How-to Guide SAP NetWeaver ‘04 SAP NetWeaver ’04s

How To… Troubleshoot Information Broadcasting (BEx Workbooks) DRAFT – PRELIMINARY VERSION Version 2.00 – April 2006 Applicable Releases: SAP NetWeaver ’04 SAP NetWeaver ’04s

© Copyright 2005 SAP AG. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or for any purpose without the express permission of SAP AG. The information contained herein may be changed without prior notice. Some software products marketed by SAP AG and its distributors contain proprietary software components of other software vendors. Microsoft, Windows, Outlook, and PowerPoint are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. IBM, DB2, DB2 Universal Database, OS/2, Parallel Sysplex, MVS/ESA, AIX, S/390, AS/400, OS/390, OS/400, iSeries, pSeries, xSeries, zSeries, z/OS, AFP, Intelligent Miner, WebSphere, Netfinity, Tivoli, and Informix are trademarks or registered trademarks of IBM Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. UNIX, X/Open, OSF/1, and Motif are registered trademarks of the Open Group. Citrix, ICA, Program Neighborhood, MetaFrame, WinFrame, VideoFrame, and MultiWin are trademarks or registered trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. HTML, XML, XHTML and W3C are trademarks or registered trademarks of W3C®, World Wide Web Consortium, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Java is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. JavaScript is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc., used under license for technology invented and implemented by Netscape. MaxDB is a trademark of MySQL AB, Sweden. SAP, R/3, mySAP, mySAP.com, xApps, xApp, and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data

contained in this document serves informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary. These materials are subject to change without notice. These materials are provided by SAP AG and its affiliated companies ("SAP Group") for informational purposes only, without representation or warranty of any kind, and SAP Group shall not be liable for errors or omissions with respect to the materials. The only warranties for SAP Group products and services are those that are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services, if any. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. These materials are provided “as is” without a warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. SAP shall not be liable for damages of any kind including without limitation direct, special, indirect, or consequential damages that may result from the use of these materials. SAP does not warrant the accuracy or completeness of the information, text, graphics, links or other items contained within these materials. SAP has no control over the information that you may access through the use of hot links contained in these materials and does not endorse your use of third party web pages nor provide any warranty whatsoever relating to third party web pages. SAP NetWeaver “How-to” Guides are intended to simplify the product implementation. While specific product features and procedures typically are explained in a practical business context, it is not implied that those features and procedures are the only approach in solving a specific business problem using SAP NetWeaver. Should you wish to receive additional information, clarification or support, please refer to SAP Consulting. Any software coding and/or code lines / strings (“Code”) included in this documentation are only examples and are not intended to be used in a productive system environment. The Code is only intended better explain and visualize the syntax and phrasing rules of certain coding. SAP does not warrant the correctness and completeness of the Code given herein, and SAP shall not be liable for errors or damages caused by the usage of the Code, except if such damages were caused by SAP intentionally or grossly negligent.

1 Scenario Information Broadcasting has multiple components. There are 2 primary distribution channels: email and the Enterprise Portal. Also, there are many different distribution types. The focus of this document will be how to configure and troubleshoot distributing BEx Workbooks to email.

2 Definition of How it works Based on the queuing mechanism of broadcasting, currently you can have up to 10 workbooks in the queue at any given time on a particular pre-calculation server. Each pre-calculation server can only run 1 Excel workbook at a time, so if 10 workbooks are in the queue on a particular server, they will run serially on this individual server. When you specify the load balancing option, jobs will only start running on a secondary pre-calculation server if the first pre-calculation server queue has reached capacity (10 workbooks). The only way to parallelize this is to hardcode which application server is used. Keep in mind that the pre-calculation jobs do not automatically utilize any and all open servers. In other words, if you have 4 pre-calculation servers and schedule 4 jobs then 1 job will not run on each server. Instead, jobs do not start running on the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th servers until the 1st server has reached capacity (10 workbooks). Based on these options, make sure you size and schedule pre-calculation for your intended scenario. (ie if you need to have 300 workbooks in a queue at any given time, you will need 30 different pre-calculation servers and your job scheduling will need to either load balance or be specified such that you’ve achieved maximum parallelization by specifying pre-calculation servers.)

