Baan Archiving Toolset

© 2010 by Robelle consulting

What is archiving?

The database of an ERP system grows very quickly, and after years of usage this has a negative impact on performances and productivity.

Archiving data allows to move old data in a different company or even delete obsolete data.

Why archiving data?

The main reasons to do archiving are:◦Improve system performances◦Freeing up on-line disk spaces◦Better data management◦Delete obsolete data

OFF LINEON LINE

Basic archiving procedure

ProductionDatabase

Year 1

Year 3

Year 2

Year N

Storage (tapes,

CD, DVD)

Usually the data are stored in different companies, and each archiving compay contains an year of data.When the data are not anymore needed to be accesses frequently, can be moved on external storage media like tape or DVD, freeing disk usage space.

The way data are archived

Original Company Archiving Company

Master (Static) Data(Items, Customers, etc)

Dynamic Data(Sales Orders, etc)

Obsolete Data

Texts (can be removed after by means of standard session that

deletes unused texts)

Copy

Move

Copy

Only copied, they are needed even in the original company

Copied and then deleted from original company

Copied with a new number in the new company and updated in the

dinamic data moved there

Obsolete data are simply deleted from the original company. They aren’t actually in this company.

Why do not use standard archiving procedures?

Baan offers a lot of standard archiving procedures, but…◦Standard procedures cannot threat right custom

needs, by example some company must keep sales data even after all the sales process is completed (different concepts of ‘obsolete’ data).

◦Standard procedures cannot archive new customized tables that can even have an impact on the selecting process of archiving standard tables.

◦The criteria for selecting data to archive can be different from the company criteria.

How to solve the problem?

There are basically two ways to solve the problem:◦Customize the archiving session adding the

criteria and the customized tables. Company needs to have access to the sources to

customize them. Company needs to use development resources to

do the job.◦Using a toolkit to implement the archiving

procedures.

Baan Archiving Toolset (BAT)

A tool to implement archiving processes (and more).

Easy to install and start to use.Auto-generate Baan tool procedure.Quick implementing archiving processes.

BAT: How it works

It is possible to define many archiving procedures.

Each archiving procedure consists of◦A main table ◦A tree of linked tables (basically, tables that

references the main table or other tables) and the selection criteria

◦A list of referenced tables (the ‘static’ data)◦A list of parameters used for selecting main

data to archive

BAT: Procedure definition

Example: Sales Orders archiving procedure

BAT: Procedure steps

Once defined the main table, in the level 0 of the procedure steps tree is inserted the main table. It’s possible to add manually the other levels or to generate them automatically pressing the ‘Load Tables’ button.

BAT: Automatically generated procedure steps

The derivation tree is generated from the referenced tables structure, starting from the main table.

BAT: Procedure steps

Setting the ‘Insert’ and ‘Delete’ flags it is possible to implement the MOVE, COPY or simply DELETE of the records selected.

In the field ‘Change company’ it is possible to set which field is used to store the company number (for multicompany use, see the crossreference company table).

BAT: Procedure Steps

In the text (the ‘condition’ flag states if there is) there are the ‘where’ condition to select the record. It is always possible to add or change the conditions.

BAT: The static tables

This session is used to store the ‘static’ tables. The ‘Load Table’ button loads all table referenced in the procedure. Those tables will be only ‘refreshed’ in the archiving company and not deleted from the original company. Is is possible to add or remove any.

BAT: Main table selection criteria

In this session, it is possible to define some parameters to select the data in the main table, by example:

BAT: Main table selection criteria

These parameters must be used defining the selection criteria of the procedure step of level 0 (the main table)

BAT: archiving script run

Now, the process is completed. Running the procedure, the program generates a script, compile it an runs it to achieve the customized archiving procedure.

Basically, the user has to define only the selection criteria for the main table, all the other duties are done automatically, saving time and efforts. No development needed.