Did you know….?
SAP Solution Manager offers IDoc Channel Monitoring?!?! In addition to general alert monitoring offered for IDoc failures, Solution Manager’s Integration Monitoring can be tailored to monitor specific IDocs based on Partner Port, Partner Number, Message Type, and IDoc Status. Alerts can also be tailored with Customized Descriptions and sent to email distribution lists or via SMS (text) to mobile devices.
Want to get notified when an inbound customer order has failed? Of course, who doesn’t? That’s because the real value is in managing the exceptions rather than monitoring everything. Push notifications reduce effort and time spent addressing these exceptions by allowing SAP to actively push you these exceptions rather than passively monitoring how most EDI is handled today. Thus enabling you to speed up business processes, provide better customer/vendor service, and protect your revenue at the same time.
Take these two simple examples in Purchase Order receipt and Order Fulfillment
Example 1: Purchase Order Receipt
A large customer who orders hundreds of items per PO sends in an ORDERS IDoc. This IDoc fails in SAP because of an issue on just one of the hundreds of line items. Now the entire Sales Order fails to create in SAP. The failed idoc sits in error Status 51 until someone, typically in IT, sees the error. Then they have to investigate the error, reach out to the business unit and master data owners to correct, and finally reprocess to post the order. I see this happen daily and is often a multi-step process involving multiple people and a few hours of lost time. By quickly implementing this SolMan monitoring, time and money are saved and customer service is increased.
Example 2: Warehouse Order Fulfillment
The second example is the communication between ECC and EWM in the warehouse to facilitate the pick/pack/shipping process to fulfill an order. ECC initiates the SHPMNT05 idoc to tell the warehouse what to fulfill. The idoc fails for some reason. The warehouse doesn’t know this order is coming, so they continue with the other duties that EWM is directing them to pick & pack. Eventually, the error is caught and corrected by your IT or HelpDesk staff who’s monitoring. By that time, you may have lost a few hours of warehouse labor. Now the foreman has a truck on his dock asking for a load that’s not on his schedule. Everybody’s confused. Calls are made back and forth to resolve the issue. This order’s pick/pack is expedited, shifting the day’s original schedule, preventing other previously planned orders going out to be delayed. Lost time, lost revenue, poor customer service, worker stress, etc. is compounded, and trust is lost in SAP data. Never a pretty picture. Again all this can be alleviated by implementing this monitoring.
Add Batch Input Monitoring While You Are At It
Standard Solution Manager Batch Input Monitoring includes monitoring sessions in specific status, the number of error within those sessions, the number of transactions in those sessions, and the cancellation of background jobs processing a batch input session. Additionally, Solution Manager may be configured to monitor specific batch input jobs for failure, sending customized alerts to particular email addresses, distribution lists, or via text to mobile devices.
Monitoring Process Chains in BW and SCM
Similarly, SAP Process Chains (both BW and SCM) can also be monitored in SAP Solution Manager. Alerts can be configured for Meta and Sub-chains, sending customized alerts to specific email addresses, distribution lists or via SMS to mobile devices when process chains fail.
Prerequisites for Activating These Types of Monitoring
Please check with your Basis Team or us to verify if you meet the prerequisites.
The Following Technical Prerequisites are required to implement the above monitoring templates:
SAP Solution Manager 7.01 SP23 or newer (we recommend 7.2 or higher)
Basis release ≥ 7.00 on all managed systems
BW 7.0 or higher for process chain monitoring
Current ST-A/PI is implemented on all Managed Systems
Turn Monitoring On Quickly – And We Will Help You
Here’s the best part: if you already meet the prerequisites, and you’d like to have us come in and set up IDoc monitoring for you, we’ll do it as a complementary service. Though not straightforward, it is quick, and it only takes an hour or so to set up a few use cases. We think most SAP customers will appreciate this if they aren’t already set up for it (or didn’t know it was possible), and it’s an easy way for us to add some value to your SAP environment and for you to see how we work.
If you need help to meet the prerequisites first, including upgrading Solution Manager, migrating to HANA, or both, we’re happy to assist in that roadmap as well. That way, beyond IDoc monitoring, it’s that much easier to turn on additional helpful features in Solution Manager like Data Volume Management.
If you have questions regarding this topic or would like to learn more, please reach out to me, Michael Johnson, via email at michaelj@americandigital.com.
Also- the other blogs I provided for Aruba, they each need the following closing statement when you add them to our blog section.
If you have questions regarding this topic or would like to learn more, please reach out to me, Rodrigo Lau, via email at rodrigol@americandigital.com.