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Job & Automation Monitoring Setup & Configuration

Job & Automation Monitoring Setup & Configuration

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisite steps to be done in SAP Cloud ALM. You need to have the role / authorization for Job Monitoring in SAP Cloud ALM, and you need to configure in your SAP cloud service(s) the push of job execution data as described under "Setup" below. This initial one-time activity needs to be done in every monitored service.

Setup

* For SAP ABAP jobs in many cases the rating of the Application Status is grey. This is normal, if the job does not write any application log messages. To ensure that application log messages that are written during batch execution of a program are linked to the job execution you need to do following configuration:

  1. call transaction CRIT
  2. add "Auto-linking Applog-Handles for jobs"
  3. activate the profile

In below example the linking is restricted to jobs executed in client 200. Please note, that with "Option" [=] the value * will be interpreted as *. For patterns make sure to use "Option" [x].

Configuration

Option to Set Run Time and Delay Threshold in Monitoring

In the Monitoring UI jobs are evaluated with a default Rating Rule that you can adjust, if you have role Job Monitoring Consumer. Please note, that the setting is not persisted, i.e. if you relaunch the application the default will be applied again. Below you see the default settings.

Option to Set Name of Job with Changing Name

In case of the ABAP job scheduler there is no job definition with a unique ID. When scheduling a job the user defines what shall be executed, gives a job name and on save this entity gets a run ID. The job name does not need to be unique as together with the run ID it is unique for the ABAP system. At execution of the job the next occurrence is determined, and the job data is copied to the next due date and gets a new run id value.

To be able to group the executions of a job for Job & Automation Monitoring a stable ID is formed by the data collector as a hash value:

 ID

 Hash of

JobId

 jobname + client + number of steps + job metadata[(step no + program + variant)]

 

If a job constantly changes its name (e.g. job name contains a time stamp), the formed JobId hash value is not stable, which does allow to group executions under one JobID. To enable the grouping for such a case, the JobId hash value is formed without the job name and on the monitoring UI, such a situation is indicated as follows:

 

In such a case, please give the job a name that represents all related executions (by pressing the pencil icon).

Note: Several ABAP jobs that have changing names and that execute the same (i.e. client + number of steps + job metadata[(step no + program + variant)] are identical), cannot be distinguished by the monitoring application. 

Configuration of Events

To configure events for alerting for specific jobs, you need to have role Job Monitoring Administrator assigned. Expand the configuration pane and then access the service, for which you want to configure alerting.

Per service you can define events of category

  • Critical Execution Status: The event is raised, if the Executions Status of a job is rated red or yellow, which is the case if an execution aborts or finishes with errors or warnings in the job log. 
  • Critical Application Status: The event is raised, if the Application Status of a job is rated red, which is the case if an execution produces an application error (for an ABAP job error in SLG1 log) or yellow in case of an application warning. You have the option to restrict the event on the Application Status rating.
  • Critical Runtime: The event is raised if the run time of a job execution exceeds the threshold set by you.
  • Critical Delay: The event is raised if the start-delay of a job execution exceeds the threshold set by you.

If you want events to be raised only for certain jobs you can make use of the filter options and specify the job name ("Job / Automation Name"), what is being executed ("Job / Automation Executable Name") or who is executing the executable ("Job / Automation Execution User"). The filter conditions for the different parameters are connected with AND for the same parameter with OR.

The filter options offered are "Is", "Is not" and "Contains". The entered value is interpreted as a string, if for example you want to get alerted

  • for 2 distinct jobs, have two filter parameters "Job / Automation Name". Enter one job name into the 1st filter and the other job name into the 2nd filter (if you need to specify more job names use the + button to add filter parameters).
  • for a group of jobs sharing a job name pattern, use the "Contains" option (do not use * to indicate the pattern) 

To get alerted, make sure to switch on Create Alert and save. If you want to stop to get alerted, you can switch off the Event Action, or deactivate or delete the event in the list of events. Note that events are not raised for services, if those are in Maintenance or Disruption state (maintained in Business Service Management).

In order to send notifications for alerts to an email address 

  1. in Recipient Management the address needs to be registered 
  2. in Job & Automation Monitoring Event Configuration the email needs to be maintain in Send Email To

Housekeeping

 

In SAP Cloud ALM Job & Automation Monitoring data reorganization is as follows:

  • the data of individual executions are kept for monitoring depending on job frequency and deleted with a default rule that you cannot change. The rule is, that for every job at least the last 15 executions are kept, all from the last 3 days and all that are referenced in an alert.
  • jobs that are deleted in the managed service (that are not scheduled any more) are removed from the database after 2 weeks together with the related executions and schedules.
  • the data of individual executions are aggregated for analysis and deleted by default  after 365 days. You can change the default to a value between 30 and 750 days.

Note: If you have configured alerts, please ensure to confirm them. To avoid data growth only the last 100 alerted executions are kept.


Be aware that SAP provides you in fair usage concept 8 GB HANA memory per month. If you extend the given memory you might need to subscribe additional memory blocks with our BTP service SAP Cloud ALM memory extension.

