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SAP Central Finance

SAP Central Finance (cFIN)

SAP Central Finance enables customers with more than one older SAP ERP system to replicate FI documents from these SAP ERP systems into a central Finance system running on SAP S/4HANA. In the SAP Central Finance system customer can leverage the capabilities of SAP HANA to achieve a organization-wide financial view with real-time reporting capabilities.

Integration Scenario

SAP Central Finance doesn't operate as a standalone system but rather depends on data replication from other SAP ERP systems. This FI documents are usually replicated using SAP SLT. Master data is usually done using IDocs.

 

So when it comes to monitoring, verifying the data flow completeness is only a part of the whole monitoring scenario. To monitor the entire SAP Central Finance scenario, monitoring the following components should be considered

For Master Data Replication:

  • Monitoring, Alerting and Analytics for IDocs

For Transactional Data:

  • Monitoring and Alerting for the SAP SLT data replication
  • Monitoring, Alerting and Analytics for AIF messages
  • Monitoring and Alerting for Document (Data Flow Verification)

The setup for Data Flow Verification is described on this portal page. For the other components please follow the links to the setup pages. 

Technical Prerequisites

To be able to monitor SAP cFIN documents via Data Flow Verification you need:

  • FRUN 2.0 Feature Pack 02

Advanced Integration Monitoring Setup

Preparations in the Central Finance System

The Data Flow Verification data collection in FRun is based on existing comparison reports in the Central Finance system:

Report Description cFIN Transaction
FINS_CFIN_DFV_CO_DOC_COUNT Use this report to check whether all internal controlling documents (secondary postings) that have been transferred with the CO interface, have been posted in the Central Finance system as expected. FINS_CFIN_DFV_CO_NUM
FINS_CFIN_DFV_FI_DOC_COUNT Use this report to check whether all journal entries (accounting documents) from the source system have been posted in the Central Finance system as expected. FINS_CFIN_DFV_FI_NUM
FINS_CFIN_DFV_PCA_DOC_COUNT Use this report to check whether EC-PCA documents or balances are replicated to the Central Finance system correctly. FINS_CFIN_DFV_PCA_CN
FINS_CFIN_DFV_CMT_DOC_COUNT Use this report to check whether all commitment line items have been posted in the Central Finance system as expected. FINS_CFIN_DFV_CMTNUM

Before configuring the data collection in FRun, variants for the comparison reports need to be created in the Central Finance system. You need at least one variant for each source system. Additionally to the source system name you can add further source system specific filters like the controlling area or the company code.

  1. Call the transaction for the comparison report that you want to set up
  2. Select the source system
  3. Enter additional parameters
  4. Click Goto > Variants > "Save as Variant..."

Please note: Do not maintain time-related parameters, like date or period in your variant. Time-based settings for the report run are calculated by FRun using additional input parameters in the setup session.

For more information on the cFIN comparison reports please refer to: https://help.sap.com/S4_OP_CFIN > Configuration: Central Finance > Comparison Reports

Please, select...

To be able to monitor interfaces of an on-premise system you first have to add it to Interface & Cloud Monitoring and select the monitoring categories you want to monitor for the system. 

  1. Open the Advanced Integration Monitoring Application by clicking on the 'Integration & Cloud Monitoring' tile in transaction FRUN
  2. Click on the pinwheel in the upper right corner of the 'Integration & Cloud Monitoring' application
  3. In the configuration panel expand the 'Technical Systems' tray and click on the pen icon in the upper right corner. This will open the 'Integration and Cloud Monitoring - Systems' view. 
  4. If your system is not on the list yet, click the 'Add' button to add it. If it is on the list, click on the system ID of the system. 

In the next step, you see all monitoring categories which are available for the system, depending on the system type and the installed software components. Some recommended standard monitoring categories are preselected.

Select the monitoring categories in scope.

