Creating Process Chains
Prerequisites
If you want to include a loading process in the process chain, you need to have already created an InfoPackage.
You cannot load flat file data from a client workstation in the background. Therefore, you must store your data on an application server.
Procedure
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1. You can either create a process chain directly in the Data Warehousing Workbench or using a maintenance dialog for a process:
○ If you are in the process tree in the Data Warehousing Workbench, work through the following steps:
i. If required, create a display component in the context menu on the process tree’s rood node or in the context menu for another display component.
ii. In the context menu for the display component, choose Create Process Chain.
○ If you are in the maintenance dialog for a process that you want to add to the process chain, press Process Chain Maintenance.
If the process is already contained in a process chain, the system displays the process chain in question. If the process is used in more than one process chain you can select which process chain is to be displayed.
A dialog box appears where you enter a technical name and a description for the chain that you want to create.
2. Confirm your entries.
The Add Start Process dialog box appears.
3. Create a variant for a start process.
a. On the Maintain Start Process screen, choose whether you want to schedule the chain directly or whether you want to start it using a metachain.
b. If you choose to schedule the chain directly, enter the start date value for the chain under Change Selections and save your entries.
The Maintain Start Process screen appears again.
c. Save your entries, go back to the previous screen and confirm your entries in the Add Start Process dialog box.
The 
Plan View of the process chain maintenance
screen appears.
The left side of the screen contains a navigation area where the process types can be selected. On the right side of the screen, the process chain is displayed.
If you
insert a process that is linked to other processes into the process chain, the
corresponding process variants are generated and inserted into the process
chain automatically. These variants are proposals that can be changed,
replaced or removed from the chain as required. Variant maintenance is called
when the change run performs automatic insert.
You can turn this system response off using Settings → Default Chains.
More information: Plan and Check View Functions.
4. Insert further relevant processes into your process chain. You have the following options:
○ Drag & Drop from the process type overview in the process chain maintenance navigation area
○ Double-clicking on a process type in the process type overview
○ Drag & Drop from an object tree in the Data Warehousing Workbench:
Using the navigation window in Modeling in the Data Warehousing Workbench, you can switch from the process tree to another object tree and drag data transfer processes, InfoPackages or InfoProvider to process chain maintenance. The process types available for the InfoProviders are displayed in a dialog.
5. When you add a process, you need to select a process variant or create a new variant. For collection processes, the system uniquely determines the variants.
Various functions for editing the process are available from the context menu:
Context Menu Entry for a Process |
Function Information |
Maintain Variant |
With the exception of variants in the OR and EXOR collection processes, you can use this function to change all process variants. |
Exchange Variant |
You can exchange the variant for an existing variant or a variant to be created. |
Link with… |
You can use this function to link a process to a successor process. You can choose from the processes that are not yet linked to the current process. They are grouped according to process type in submenus. |
Display Scheduled Jobs |
Once the process chain is active, you can use this function to display the jobs that have been scheduled. |
Display all jobs |
After at least one process chain run, you can display all of the scheduled jobs for a specific process and all of the jobs with which this process was run. The Job Overview appears and you can call the relevant job log. |
Create Message |
You can also send messages to an application process of the chain, depending on the success or failure of the process. 1. To do this, using the context menu for a process, create another process variant of type Send Message. 2. If you maintain a message, first specify whether you want the message to be sent when the process has been completed successfully or unsuccessfully. Then choose Next. 3. A dialog box appears, in which you can select an existing process variant or create a new one. 4. If you create a new process variant, edit the document that is going to be sent and maintain a list of recipients. 5. Save your process variant and go back. The message process variant is now assigned to your application process. When the message is sent, the status information and the process log are also sent. |
Debug Loop |
Only use this function to debug a process run. Specify how long (in seconds) you want the delay to be between one event being triggered and the next process starting. You can capture the process in the debugger by using transaction SM37 (Job Overview) or SM50 (Process Overview). |
Remove Process |
You use this function to remove a process from a process chain. |
Administrate Source |
You can use this function to call the administration transaction for the source of process variants for certain process types. |
Administrate Target |
You can use this function to call the administration transaction for the target of process variants for certain process types. |
6. Hold down the left mouse button to connect the processes with events.
Before you do this, select the process underneath the process type row, and position the cursor over the required process. When you select the process type row, the whole process is moved into the plan view.
From the context menu for a link, you can display the event or remove the link again. To do this, select the link and right-click with the mouse.
7. If necessary, specify whether you want the event to be triggered after the previous process has been completed successfully or unsuccessfully, or whether you want the event to be triggered independently of the outcome of the process that precedes it. If the process that triggers the event has more than one option, choose the option after which the successor process is to be run (see process type Decisions).
8. If you did not create the process chain using a display component, assign it to a display component by choosing Attributes → Display Component.
9. Maintain additional process chain attributes if necessary.
10.
Check your process
chain in the 
Check View and make any necessary
corrections.
The 
Legend explains the meaning of the
different colors used to display the processes and links.
From the context menu for a process, you can display the messages resulting from the check.
During the check, the system calculates the number of parallel processes according to the structure of the chain (subchains are recursively taken into account here). The result is compared with the number of background processes on the chosen server (or the total of all available servers if no server is specified in the attributes of the process chain). If the number of parallel processes is greater than the number of available background processes, the system highlights every level of the process chain where the number of processes is too high. The system produces a warning for these levels.
11. Save your process chain if it does not contain any errors.
Result
You can activate
and schedule your process chain. After scheduling, the chain starts in
accordance with the start process selections. For example, if you scheduled
the start process directly and chose Immediately as the start date
value, the chain run starts immediately after scheduling. In the 
Log View, you can display the reports
for the chain runs.
See also: