Archiving ( SARA Transaction)

Data archiving removes bulk data which is no longer required in the

System, but which must be retained accessibly, from the database. Data
in the R/3 database can only be archived via archiving objects, which
describe the data structure. Financial accounting documents, for example are
archived via the archiving object FI_DOCUMNT, which comprises the
document header, company-code-dependent postings, change documents,
SAPscript texts and other elements. The application archiving objects are
pre-defined in the system. The archiving programs are scheduled as
background jobs, but can run during on-line processing. The system need not
be shutdown.

The archiving procedure comprises two main steps:

Create archive files: the data to be archived are first written sequentially into
a newly created file. The data then exist twice in the database. These archive
files can, e.g. be passed to an archive system, via Archive Link.
Execute delete program: the data in the archive files are removed from the
database by the delete program.
You can check how the archive filenames and archive destination are setup
in transaction FILE
Always remembers to check the setting before any archiving. The settings
will determine things like whether the delete programs will start
automatically. (it is not advisable to start your delete programs
automatically).

You can configure all the customizing settings with transaction AOBJ Archive Objects.

MM_MATBEL - Archive material document

OMB9 - Archiving - Material document retention period.

The default documents life is 200 days. You need to maintain the
documents life for each Plant in your company before you can start
archiving. If you did not maintain, you will get a list with 'Valid.period not
maintained for tr./ev. type of doc.'.
MM_ACCTIT - Archive accounting interface tables
The documents store in the table is for applications which are to be supplied
with the posting data at a later date of MM Inventory Management and MM
Invoice Verification.
If you are using 3.x, this archiving object might not be found. You need to
import it from sapservX. Read note 89324, 99388, 83076.
Take a look at OSS note 48009 for the detail explanation of which data is
updated in the ACCT* tables.
PP_ORDER - Archive production order
OPJH - Production Order retention period. Maintain Retention 1 and 2.
If your set your retention 1 and 2 as 10, that means that after 10 days of
setting the delete flag then you can set the deletion indicator. After 10 days
of setting the deletion indicator then you can start archiving. Therefore, to
archive immediately, you can leave retention 1 and 2 as space. Please take
note that retention 1 and 2 act as a safety net if you happened to archive the
wrong record. You will have to decide whether to have the retention time
gap or not.
FI_DOCUMNT - Archive Financial Accounting Documents
Maintain the account life

- transaction OBR7

Maintain the documents life - transaction OBR8

SD_VBRK - Archive Billing Documents

There are no posting date or fiscal year/period selection. You can only
specify the billing documents date. In order that you do not archive the
wrong record, you have to write a ABAP query or report to print out the
various billing documents number ranges you want to archive. You can
extract the data from table VBRK - Billing: Header Data.

VN01 - Check all the number ranges for Billing Documents.

Click Overview buttom or Hold the Shift key and press F7.
RV_LIKP - Archiving Deliveries
VORL - Maintain the retention period. Number of days which must have
elapsed since the delivery was created, before the
delivery can be archived.

VLAL - Archive deliveries

Use TCode SARA to write your tables of the archiving object from the
database to archive physical archive file defined in point 2. Choose the
archiving object .

First chose Technical settings---> customizing object specific ---> and

execute.

Create a variant which will help you in deciding whether you want to retain
the table entries for the archiving object in the database after archiving or to
delete them after archiving.

Write the archiving object from the database to the archive path defined by
creating a write variant and mentioning the variant created in the previous
step during the maintainance of the variant. and execute. Ur archival of the
object is done.

Depending on ur variant settings the tables may/maynot get deleted from

your database after the archiving.

To read the archived item -- goto SARA and read the object by selecting the
object name.

Archiving is the term or process which removes the old data from your SAP
R/3 system and stores the same data on some other storage system such
IXOS.

An Archiving object is the collection of tables of a particular SAP module.

For example, FI Team, we have one archiving object called FI_DOCUMNT
which contains all the tables related to this team and when we do archive
this object, that means it will archive all the data from different tables related
to FI team.

There are a lots to learn about SAP data archiving...you can either learn
online or go through the book called "Archiving your SAP data" ..this is good
for beginners.

SARA is the only transaction that will help you to launch the archive jobs in
background for a particular archiving object.

This is nothing but Archive administration where you do the customizing, see
the stastics, database tables, information etc etc of a particular archiving
object.

Please go through the step defined below for archiving material master.just
change the archiving object MM_MATNR and put MM_MATBEL

Archiving the Material Master

Before Archiving the Material Master the materials need to be flagged for
deletion in T Code MM06/MM16.

Archiving the materials is done thro T Code SARA. All the SAP archive
functions are shown in SARA. Choose the corresponding SAP archive object,
hit enter and the archive administration menu will be shown.
When a material is no longer required in a company or plant, you can archive
and delete the material master record.
Before a material master record can be archived and deleted, other objects
(such as purchasing documents) that refer to this material must themselves
be archived. You can see which objects these are and the dependencies
between them in the network graphic.

Archiving object MM_MATNR for archiving material master records.

To archive the material master, first go to transaction SARA

Type in a variant name and click Maintain. (Tick the Test Mode for archive
simulation).

Save the variant.

Maintain the Start date and Spool parameters and click execute.

Click Go to Job Overview to check the archive status.

To do a permanent delete, click Delete button.

Maintain the Archive Selection, Start date and Spool parameters.

Click Test Session for testing or click execute to start the deletion program.

Click Go to Job Overview to check the delete status.

This need to be done carefully and better to first do it in testing client.

After archiving those materials will not be displayed in reports unless

categorically selected
Note: SARA is a general transaction where you can archive all types of
records using respective archiving object