Troubleshooting

If the "Type" of a job or automation is missing, the reason is that run information exists without definition data.

In case of ABAP jobs, if the "Type" is missing for a small part of the jobs only (e.g. 1%), this could be a temporary issue, that disappears after one day as then resending is done. If the issue persists then the reason could be a bug in the data collector.

  • In case of an on premise ABAP system, make sure to have applied note SAP Note 3102288 and switch off the data collection for the job monitoring use case in transaction /n/SDF/ALM_SETUP and then switch it on again.
  • In case of a cloud ABAP system, the fix is automatically applied, so just switch off the data collection for the job monitoring use case communication arrangement SAP_COM_0527 and then switch it on again.

In SM37 all jobs are displayed, whereas in the monitoring application jobs that execute report RSPROCESS are not displayed. The reason is, that those jobs are elements of BW Process Chains. They are displayed as executables of the related BW Process Chain (job type SAP BW Process Chain).

With note 3102288 (version 31) parent PPF jobs are collected, but not the child jobs that execute reports RBANK_PROC_START or RBANK_PROC_END. Those child jobs are consequently invisible in the monitoring application. The reason for not collecting their execution data is, that the parent job runs until all child jobs have finished and if any of the child jobs fails, the parent job has a message in its job log. If the collector (as of ST-PI 7.4 SP20) finds such messages, it rates the parent job yellow.

Configuration to pause and restart data collection is offered from Job & Automation Monitoring, but depends on the availability of the implementation in the managed system or service. For ABAP based systems or services the availability is as follows:

  • SAP S/4HANA Cloud: Implementation is delivered as patch to cloud systems from 25th of January 2023 onward.
  • SAP S/4HANA and SAP Business Suite (SAP NetWeaver Application Server for ABAP (higher than 7.40)): Implementation is available with ST-PI 7.4 SP20 (RTC on 25th of September 2022).

Note, that if the switch is disabled the status is determined based availability of job execution data from managed service (i.e. green, if job data received in the last 30 days).

Please check, if the prerequisite for exceptions to be collected for ABAP jobs is fulfilled:

  • ST-PI 7.40 SP20 or higher is implemented in the managed on-premise system
  • in /n/sdf/alm_setup use case Exception Monitoring is activated.
  • in the managed system using transaction CRIT "Auto-linking Applog-Handles for jobs" is activated

Assuming that

  1. a job / automation "failed" in the system / service for which you had created the event and 
  2. at alert creation the system / service was not in a downtime, that you had maintained in Business Service Management.
  • Check that in the event configuration you have switched on
    • "Create Alert" and / or
    • "Send Email To"
  • Check that the filter criteria are correct, i.e.
    • if you filter for a specific job, use "Is" condition and check that the value matches the value displayed in the monitoring UI
    • if you filter for several jobs, that share a string, use "Contains" condition and check that the string is part of the value displayed in the monitoring UI (do no use * to indicate a pattern) 
    • if you filter for several specific values, make sure to add the filter condition several times

A downstream action (like email) is triggered when there is a change in the event rating (green to yellow / red, yellow to red / green or red to yellow / green). This means also, that no new notification is sent on consecutive failures of a job as the rating does not change.

Please note, that a downstream action (like email) is triggered when there is a change in the event rating (green to yellow / red, yellow to red / green or red to yellow / green). This means also, that a new notification is sent on a "successful execution" after a "failed execution" as the rating did change.

Issue: In the Additional Alert Key we see job name FRN_ARP_0000001242. However, this job does not exist. The actual job names, that we see in SM37 are:

  1. FRN_GP_C2022111514563629923_001
  2. FRN_GP_C2022111514563629923_002
  3. ...
  4. FRN_GP_C2022111514563629923_012
  5. ...

Answer: As explained in the Configuration section under Option to Set Name of Job with Changing Name: In case of the ABAP job scheduler there is no job definition with a unique ID. To be able to group the executions of a job for Job & Automation Monitoring a stable ID is formed by the data collector as a hash value that contains the job name. If a job constantly changes its name (e.g. job name contains a time stamp), the formed JobId hash value is not stable, which does allow to group executions under one JobId. To enable the grouping for such a case, the JobId hash value is formed without the job name and on the monitoring UI you have the option to give to such a job a name that represents the group of jobs. It is this name, that will be used at alert creation.

Still forward navigation from the alert details via URL to the job in the managed ABAP system is supported.

Issue: We monitor ABAP jobs and in alerting or monitoring we click on "Run Id" value to navigate to the job in the executing system. The first part of the URL that is opening is not the correct one, as it goes directly to the URL of the Application Server. We are using SAP Web Dispatcher so in order to function correctly, it will need to access the URL of the SAP Web Dispatcher. 

Solution: Edit in Landscape Management the system and maintain in field "Logon URL" the URL of the SAP Web Dispatcher.

Customer Support

In case you encounter problems using or setting up Job & Automation Monitoring in SAP Cloud ALM, please report an incident using the following component:

  • SV-CLM-OP-JM  - Job and Automation Monitoring Service

Please select your SAP Cloud ALM tenant when reporting the incident.