Overview

Universal Connector for Use with SAP® ERP supports the monitoring of batch input session processing. This support is currently limited to SAP 4.6C and above. To perform batch input monitoring, Universal Connector utilizes the functionality of SAP's ABAP program RSBDCSUB.

RSBDCSUB selects batch input sessions for processing based on the criteria specified in its variant. The batch input sessions selected to be processed by RSBDCSUB are transferred to the SAP system's background processing. RSBDCSUB completes independent of the session processing jobs it starts.

The spoollist produced by RSBDCSUB contains the information required to identify the session processing jobs created, and relate them to their respective batch input sessions. This information consists of a job name (same as session name), job id, and queue id. The job name / job id combination uniquely identifies the session processing job. The queue id uniquely identifies the queue that contains the batch input session data and status.

Batch Input Monitoring Process

The following steps illustrate the basic overview of the Universal Connector batch input monitoring process:

Step 1	Universal Connector starts a single step job that executes ABAP program RSBDCSUB, or USAP connects to a previously started single step job executing ABAP program RSBDCSUB.
Step 2	Universal Connector waits for the RSBDCSUB job to complete.
Step 3	If the RSBDCSUB job terminates, Universal Connector exits with the Universal Connector 'Terminated' job status code. Otherwise, Universal Connector retrieves the spoollist generated by RSBDCSUB and extracts the session processing information. This information consists of the session processing jobs that were kicked off by RSBDCSUB, and the corresponding queues that contain the sessions.
Step 4	Universal Connector begins to monitor all session processing jobs that were kicked off by RSBDCSUB. When Universal Connector detects that a session processing job has completed, it retrieves the state of the corresponding queue and converts the queue state to a Universal Connector queue state exit code. Universal Connector continues this monitoring process until all session processing jobs have completed.
Step 5	When all session processing jobs have completed, Universal Connector exits with the highest queue state exit code retrieved from all sessions that were processed by RSBDCSUB.

Batch Input Monitoring Requirements

SAP System

Universal Connector only supports batch input monitoring on SAP 4.6 systems. This restriction is based on the ABAP program RSBDCSUB. RSBDCSUB initiates session processing jobs and completes independent of the session processing jobs.

Only the SAP 4.6 version of RSBDCSUB produces a spoollist that contains all the information needed to monitor the session processing jobs and the states of the sessions they process. This information consists of the job name and job id of the session processing jobs that get initiated, and the queue id of the session that is being processed.

SAP Batch Input Sessions

All batch input sessions that will be monitored by Universal Connector must have the keep session flag checked. This is required because the queue that contains the batch input session must exist in the SAP system after the session processing job completes in order for Universal Connector to retrieve the state of the queue.

Universal Connector

To perform batch input monitoring with Universal Connector, a single step SAP job must be started that executes ABAP program RSBDCSUB. Universal Connector can start the job or can connect to a job that was previously started.

Universal Connector uses the spoollist generated by RSBDCSUB to extract session processing information. The format of this report depends on the language of the job step. There are three Universal Connector parameters that must be set up for the language being used (see the BDCWAIT command). By default, these parameters are set up to work with the English language.

The print parameters for the job step executing RSBDCSUB must specify enough columns to allow the full width of the report to be generated without truncation. A value of 132 is sufficient. In addition, the number of lines per page must allow the entire report to be generated on a single page. This is due to limitations in the RSBDCSUB report generation capability.

The Universal Connector command line parameter -bdcwait is used to initiate the batch input monitoring process. For details on this parameter, see BDCWAIT.

Batch Input Monitoring Parameters

The set of Universal Connector configuration parameters that are specific to the batch input monitoring support are:

BDC Wait
BDC Job Name Pattern
BDC Job ID Pattern
BDC Queue ID Pattern
Queue to be created exit code mapping
Queue unprocessed exit code mapping
Queue in background exit code mapping
Queue finished exit code mapping
Queue error exit code mapping

See BDCWAIT for details concerning the use of these parameters.

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