Process Observer Discussion

[JChristophNolte]

This thread is dedicated to questions and discussions around the Process Observer component that is part of Business Suite.

Process Observer is used in different scenarios, including and prominently with Operational Process Intelligence.

For details on what Process observer is see here.

[Former Member]

Hi christoph,

I have a question on retrieving the historical data for process observer. I learnt from the  documentation that the data will be logged in the process observer only from the day the process observer is made active. So, to retrieve the historical data for the process log, there is an appropriate report. Are there any standard reports to retrieve this historical data into the process log directly. If so, can you provide the report names.

Requst your suggestions on the above.

Thanks

Radhika

[JChristophNolte]

Hi Radhika,

the problem is... it's not that simple. The event-based approach of Process Observer (POB) provides a lot of advantages, including real-time capability and a generally more intuitive approach than the extraction-based procedures, but the downside is that accessing historical data, i.e. any data that was created before you switch on Process Observer, is difficult.

Generally bringing in old data must be considered a (small) migration project. The overall procedure consists of two parts: Based on a given process definition, you first need to extract the data and then put it into the log. Let's look at the second part first, so you can understand what kind of data you need (and because it is actually the simpler part): Process Observer allows to send events retroactively, so you can send events "from the past" (the history that you want to put into POB). Technically you can - and should - use the same interface as for the direct event instrumentation, see e.g. the blog entry Direct Event API for Logging Processes from SAP and Non-SAP Systems and detailed information in the workshop document.

So what is left is that you need to translate your historical data into events... which is the difficult part, but which is something you need to do on a case-by-case basis, e.g. your process starts with the creation of a sales order. You can read the sales order and the sales order (like most objects) provides the information when it was created. You can now translate this to task 114-21 (Sales Order - Create) and put that into the interface (adding the ID of the sales order and any other required information).

Obviously, extracting these events retroactively is not an easy task (which is why the POB approach is event-based rather than extraction based), and you will not be able to extract all data. But you may decide that for historical data you need less events, which may need to be reflected in you process definition.

Best regards,

Christoph

[bernd_schmitt]

Hi Radhika,
if you send me your email address, I can send you a sample report that converts historic data into Process Observer events. The quality of the report is not 'production quality', but we were mainly using it to generate mass data based on existing business documents in the order-to-cash domain. The report reads timestamps from db tables and change documents, and then calls the direct event interface using the determined timestamps.

Checking how the report works you may be able to adapt it to your use case.

Regards,

Bernd

[Former Member]

Thanks Bernd. I sent a seperate mail to your email address.

[Former Member]

Hi Christoph,

Our requirement is to identify all the functionalities/features implemented in SAP in the client landscape and find out how many of those are being used by the business. So, we are looking at process observer as a tool ot identify the existing functionalities in the system. For this, we need the historical data to check if the functionalities are executed at aleast once. If at least once, the functionality/feature was used, it means that it is setup for configuration, Otherwise not.