Process Chains

Definition
A process chain is a sequence of processes that wait in the background for an event. Some of these processes trigger a separate event that can start other processes in turn.

Use
In an operating BW system there are a multitude of processes in addition to the loading process that occur regularly.

If you use process chains, you can automate the complex schedules in BW with the help of the event-controlled processing, visualize the schedule by using network applications, and centrally control and monitor the processes.

Fundamental principals of the process chain concept are: Openness The abstract meaning of a process as any schedule with a defined beginning and end enables openness with regard to the type of process that can be integrated into a process chain. The principle of openness is applied to the theory behind process chains, in that both user-defined programs and processes can be implemented. In addition, you can include process chains in other process chains, socalled meta chains. In doing so you have the option of integrating process chains from the BW system, in which the meta chain is

found, or from other BW systems. In this context, local or remote process chains are concerned. Security Using process chains offers a high amount of schedule security, which is based on the principals of background management: o Processes are scheduled before your run and can be monitored with the standard batch monitor. See also: Process Chain Log Display o o You start subsequent processes by using background events. Short dumps and terminations are recognized and handled respectively.

Responsibility The subsequent process is responsible for getting all the information from the predecessors that is needed for a correct run. This enables the integration of new process types without having to be suitable for the existing types.

You can call up process chain maintenance centrally from the BW Administrator Workbench using Process Chain Maintenance in the toolbar. Use the corresponding pushbutton to access process chain management from the maintenance dialogs in the BW-supported processes.

Structure
A process chain consists of a start process, individual application processes and the so-called collection processes. Define the start of your process chain with the start process. All other chain processes are scheduled to wait for an event. The application processes are the actual processes. BW supports process types of the following categories: Load process and post processing processes Data target administration processes, Other BW processes

As well as ABAP programs and processes you have implemented. You also have the option to include process chains as processes themselves in another process chain. In doing so, you determine whether you are dealing with a local process chain or a remote process chain. A local process chain comes from processes that are scheduled in the BW system itself. It is scheduled as a process in the same BW system. A remote process chain calls a process chain that needs to be run by using a destination in another system. After terminating the process chain in another system, this is confirmed in the BW system and terminates the remote process chain there.

Collection processes are treated differently by the process chain maintenance. They allow several chain strings to be combined to form one individual string. In this way, they replace multi-field scheduling of the actual work processes. Processes are connected via events that start a successor process after being triggered by a predecessor process.

Integration
A process chain is a BW object with a transport system and a connection to the BW document management.

If you use process chains, the automatically integrated processes are ignored and have to be implemented using the process chain. If you schedule a specific process in a chain, you support the automatic insertion of additional, relevant standard processes with the consideration of such automatic actions. For example, if you have selected the processing types Only PSA and Subsequently in Data Targets in the InfoPackage from the tabstrip Processing, and you are using this InfoPackage in a process chain, then the further processing into the data target does not automatically happen. Instead, it only happens if the process Update PSA is scheduled in the respective process chain after the loading process. Thus, the process chain maintenance supports the automation in this case. In this way, you generate a process variant for updating from the PSA in the chain when inserting the loading process with the process types Only PSA and Subsequently in Data Targets automatically into a chain.