3 Checklist for BEx Pre-Calculation Setup

1. Implement OSS Notes: 857739 (Solves connection transfer issues) 855220 (Solves gateway issues) 929005 (Solves errors of 2 workbooks being scheduled at the same time) 930507 (Solves errors of having 2 instances of Excel running on one server) 929799 (Solves gateway issues) 932649 (Solves rfc issues with timing of multiple workbooks) 935063 (Solves corrupt workbook issue)

These are REQUIRED for Broadcasting to work properly. If you’re running BW 3.5 SP17 (NetWeaver 2004s SP7), these are already included.

2. Make sure you've downloaded and installed latest version of Precalculation Service (BWAPSERV12_0-10002960). When installing, make sure you have full admin rights.

http://service.sap.com/bi > Download > Support Packages and Patches > Entry by Application Group > Support Packages and Patches > SAP NetWeaver > SAP NETWEAVER > SAP NETWEAVER 04 > Entry by Component > BI Precalculation > BW ANALYZER PRECALC SERVICE350 > Win32 > BWAPSERV12_0-10002960.zip As of this document, patch 12 is the latest pre-calculation service for BW 3.5. Implement OSS Note 928491 to install the latest fix to the pre-calculation service post patch 12. NOTE: You can just install this patch as it is as a full install. For more information about installing and updating the Pre-calculation

Service, see notes 745206 and 744127.

3. Make sure you add the following registry entry: “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Sap\BEx” and put the stringvalue “SHOWEXCEL = true”

4. Ensure that you only have only BEx pre-calculation service installed on an operating system. You should not install multiple pre-calculation services on a single operating system. Also, within RSPRECADMIN, you should only register a pre-calculation server once. You should NOT register the same server multiple times in RSPRECADMIN. NOTE: If you would like to use one physical server for multiple workbooks, VMWARE or Microsoft Virtual Server are viable options, but each BEx pre-calculation service must have its own operating system and IP Address.

5. If you're running Windows XP, ensure that “Local System Account” is specified for the pre-calculation service. Also, ensure that the “Allow service to interact with desktop” is checked. Keep in mind that this requires having the local system account having full administrator rights to the Windows operating system. If this is not the case, you will need to use a domain account with full administrator rights (as you would do for Windows Server 2003). NOTE: Within Windows, you can go to Start -> Run -> services.msc -> SAP BW Precalculation Service -> Properties to get to this configuration.

6. If you’re running Windows Server 2003, choose “This Account” and specify a user and password. This will solve an error message such as: "#Connection transfer failed. Reason: Cannot create ActiveX component." (Note 926866).

NOTE: Within Windows, you can go to Start -> Run -> services.msc -> SAP BW Precalculation Service -> Properties to get to this configuration.

7. Make sure your gateway and host are defined in your windows services and hosts file. Log on to the BW system, then Execute the transaction SMGW. Then click on GOTO menu -> Expert Functions -> Network Addresses. This will display your own Network addresses. Now open the file HOSTS from the following folder, C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\ or C:\WINNT\system32\drivers\etc\ (Note 924030)

8. Ensure that the latest version of SAP GUI 6.40 and Excel are installed on the pre-calculation server. Also, make sure the latest frontend patches for the BEx Analyzer are installed in addition to the latest SAP GUI.

9. Ensure the latest version of .NET 1.1 is installed on the BEx Pre-calculation server. To do this, go to “Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Configuration”. Next, select “Help -> About .NET Framework 1.1 Configuration”

10. Ensure that the BW Precalculation server is started.

11. Go to transaction RSPRECADMIN and ensure that the Precalculation Server is Green. To ensure this is setup correctly, see the online help http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/de/fc/420d40854ee569e10000000a155106/frameset.htm. Also, ensure that all servers you want to use are active and available.

12. Go to SM59 and under TCP/IP Connections, go to PREC_<servername> and run a test connection on the pre-calculation server, and ensure this is successful.

13. If you’re running Microsoft Excel 2003 SP2, make sure that this hotfix is installed:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/912022/en-us

14. For all workbooks that you pre-calculate, make sure you have removed the Query Results in BEx before saving the workbook. NOTE: This is important to keep small workbook sizes and minimize the transfer over the network initially. Also, it helps with timing issues. You should delete the results with the SAP BEx functionality, not directly with excel functionality.

15. Ensure that under the user properties, you have the email address specified in SU01 or SU3.

16. Use transaction SOST to make sure that emails are getting sent that you are pre-calculating.

17. Make sure the Macro security level in Microsoft Excel is set to “low” on the BEx pre-calculation server.

18. Log onto BEx on the pre-calculation server and run a workbook manually and ensure that this works.

19. Make sure the IGS 6.40 is installed as this is required for being able to broadcast zip files. IGS test is available through transaction RSRT. Make sure this test is successful.

