you want to use the Process Step Journal for a cross-system evaluation of your business processes, you have to ensure the communication between the process components Process Integration Activity Journal (Provider) and Business Document Flow Processing (Consumer) as well as their business objects, ProcessIntegrationActivityJournalEntry and BusinessDocumentMessageMonitoringView. Each business object has an enterprise service (find) that makes this message exchange possible. You must have configured both of these enterprise services in your system landscape.
Enterprise services that use the Process Step Journal
Asynchronous enterprise services use the Process Step Journal to write locally the process-relevant process step data that underlies each service message into the Process Activity Log of each participating logical system.
Enterprise services for logging process steps in external systems
The ProcessIntegrationActivityJournalEntry business object provides an asynchronous enterprise service (create) that you use to log process steps that take place in external systems. You do this because the Process Step Journal is not available in the external systems.
Enterprise services for evaluating the Process Step Journal
The BusinessDocumentMessageMonitoringView business object provides a synchronous enterprise service (query) that you use to read the individual aggregated process step status for a business process across all systems.
You can find all of the mentioned services interfaces at http://sap.com/xi/FS-FDN/Global
in the software component FSAPPL300.
For more information, see the enterprise services documentation for banking services from SAP on SAP Help Portal at http://help.sap.com/bankingservices. Under Integration & Analytics Information, open the enterprise services documentation and choose Process Integration Activity Journal.
Application Components
Error and Conflict Handler (CA-FS-ECH)
When you call up this component, the service implementations of the participating applications create (if necessary) log entries in the activity category Error Handling in the respective logical systems.
Change Notification Service (CA-GTF-TS-CNS)
At the time of evaluation, the Process Step Journal also includes change pointers, if these have a business process ID. The Process Step Journal interprets change pointers as events (Activity Category Event Processing). The reason for this is that the processing of events can lead to the sending of a new, asynchronous service message (for example, by a report or by an agent). This means an additional process step.
The Process Step Journal component is comprised of the following:
Process Activity Log for the local logging of individual process step in the participating logical systems
Process Activity Overview for evaluating the status of a cross-system overall process
Read and Write Functions
The Process Step Journal provides you with interfaces for reading and writing local process activity log entries
Delete Function
If you want to delete entries, the transaction Delete Log Entriesis available in the dialog under Financial Services Foundation Process Step Journal . For more information, see the program documentation under
.Customizing
In the Customizing activity Configure System Landscape, you can set up in which logical systems (clients) you want applications to participate in process step logging and evaluation. You can find these in the SAP implementation guide under
Cross-Application Components 
Processes and Tools for Enterprise Applications Process Step Journal 
.
You use the the Process Step Journal only to log asynchronous communication. The control of process activities based on log information is not included. This is the task of the Composite Application.
Below is a description of a fictitious, complex business process in banking: This is a process in the disbursement of loans. This means making the loan amount available to the borrower's account.
The following questions are relevant for the Composite Application regarding the control of this process: When is the loan ready for distribution? When can the responsible system send the confirmation of disbursement to the customer? Which process steps must be completed to do so? Have processing errors occurred in any of the process steps so that the loan cannot be disbursed?
The process is divided into the following subprocesses, the processing of which takes place in different systems and process components.
Reading the customer's business partner data
Reading the customer's granted line of credit (Facilities)
Reserving the customers granted line of credit (Facilities) in the amount of the new loan amount
Noting the loan amount in the syndicated loan agreement for the purpose of refinancing.
Debiting the loan account
Creating a payment order
Disbursement by making the amount available to a customer's current account.
Creating correspondence (confirmation of disbursement) for the customer
Services log each individual process step in the process activity log of each executing application: Cross-system evaluation then takes places on process step level.
This ensures that the correspondence tool (CA-GTF-COR) cannot generate and send out correspondence (process step 8) until all previous process steps have received the aggregated process step status Received from the Process Step Journal in the process activity overview.