Background Jobs Programs can execute in the background of the SAP system while online operation is occurring.

SAP's background processing system is easy to use and completely integrated within the system. Suppose a manager wants an accounting report ever Monday morning. Rather than having the manager execute this program online every Monday morning, it could be scheduled to run every Sunday night so that the report would already be printed for the manager when she arrived to work. This scheduling of a report program is accomplished with SAP' background processing

system.

The SAP R/3 Dispatcher and its Work Process constitute the R/3 Runtime System. From the perspective of the host operating system, the R/3 Runtime System appears as a collection of parallel processes. On each application server, these parallel processes include a dispatcher and work processes, the exact number of work processes is variable and depends on the specific configuration. There are five types of work processes: o Dialog work process for executing sequential steps in business transactions o Update work process updates the database. It has two types of components: U1 components for executing time-critical database changes U2 components for executing non-critical database changes o Enqueue work process for setting and releasing locks on SAP R/3 business objects o Spool work process for spool formatting o Background work process for executing background jobs In this chapter, we will examine background processing Background processing enables you to plan the start of ABAP/4 programs. Then, at the given time, they are started by special work processes called a Background (Batch) work processes. Background processing runs are composed of jobs. Each job consists of one or more steps (i.e., programs) that are processed one after another. In general, job processing is not triggered immediately; usually, a specific start time is defined when the job is planned.

Background processing enables you to plan the start of ABAP/4 programs. Then, at the given time, they are started by special work processes called a Background (Batch) work processes. Background processing runs are composed of jobs. Each job consists of one or more steps (i.e., programs) that are processed one after another.In general, job processing is not triggered immediately. Usually, a specific start time is defined when the job is planned. The three phases of background processing are:

Job Scheduling Job Processing Job Overview

First, we are going to cover the Job Scheduling phase.

To schedule/create a background job, use the menu path: Tools CCMS Jobs definition (or transaction SM36). When creating a background job, you must specify a job name and a job class (priority level A, B, or C with A being the highest priority- data transfer form external system. B important periodic jobs performance statistics. C - non-critical jobs: list and queries. The target host is not required. Normally, you will just leave this field blank. However, if you are using an SAP system that has multiple application servers (and each of these servers has background work processes), you can specify the specific application server on which the background job should be processed. Next, you should enter the steps (i.e., programs) to be included in the background job

To include an ABAP/4 program in a background job, you must specify the program name and, if necessary, its variant. A variant is a set of parameter values needed for the execution of a particular program. External programs may only be executed by users having the same authorization as the system administrator The name of the server where the external program is executed must be specified. External commands can be executed via background jobs defined with transaction SM36 as shown above These commands are defined by the administrator and protected with authorizations. Use transaction SM69 to define and maintain external commands. External commands that defined by SAP can not be changed

Logical command name o External commands are uniquely identified by a logical name and the assignment of an operating system Operating system (CASE SENSITIVE FIELD)

External commands can be restricted to execute on a particular operating system (AIX) or any operating system (ANYOS) Operating system command (PATH NAME) o Name of an operating system program Parameters for operating system command Check module o Optional function module to further check a user's authorization to execute this command. Then maintaining external commands (SM69), you can specify the name of a check module, which is a function module that is executed immediately before the command, and can decide whether the command will be executed.