Error Handling of Background Work Items (SAP Library

Error Handling of Background Work Items

Use

Error handling of background work items by the workflow system is necessary because

Background work items (with errors) are not displayed in the Business Workplace and are therefore noticed too late, or are not noticed at all.
A user cannot restart background work items with temporary errors, which may be successful after a further execution attempt.

(Work items with temporary errors are work items whose method has been terminated with a temporary exception for which no subsequent step is defined.)

Features

In Customizing for the workflow system, you can define how frequently the workflow system should attempt to restart a work item with temporary errors. You also define the interval between two repeated attempts, and activate monitoring.

Monitoring is activated in automatic workflow Customizing (Tools ® Business Workflow ® Development ® Utilities ® Automatic Workflow Customizing).

You can also specify the maximum number of repeated attempts ("repeat counter") individually for each background step in the respective workflow definition. If this value is greater than zero, the entry overrides the value in Customizing.

If an error (exception to the method) occurs when executing background work items using the workflow system, the system proceeds as below, depending on the type of the exception and the error modeling:

In the workflow definition...	The exception is defined for the object method as...
In the workflow definition...	a temporary error:	an application error or system error:
a subsequent step is modeled for the exception.	The work item retains the status in process. Background work items are restarted by the system. The number of repeat attempts is either taken from the repeat counter in the step definition, or – if this is zero – from the repeat counter that is set in Customizing. If all attempts are unsuccessful, the work item changes to status completed and the modeled subsequent step is executed.	The work item is set to the status completed and the modeled subsequent step is executed.
no subsequent step is modeled for the exception.	The work item retains the status in process. Background work items are restarted by the system. The number of repeat attempts is either taken from the repeat counter in the step definition, or – if this is zero – from the repeat counter that is set in Customizing. If all of the attempts are unsuccessful, the work item status is set to status error	Workflow and work item assume the status error.

Handling work items with errors

For all work items with the error status, the workflow system sends a mail to the corresponding system administrator for workflow.

Handling started work items

The workflow system determines all background work items that remain in status in process for longer than 30 minutes. An error message is sent to the system administrator for workflow for these work items, because it is presumed that processing of the work item has aborted. This does not necessarily mean that an error has occurred.