Deleting Data Selectively 

Use

Selective deletion allows you to delete by characteristic as well as by request. With selective deletion, you are only deleting from the table of active data. The activation queue and the change log remain unchanged.

Before you delete data selectively, you have to have activated all data.

The deletion is logged and you can retrace it using Log.

Application Scenarios

1.       Deleting data that is no longer needed:

You can use selective deletion to delete records from the DataStore object that have keys for which no more data will be loaded. This is the case, for example, if a product is taken out of a product range and no more data is loaded to its product number or, if you want to delete data that is no longer needed because it is more than 3 years old. Both cases are also typical application scenarios for data archiving - where selective deletion is also used after successful archiving.

2.       Deleting incorrect data:

You can also selectively delete data that has errors due to its processing in the BI system. On the other hand, data that was created with errors in the source system should not be selectively deleted, but should be corrected with reverse postings.

Note that no changes are made in the change log during selective deletion. This means that incorrect data is still present in the change log. For this reason, take into account the constraints for reconstruction (see below) and selective deletion.

SAP recommends that if the data is only incorrect in the last request you loaded, you should use delete by request instead of selective deletion because the change log is adjusted accordingly in the latter case.

Constraints

You should be aware of the following dependencies before you delete selectively.

·        Connected InfoProviders:

If the data from the DataStore object is updated to other InfoProviders, it will not be modified automatically with selective deletion. You have to modify this data manually by selectively deleting it from the connected InfoProviders.

·        Reconstruction:

In reconstruction (tab page Reconstruct in the administration of the DataStore object), the data from the change log is used. If you have performed selective deletion, the data is still present in the change log and will be loaded into the InfoProvider during reconstruction, although you no longer require it in the InfoProvider.

Alternative procedure:

If you have selectively deleted from the DataStore object, in the context menu of the DataStore object choose update to an InfoProvider instead of reconstruction.Update the data with init or full update. This fills the connected InfoProvider with the active data.

·        Delete by request:

Requests from which records have been selectively deleted can no longer be deleted by request.

Procedure

...

       1.      Click on the Selective pushbutton.

       2.      Under Deletion Selections in the next dialog box, specify the fields that you want to delete.

       3.      Schedule the delete job.

If you accidentally delete data that you still need, you can use a repair request to re-post the data. For more information about the repair request, see Tab Page: Update.

Example

You have loaded multiple requests over a long period of time and have determined that some of the data is incorrect. Due to the high volume of data, completely reconstructing the DataStore object is not possible. Upon closer analysis, you determine that only parts of the data records with company code '0001' are affected. You can use selective deletion to delete all records with company code ‘0001’ from the DataStore object. Afterwards, you reload this data from the source system using a repair request with selection company code ‘0001’.