The Step By Step Solution

3.1 How to monitor workbooks

1. Go to transaction RSPRECADMIN. This has a list of all your pre-calculation server.

2. To view what is in the queue, right click on a server and choose “Display Current Queue”.

3. This queue will show all pre-calculation jobs that are open, currently running, or complete.

3.2 How to Setup pre-calculation in Process Chains

1. Go to transaction SE38 and choose program “RS_PREC_PLAN”. Hit execute

2. Save a program variant for your pre-calculation setting. Make sure your pre-calculation server is set in this program variant.

3. Within your process chain, choose ABAP Program.

4. Specify the Program and Program Variant.

5. Build your process chain to either parallelize or run serially any workbook settings that you’d like scheduled with a process chain. NOTE: This is not based on data bursting, but is based on the process chain scheduling for this broadcasting process chain. You should build in messages for failed jobs as well. Keep in mind the max limits of the pre-calculation queues and way broadcasting load balancing works (specified at the beginning of this document).

3.3 Job Overview

When you schedule a workbook to broadcast, initially a job is created and it will have the status "RELEASED". This job will be waiting till it reaches its scheduled time. The moment it reaches the scheduled time, this job gets status "FINISHED" and another job gets created where the status is set to "ACTIVE". This job will be in "ACTIVE" state until the Pre-calculation server completes the pre-calculation of workbook.

3.4 Broadcasting by Security Roles or Users… When broadcasting by a security role, or a list of users, this behaves as one pre-calculation job. If a list of users has access to different data based on security, these will all run as part of one pre-calculation job, and these will run serially.

3.5 Administration of Broadcasting Settings (SAP NetWeaver 2004s only)

1. Go to the DataWarehousing Workbench (RSA1) and click on the Administration area and then Broadcasting.

2. Within this area, you can mass maintain broadcast settings, schedules, view logs, or reorganize bookmarks.

3.6 Administration of Broadcasting Settings (SAP NetWeaver ‘04 only) 1. Go to SE38 and the valid program

for your activity: RSRD_MONITOR_SETTING – Check values of a particular monitor RSRD_BOOKMARK_REORGANISATION – Reorganizing Bookmarks for web RSRD_BROADCAST_LOG – Broadcasting Logs RSRD_CLEAN_SCHEDULES – Deletion of schedules that no longer exist RSRD_BROADCAST_REENTRY – Restart job that failed RSRD_BROADCAST_PROCESSOR – Execute Broadcasts

4 Input Options (Variables, Variants, etc…) When you run a workbook, you have multiple input options. You can use variable assignment, user-exit variables, or Variants.

4.1 Using Variants (only applies to SAP NetWeaver ’04) When you use a variant within your workbook, make sure this variant has all possible variables used within the workbook defined within this variant. You can reference global variable values that are stored in table TVARVC within variants by choosing the selection option variable in the variant definition screen within SAP NetWeaver 04. Within SAP NetWeaver 2004s, you can update the RSRVARIANT table. To build variants, it is recommended that the first query embedded in the workbook has all variables within its definition. Typically, you can enter a dummy query in a hidden worksheet to achieve this if needed. Make sure your dummy query performs well as not to impact the performance (typically, returns no data).

4.2 Using User-Exit Variables It is recommended that for all time-based variable values, you should use a user-exit variable to populate these values from the system date (sy-datum). This will allow minimal maintenance, as you won’t have to update these variable values or variants every period. If you’re utilizing lists of variable values in multiple queries, it is recommended that you migrate these lists to be stored centrally and populate these filter values via a pre-query or a user exits that read these filter values from a central Datastore or table.

4.3 Using Input Variables Make sure that if you are using variables that have the setting “Allow variable to be changed in query navigation” set, the workbook should be saved such that the initial run of the query when embedding the query in the workbook should have the variable values set to null. This way, when these are copied over to a filter, it will still be overwritten. It is recommended to avoid using this setting within broadcasting whenever possible to minimize complexity.

4.4 Storing variable values within the workbook If you set the property on the workbook “Save and reuse variable values”, you can store all the filters for the variables within the workbook definition. This way, when you refresh, you won’t be prompted with a variable screen.

