Use

You can print reports in the background to avoid long runtimes for online reports and to print reports on a periodic basis. You do this by defining variants and variant groups for the reports.

Variants and variant groups in Release 4.x replace the variable groups used in earlier releases. For information about converting these from Release 3.x to 4.x, see the corresponding release note.

In the Profitability Analysis (CO‑PA) and Executive Information System (EC‑EIS) applications, reports are printed in the background using programs RKEBATCH and RKCBATCH, respectively.

Prerequisites

Before you can print reports in the background, you must define variants for the reports and then assign them to variant groups. For detailed information, see Creating Variants and Variant Groups .

Features

You print reports in the background by executing a variant group. A variant group can process multiple combinations of characteristic values for one or more reports at the same time.

Printing in the Background - Immediately and as Scheduled Job

When you print a report in the background, you can choose to print it immediately, or you can schedule it to print at a specific time.

Choose Information system or Drilldown Reporting → Report data → Schedule Variant Groups.

To print the report immediately, choose Execute → Start Time choose Immediately in the dialog box and save your entries.

To schedule the report for printing at a later time, proceed as follows:

Choose Execute → Start Time and then set the desired start time. If you would like to repeat the print periodically, choose Execute Job Periodically , then save your entries.

Choose Steps . Select the desired job in the list and choose Change .

Choose ABAP/4 . Select a variant from the list of variants.

Choose Print specifications Enter the required printing specifications (see Setting the Print Parameters ). Save your entries.

Save your step entries. Press Back .

By choosing System → Services → Jobs → Job Overview, you can check the job's processing status.

You can find detailed documentation on background processing under Help → SAP Library → BC (Basis) → Computing Center Management System → BC Computing Center Management System or under Help → Application Help