How to schedule an ILM job for deleting employee data

[IreneLiu]

Introduction:

SAP Information Lifecycle Management (SAP ILM) enhances the SAP standard delivery with the ability to manage the lifecycle of live and archived data based on rules. To delete employee data, we need to schedule an SAP Information Lifecycle Management job that periodically archives or deletes terminated employees.

Purpose:

The purpose of this blog is to demonstrate how we can delete terminated employees in the system.

Target Audience:

This blogpost is targeted towards SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition implementers and consultants, project managers, technical & functional consultants, ILM experts who are looking for a one place information for standard documentation around deletions, blocking, data archiving and data destruction of worker data in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition.

Disclaimer: 

This blog is is being updated today (5th March 2025) and is applicable as of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2502 release. Features & capabilities are subjected to change as per SAP's product development roadmap, hence always consider looking at the latest standard documentation in SAP Help Portal - Delete Employee Data.

"Image/data in this KBA is from SAP internal systems, sample data, or demo systems. Any resemblance to real data is purely coincidental."

Note:

The SAP ILM process archives or deletes all the workforce persons who are terminated in the system. This process cannot be followed for a specific workforce person or a set of workforce persons.

Prerequisites:

To use ILM relevant configuration activities, the role SAP_BR_BPC_EXPERT (business catalog ID: SAP_CA_BC_IC_LND_ILM_PC) is required to open the relevant configuration activities in SAP Central Business Configuration or in Manage Your Solution app.

Procedure:

There are three sets of data, work assignment, business partner and business user.

To delete employee data, we need to schedule an SAP Information Lifecycle Management job that periodically archives or deletes terminated employees.

For more details, please refer to SAP Help Portal - Data Management for HR Connectivity and Workforce Details

1. Terminate Employment or Work Agreement

Terminate an employment or work agreement in the source system where it was created. To terminate a work agreement using the Manage Workforce app by changing the end date, refer to Manage Workforce.

2. Lock Unused Business Users

You can lock unused business users. For more information, see How to Lock Unused Business Users.

3. Assign Residence and Retention audit area to WFD_ASSIGNMENT ILM object.

*If this is the first time to use ILM process, make sure that Audit area is already created by configuration activity ‘Maintain Audit Area’ (ID: 106660). Please see the details on SAP Help Portal - How To Maintain Audit Areas.

Open configuration activity ‘Assign ILM Object To Audit Area’ (ID: 106661)

Policy Category: RST Residence Rules
Audit Area: ARCHIVING Data Archiving

Click on 'Run'

Select ILM Object: WFD_ASSIGNMENT (If not showing, click on New Entries)
Status 'Active'
Click on 'Save'

Policy Category: RTP   Retention Rules
Audit Area: BUPA_DP   Business Partner: EoP Lock

Click on 'Run'

Select ILM Object: WFD_ASSIGNMENT (If not showing, click on New Entries)
Status 'Active'
Click on 'Save'

Note:  This is a one-time setup and need not be repeated for subsequent processes.
If there are multiple Audit Areas assigned to one ILM object 'WFD_ASSIGNMENT', system will not be able to identify the correct audit area and the blocking will be failed. Hence always make sure that for one ILM object only one Audit area is assigned.

ILM Audit Areas - SAP Help Portal

4. Create Residence and Retention rules.

Open configuration activity ‘Maintain ILM Policies and Rules’ (ID: 106666)

Policy Category: Residence Rules
Audit Area: ARCHIVING   Data Archiving
ILM Object: WFD_ASSIGNMENT   Destruction Object for Worker Assignment

Click on ‘Run’
Click on ‘New Entries’
Enter Policy Name and click on ‘Save’

Select newly created Policy, double click ‘Condition Fields’, click on ‘New Entries’
Select COUNTRY as Condition Field, and enter Position
Double click ‘Residence Rules’, click on ‘New Entries’

Enter the Residence Period
Select Time Unit
Select Time Reference WFD_ASSGMT_END_DATE
Click on ‘Save’

Double click Policies and change the policy status from not live to live, then click on ‘Save’

Policy Category: Retention Rules
Audit Area: BUPA_DP   Business Partner: EoP Lock
ILM Object: WFD_ASSIGNMENT   Destruction Object for Worker Assignment

Click on ‘Run’
Click on ‘New Entries’
Enter Policy Name and click on ‘Save’

Select newly created Policy, double click ‘Condition Fields’, click on ‘New Entries’
Select COUNTRY as Condition Field, and enter Position
Double click ‘Retention Rules’, click on ‘New Entries’

Enter Min Retention Period and Max Retention Period
Select Time Unit
Select Time Reference: WFD_ASSGMT_END_DATE
Click on ‘Save’

Double click Policies and change the policy status from not live to live, then click on ‘Save’.

Note: This is a one-time setup and need not be repeated for subsequent processes.

5. Schedule ILM Destruction job in ILM Data Destruction application.

Go to ILM Data Destruction application

Select the Data Destruction Objects and toggle to Not Scheduled.
In the search box type WFD_ASSIGNMENT and select the check box
Click on ‘Schedule’

Use the Test check box for simulating the deletion. (Optional)

The selected files are scheduled for deletion and will be deleted when the schedule is run every two days at 23:00 UTC in the production mode and every two hours in the test mode.
How to Schedule Destruction Runs Using Data Destruction Objects - SAP Help Portal

6. Blocking and Deleting Business Users

While user master records can be simply deleted from the system, think of the consequences to any references to that user master record before deleting user data. For more information, see Blocking and Deleting Business Users.

7. Archiving and Destroying Business Partner Data

Use the archiving object CA_BUPA to archive business partner data. For more information, refer to Archiving Business Partner Using CA_BUPA.

Note

• Veto Check

  While deleting/blocking the work agreements, certain veto checks can be found (message like: Blocking not possible because veto check failed for assignment XXXX). In this case, make sure all of them are cleared, then run the process again.

  Certain examples of veto checks are employees who need to be deleted are already part of a posted Purchase requisition or involved in the commercial/enterprise project (<Personnel number> is assigned to a responsibility in project <Project ID>).

• Without Work Agreement

  If the worker does not have any Work Agreements, then you can skip the steps 3, 4 & 5 in the SAP Help Portal -  Data Management for HR Connectivity and Workforce Details which deals with the ILM Object WFD_ASSIGNMENT for Work Agreements.

  The last step in the help document: Archiving Business Partner using CA_BUPA archives the BP and the complete Employee here. Make sure that the Employee is Terminated and the Retention & Residence period is in sync with the end date. 

  Also if Business User is created for this worker, then this should also be deleted before initiating the Archiving Process.