5 Mass maintaining variants

5.1 Within SAP NetWeaver ’04 only It is generally recommended to use user-exit variables that are not “ready for input” whenever possible to update time values for variables. If you want to use the same variable for adhoc and controlled scheduling, then you should use variables that are ready for input and aren’t user exits. You can then build variants on these variable screens for use with broadcasting. When building these variants, you can reference system variables as described below. NOTE: As of SAP NetWeaver 2004s, variables within BW cannot be based of system variables defined in table TVARVC.

1. Go to transaction SM30.

2. Enter table “TVARV” and choose maintain.

3. Hit the green check.

4. Switch to change mode.

5. Choose the “Individual Maintenance” button.

6. Enter a name for your system variable, make sure it is of type “Select option” and choose “New”.

7. Enter the value for this system variable, and choose “Save”.

8. Launch the BEx Analyzer and run a query with user input variables. At the variable screen, hit the save button to save a variant after you’ve populated your values.

9. Choose a variant name and description. If this is for broadcasting only, you may want to protect the variant from inadvertent change by choose the “Protect variant” option.

10. For the time variable, choose the option “T” under selection variable.

11. Choose the system variable that you want that we defined earlier (ie CURRENT_CAL_MONTH).

12. Save the variant. Keep in mind this system variable will overwrite any value specified directly in the variant.

5.2 Within SAP NetWeaver 2004s only

Since system variables within TVARVC aren’t supported within SAP NetWeaver 2004s, you should use naming conventions for your variants that you want to update. You can use this simple Z Program or build your own to update the RSRVARIANT table which stores variant values within SAP NetWeaver 2004s.

*&---------------------------------------------------------------------* *& Report Z_MASS_VARIANT_MAINTENANCE * *& * *&---------------------------------------------------------------------* *& Program to mass update BEx Variants within SAP NetWeaver 2004s * *& * *&---------------------------------------------------------------------* REPORT Z_MASS_VARIANT_MAINTENANCE. parameter variable like RSRVARIANT-VARI. parameter vname like RSRVARIANT-VNAM. parameter sign_01 like RSRVARIANT-SIGN. parameter opt_01 like RSRVARIANT-OPT. parameter low_01 like RSRVARIANT-LOW. parameter high_01 like RSRVARIANT-HIGH. tables: RSRVARIANT.

select * from RSRVARIANT. if rsrvariant-VARI = variable AND rsrvariant-vnam = vname. rsrvariant-SIGN = sign_01. rsrvariant-OPT = opt_01. rsrvariant-LOW = low_01. rsrvariant-HIGH = high_01. elseif rsrvariant-vnam = vname. rsrvariant-SIGN = sign_01. rsrvariant-OPT = opt_01. rsrvariant-LOW = low_01. rsrvariant-HIGH = high_01. endif. update rsrvariant. if sy-subrc <> 0. insert rsrvariant. endif. endselect.

You can schedule this program in a process chain or make variations of this as needed.

6 Example of Sizing Model Day

1 Day

2 Day

3 Day

4 Day 5 Day

6 Summary REQUIREMENTS - Controlled Scheduling # of workbook runs 216 144 120 700 500 180 1,860 Average Time per Workbook 15 15 15 8 20 20 # of minutes for execution time 3,240 2,160 1,800 5,600 10,000 3,600 SCENARIO 1 # of minutes per 24 hr day 1,440 1,440 1,440 1,440 1,440 1,440 Minimum # of BEx pre-calc servers needed for controlled scheduling

3 2 2 4 7 3 7

Average number of SAP Background parallel processes used per query

5 5 5 5 5 5

# of SAP background processes needed (scaling application servers)

15 10 10 20 35 15 35

SCENARIO 2 # of minutes per 12 Hr Window 720 720 720 720 720 720 Minimum # of BEx pre-calc servers needed for controlled scheduling

5 3 3 8 14 5 14

Average number of SAP Background parallel processes used per query

5 5 5 5 5 5

# of SAP background processes needed (scaling application servers)

25 15 15 40 70 25 70

SCENARIO 3 # of minutes per 6 Hr Window 360 360 360 360 360 360 Minimum # of BEx pre-calc servers needed for controlled scheduling

9 6 5 16 28 10 28

Average number of SAP Background parallel processes used per query

5 5 5 5 5 5

# of SAP background processes needed (scaling application servers)

45 30 25 80 140 50 140

For scheduling a large number of parallel workbooks, the limitation will be controlled by the number of SAP Background processes available. Keep in mind that these are hitting the central database. Due to this, it is recommended to scale your hardware accordingly (database server, application servers, and BEx pre-calculation servers). Also, this is for controlled scheduling, so make sure you scale for adhoc scheduling. Keep in mind that BI Accelerator appliance will improve throughput immensely and remove load from the database, so for large amount of parallel scheduling, it is recommended to use BI Accelerator.

