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When a material is no longer required in a company or plant, you can archive and delete the material
master record.
You have to Flag the material master record for deletion. This is known as logical deletion.
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.
If a material master record cannot be archived and deleted at a given organizational level, the reason is
given in the log (for example, a purchase order exists for the material). The log also contains technical
data such as the number of material master records read and the number deleted.
You can display the archived data, but not reload it.
Type in a variant name and click Maintain. (Tick the Test Mode for archive simulation).
Maintain the Start date and Spool parameters and click execute.
Click Test Session for testing or click execute to start the deletion program.
Before the deletion indicator is set for a document item, the system checks whan the relevant item was
last changed. Changes taken into account include a change in the order quantity and a goods receipt,
for example. The date of the last change is compared with the current date. If no change has taken
place within the specified residence time 1, a deletion indicator is set for the item.
For document items for which the deletion indicator has been set manually or during the archiving
run, the system checks how many days have elapsed since the deletion indicator was set.
- The deletion indicator has been set for all the items of a document
- None of the items have been changed within the specified Residence time 2 (i.e. the last change was
the setting of the deletion indicator.
This enables you to set the deletion indicator automatically (residence time 1 = fullfilled) during an
archiving run and still keep those records for another time period (residence time 2) in a two step
archiving procedure.
Archiving is saving and keeping data for a certain period (based on local laws for data retention and
auditing purposes) outside of the production data base. Such a job is usually done to keep the
database small and fast.
While doing archiving the records are written to a file and verified to be readable and then the original
record gets deleted from the database. Only if you delete then the file with the archived data you have
deleted the record forever.
Sometimes people seems to work like a burglar and want erase every single evidence for an error. But
even errors, or especially errors are subject to be audited if they are corrected in the right way. This is
the same for financial and tax auditiors as for auditors for ISO 9000.
To be able to archive, you need to setup the path from SAP to the archive. You need to define the size
of your archive and how may records should be kept there.
Step 1: Create variant for Archiving. Give it a name. Enter your PO number. Flag One step procedure.
Flag detailed log. Erase flag for test run.
Step 2: Maintain your start date, you can use Immediate in such a small case.
Step 3: Maintain spool parameters. Enter your printer and set the values if you want to print
immediatly and if you want keep the print. I suggest to hold the spool in the system. This helps you to
determine any error.
It creates 4 jobs:
ARV_MM_EKKO_SUB...., ARV_MM_EKKO_WRI.... ARV_MM_EKKO_DEL.....
ARV_MM_EKKO_STO.... If one of the steps fails, then everything is rolled back, hence nothing is
archived, the record is still in your database. In this case use the jobs spool and joblogs to find out
what happend.
Archiving process:
a) Select Action: Archive and enter a new Variant, for example: Z_CONS_ARCH_01, press
'Maintain'
b) On selection screen, select the 'Sequential Dataset' if you selected data as described in the Data
Selection step, otherwise enter the material number and plant for the deletion of a single record.
c) Select the fields 'Consignment' and 'Special Stock' and Test mode, if you want to try out first.
** This applies for SAP systems prior to release 3.1H: Select also the flag called 'BATCHES'. The
SAP program MMREO020 has a bug which can be worked around with this selection. Without
selecting 'BATCHES', the archived records cannot be deleted. For systems with applied Hotpackages
for 3.1H this workaround is not necessary
d) Press the green back-arrow and enter the description of this new variantt on the screen which
follows.
e) Save the variantt which brings you again to the selection screen. Press green back arrow again.
f) To start archiving process (batch-job), press the 'Start Date' button and select the time when you
want to start this process. Select 'Immediate' for instant processing and press the 'Save' button on the
bottom of the 'Start Time' window.
g) Select the 'Spool Parameter' button and save entries. Eventually enter a valid printer to have the
result outputted.
h) You are ready now to start the process. Press the 'Start' button and monitor the success with the 'Job
Overview' button
You can also go the 'fast path' by using transaction SE38, program MMREO020 for selecting the data
to archive. For large data archiving, use the background jobs and run those during off-peak times. If
you run the program online, you will see a confirmation on the status bar telling 'New Archive file
created:....'