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Object documentationProcess Chain  Locate the document in its SAP Library structure

Definition

A process chain is a sequence of processes that are scheduled to wait in the background for an event. Some of these processes trigger a separate event that can, in turn, start other processes.

Use

In an operating BI system there are a multitude of processes that occur regularly. If you use process chains, you can:

·        Automate the complex schedules in BW with the help of the event-controlled processing,

·        Visualize the processes by using network graphics, and

·        Centrally control and monitor the processes.

Fundamental principals of the process chain concept are:

·        Openness

The abstract meaning of a process as any process with a defined beginning and end enables openness with regard to the type of process that can be integrated into a process chain. The principle of openness is applied to the theory behind process chains, in that both user-defined programs and processes can be implemented. In addition, you can include process chains in other process chains, known as meta chains. In doing so you are able to integrate process chains from the system in which the meta chain is found, or from other systems. In this context, we are talking about local or remote process chains.

·        Security

Using process chains offers a high amount of process security, which is based on the principals of background management:

-         Processes are scheduled before they run and can be monitored with the standard batch monitor.

See also: Process Chain Log Display

-         Background events start subsequent processes.

-         Short dumps and terminations are recognized and handled respectively.

·        Flexibility

The subsequent process must get all the information it needs for a correct run from its predecessors. This allows new process types to be integrated without the existing types having to be adjusted.

Structure

A process chain consists of a start process, individual application processes and the collection processes.

Define the start of your process chain with the start process. All other chain processes are scheduled to wait for an event.

The application processes are the actual processes. BI supports process types of the following categories:

·        General services

·        Load process and post processing processes

·        Data target administration processes,

·        Reporting Agent processes

·        Other BI processes,

as well as processes that you have implemented.

If they are used in other SAP applications, you have further categories available, if applicable.

Collection processes are treated differently by the process chain management. They allow multiple chain strings to be combined to form one individual string. This allows them to replace multi-field scheduling of the actual work processes.

Processes are connected using events that start a successor process after being triggered by a predecessor process.

Integration

A process chain is a BI object with a transport connection and a connection to the BI document management.

Automatisms

If you use process chains, the automatisms of the integrated processes (for example, update PSA data in the data target, or activate data in the DataStore object) are ignored and you must implement them using the process chain. If you schedule a specific process in a chain, you support the automatic insertion of additional, relevant standard processes with the consideration of such automatisms.

If you use data transfer processes, the automatisms from InfoPackages are no longer available and you must implement them using process types.

 

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