7 Scheduling Options

7.1 Controlled Scheduling Controlled scheduling involves specifying the pre-calculation server explicitly and doesn’t utilize load balancing. This is recommended if you do not allow users to broadcast adhoc and you want to maximize parallelization. This is done by hard-coding the pre-calculation server for a specific workbook. You should schedule these settings using program RS_PREC_PLAN within a process chain. See the section on scheduling broadcasting within Process Chains later in this document.

7.2 Adhoc Scheduling Adhoc scheduling allows end-users to specify their own settings for broadcasting. Keep in mind that this is controlled with authorization object S_RS_BCS. You can allow users to create their own times that they broadcast or you can allow them to use any pre-defined time that you have setup. Keep in mind that users should use the load-balancing option when pre-calculating. This way, the workbook will go into the queue for the first broadcast server that isn’t at capacity at the time at which the workbook is scheduled to run.

7.3 Hybrid Scheduling Hybrid scheduling allows you to have some controlled scheduling scenarios while still allowing flexibility for adhoc scheduling from the end user community. In this scenario, it is recommended that you setup multiple broadcast servers and segment the servers that are used for controlled scheduling versus adhoc scheduling. This will allow you to avoid any adhoc scheduling that interrupts the controlled schedule. To do this, we will illustrate with an example. Suppose that you have 5 pre-calculation servers setup. In your controlled scheduling, you need 3 per-calculation servers. You should use the bottom 3 servers in your RSPRECADMIN list as controlled servers. You can hardcode these servers within your broadcast settings. The top 2 servers are adhoc. This way, when a user schedules any adhoc pre-calculation, it will utilize the top

server in the list (in RSPRECADMIN), and scheduled settings will go into the queue for this top server until it reaches capacity. Once the first server reaches capacity, it will start utilizing the 2nd server. Once these 2 are at capacity, then the 3rd server will be utilized. This 3rd server is already part of the controlled scheduling, so you may need to register additional servers if you start overlapping too much.

8 Troubleshooting Information Broadcasting (Excel Workbooks)

8.1 How to Check Logs on BEx Pre-calculation Server (SAP NetWeaver ’04 and SAP NetWeaver 2004s)

1. Look at the BEx Pre-calculation Server log at “C:\windows\temp\BExPrecalcLog.txt”.

2. Also, for any BEx issues with the workbook on the pre-calculation server, check “C:\windows\temp\SAPBEx.trc”.

8.2 How to Check Logs on BEx Pre-calculation Server (SAP NetWeaver 2004s only)

1. Go to transaction RSPRECADMIN

2. Right click on a particular pre-calculation server and choose information for server

3. Choose “Displ. Front End Log”

8.3 How to Check Logs on SAP System

1. Go to transaction SLG1 and enter “BW_XLWB” for Excel Workbooks and “PREC” under Suboject. Make sure your time frame is correct for what you want to see the log for. Hit Execute.

2. Also, go to transaction RSRD_LOG to check any issues or details with broadcasting. This log might be slightly different as it will have some logs on RFC connections that may not be displayed in the previous logs. NOTE: To get a good picture of what’s going on, you should look at both logs.

8.4 How to Debug Broadcasting

1. Use transaction RSRD_START to debug Information Broadcasting. You can process your setting in online mode here instead of background mode. You can also set any breakpoints in relevant program is needed.

9 Common Issues

9.1 “Cannot create activeX component”

1. This is because of the properties on the pre-calculation service. Make sure you have this specified correctly for your Windows operating system version as specified in the checklist at the beginning of this document.

9.2 “CPIC-CALL: 'ThSAPECMINIT'#Timeout while waiting for a connection to be established ”

1. This is most likely an issue with your gateway information not being specified in your service and host file. See the checklist on setting this up at the beginning of this document.

To test this, you can run program RS_PREC_PLAN to schedule a workbook. If scheduling works through this program and not when running it from the web, this will validate that there are gateway issues.

www.sap.com/netweaver