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lucas_costa3
Active Contributor
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This post is intended to provide some clarification, guidance, tips on questions/issues that can be raised during the implementation of Real-time Consolidation.

It is important to understand that this blog post was based on a S/4HHANA 1610 FP02 and some issues might have been sorted in 1709 version - I'll try to point that out during the post.

Will try to keep this post updated as much as I can.

Please bear in mind that I have no filiation with SAP of any sort and that everything below expresses my personal experience with RTC so far.

Getting Started


RTC is a new (or not so much anymore) Financial Consolidation tool that crosses S/4HANA, HANA DB and BPC embedded version in order to provide full integration of master data and actual data acquisition without replication. It was released as part of the 1610 release in later 2016. An overview on RTC can be found in here: All you need to know about SAP’s new Real-time Consolidation.

Although RTC was part of the FPS00 of the 1610 release, SAP strongly recommends (see note 2511574) the upgrade to FPS01. My first contact with RTC was on FPS00 when I started a proof of concept which was later to become one of the first RTC implementations out there, and I can say that many issues that I had then have been sorted on FPS01 and 02.

From a user perspective (if you already had contact with BPC) probably the biggest limitation is the fact that US Elimination is not available in RTC.

Additional information around RTC release can also be found below:

Troubleshooting:



Finding SAP notes:


A good way to find bug fixes/new functionalities released by SAP is to refine everything released by date under the particular application component you are looking on the support Launchpad.



The SAP component for RTC is "FIN-RTC", but there are SAP notes under other components that also affects RTC such as:

  • BW-PLA-BPC - BPC Embedded

  • EPM-BPC-NW - Business Planning and Consolidation NW

  • BW-PLA-IP - Integrated Planning


A good tip is to keep an eye on the SAP notes and their respective versions, as this is very new SAP is constantly releasing new fixes/functionalities. Some notes as 2490401 is currently on version 20!

To have an idea, in my first implementation I have applied over 40 notes over the course of the project.

Some good notes to consider:


General fixes and functionality:



  • 2525443 - How to execute business rule from backend for BPC embedded model.

  • 2393020 - Improvement of log for embedded consolidation

  • 2399901 - Business Planning and Consolidation 10.1 Embedded Business Process Flow

  • 2408993 - Business Planning and Consolidation 10.1 Embedded Business Process Flow

  • 2415465 - Embedded consolidation transport tool

  • 2415966 - Saving journal encounters error in embedded model when badi

  • 2418126 - Embedded: CT result is wrong for YTD rule if integration enabled

  • 2437140 - Embedded: Task sequence saved but validation failed using CALC_ID

  • 2445611 - 740 SP18: Locking problems during handling of Metadata Share

  • 2457190 - The status is still running if process ends up with unexpected error

  • 2472737 - RTC - Inconsistent System Behaviour of Input Query and File Upload

  • 2476459 - RSPLAN: Execute planning sequence in BCP environment/model

  • 2478290 - Fixing Issue of Incomplete Model List in "Data Submit Request

  • 2479249 - Embedded: Task sequence saved but validation failed using CALC_ID

  • 2490865 - Solving Incomplete Data Issue in Batch Data Submission Request

  • 2490888 - Enhance ACDOCC to Support End-User Extension

  • 2492528 - A trouble-shooting tool for BPC task sequence at backend

  • 2493811 - Fixing Incomplete Data Issue of Consolidation View 06

  • 2514586 - Improve error handling of report BPC_TASK_SEQ_TEST

  • 2524150 - A generic message BL203 (Message incomplete (severity, area, number, or exception missing) on model creation

  • 2554579 - Real-Time Consolidation Model Enhancement for Reusing Translation

  • 2593976 - Incorrect result when Multiple currencies are placed in the

  • 2606252 - Remove entries with value is zero when write data in consolidation


Performance and Memory Issues


With RTC, you can potentially map any field from ACDOCA to consolidation, which can increase the number of records dramatically. This can cause not just long consolidation runs but also short-dumps due to extensive use of memory. The notes below can help remediate these issues:

  • 2524354 - Improve performance of reading master data for embedded consolidation

  • 2525416 - Poor performance when running BPC embedded consolidation

  • 2530114 - Elimination and Adjustment execution by package according to user-defined dimension

  • 2546995 - Enhance the way of getting and checking base members

  • 2550548 - Run currency translation by package according to a user-defined dimension

  • 2556069 - Performance improvement for BPC (Embedded) Consolidation - Skip check

  • 2575946 - Enhance embedded carry-forward to support parent members of entity dimension

  • 2581275 - Performance Improvement for the Generated HANA Views in RTC

  • 2589778 - Memory issue when running embedded BCF and account transformation

  • 2601679 - Improve parallel logic if an error occurs in some sub-session


Another thing I have done and worked really well was to replace standard scripted calculated views by custom graphical ones. Especially the view 09 that is connected to the virtual provider, in some tests the graphical view has ran as 3x faster as the scripted view.

Master Data



  • 2490401 - Customized entity IOBJs to replace /ERP/ECOMP & /ERP/ICOMP

  • 2531080 - Reverse sign-functionality for nodes in the hierarchies

  • 2573465 - Missing Group/Entity descriptions in Consolidation Monitor

  • 2473538 - AUDIT_TRA Added to Base CDS View for Selection


Transports


For those using 1610, the transport connection tool in BW does not work for business rules, methods, controls, journal templates and task sequences. There is however an alternative found on note:

  •  2415465 - Embedded Consolidation Transport Tool


This is standard on 1709.

After Transport


It is important to remember that some of the objects generated by RTC such as Hana Views are client dependent, therefore after transport you're required to "Regenerate Views" and "Posting API" (T-code RTCMD) and also the re-activation of the currency translation method, if using the S/4 RTC CT, via T-code RTCTM by doing some changing in description and activating in the destination client.

You are not required to transport the generated views from development client, only the foundation view, as RTC will replace them with the re-activation anyway.

 

BPC/BW Integration


Key figure


How to create the RTC amount key-figure.

One limitation from BPC standard was carried over to Embedded Consolidation: Only one key figure can be used. In my experience I found very hard to explain that to my business users why ACDOCC has all those amount and quantity fields if we are only going to use the Group Amount (CONS_SL) - the other amount fields can be populated when running RTC CT but only for unconsolidated data (G_NONE). So one thing I've done to mitigate that was to create an additional HANA view used by reporting to lookup those amounts from ACDOCA using the consolidated data as a driver. Hopefully SAP will mitigate this limitation in the future.

Dimension Length


A limitation that I came across is the fact that BPC maximum length for dimension IDs is 32 characters. In my case I needed to include material in the consolidation engine, which is 40 chars.

The workaround for that is to create new views that will select from the views 09, 10 and 11 (when executing S/4 RTC CT) and change the field MATNR length to the appropriate size.

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