Available Monitoring Categories

The available monitoring categories are:

  • Data Flow Verification: Monitor the correctness of the data that has been replicated from the source systems to the Central Finance system

Please, select...

After selecting your monitoring categories you have to maintain filters to define what exactly you want to monitor. Some monitoring categories come with standard filters that usually just select all items of this monitoring category. SAP Focused Run can handle this high amount of monitoring data, so you can stick to this standard filters. Or you can set up filters of your own. 

Please note that the filters you set in the 'Monitoring' step filter the data which is collected from the managed system or cloud service. You can also set up filters later in the 'Alerting' step, which will filter the data already in Focused Run.

You can create more than one filter for a monitoring category.

  1. Select the view 'Monitoring'
  2. To add a new filter click the '+' button on the upper right corner of the table
  3. Select the Category for the filter. The drop down list will contain all activated categories for the system
  4. Enter a filter name
  5. Select the target client for the ABAP system / the end-point for the cloud services
Which filter fields are available depends on the selected category.

Available Filter Options

Data Flow Verification

In the Data Flow Verification setup in FRun you first select the comparison report you want to use. The available reports are described on the section "Preparations in the Central Finance System" above. 

After selecting the comparison report you can further restrict the selection via the following parameters:

  • Variant Name: Variant for report selection screen (as created in the cFIN system before the setup)
  • Time Period: CURRENT (current fiscal period), TODAY (today) or YESTERDAY (yesterday)
  • Delay: Only relevant if CURRENT is selected for the parameter Time Period. Delay defines how many days the data collector is looking back, e.g. if the collector runs on the first day of Nov (new current period) but the data collection shall collect data from the end of the previous period (e.g. to verify period end closing).
  • Date: ENTRY_DATE (date of technical record creation) or POST_DATE (financial posting date of record)

Not all parameters are relevant for each reports. The following table shows which parameters can be set for which report:

Report Possible parameters
FINS_CFIN_DFV_CO_DOC_COUNT Variant, Date, Time Period, Delay
FINS_CFIN_DFV_FI_DOC_COUNT Variant, Date, Time Period, Delay
FINS_CFIN_DFV_PCA_DOC_COUNT Variant, Date (ENTRY_DATE only), Time Period, Delay
FINS_CFIN_DFV_CMT_DOC_COUNT Variant, Time Period, Delay
Please, select...

The setup of the filters for the monitoring categories only makes sure that the data is collected, however, alerts are not created automatically. To create alerts and notifications you have to create an alert individually. 

  1. Go the the view 'Alerting'
  2. Click on the '+' button in the upper right corner of the alerts table. A new panel will appear below the table for you to enter the alert information
  3. Select the monitoring category
  4. Select the metric name. The available metrics depend on the monitoring category.
  5. Enter a name for the alert

In the next sub-step, you have to maintain the filter. For most monitoring categories the available filter fields will be the same as for the 'Monitoring' configuration described above. 

For some metrics, you have additional filter fields or you have to maintain metric parameters. You can check the collected data in Focused Run to determine which filter values to use for alerting. Most of the fields can be found in the Collection Context of the collected data.

Please note that the filters on 'Alerting' level filter the data that is already available in Focused Run. They do not influence the data collection itself. You can only filter for data that is collected. Be aware of this if you created strict filters in the 'Monitoring' step.

  1. Enter a name for the filter
  2. Maintain the necessary filter fields

In the last sub-step you have to activate the alert:

  1. Check the check box next to 'Active'
  2. You can adjust the calculation frequency and the severity
  3. Available threshold types depend on the metric selected. If the threshold type allows it you can adjust the threshold value which triggers the alert.
  4. Select the notification variant and the outbound connector variant from the drop-down list.

For single exceptions, the threshold type is always 'Already Rated'. This means depending on the calculation frequency the number of exceptions is checked and an alert is created if this number is bigger than 0. If you want to reduce the number of alert for these metrics, you could increase the value for the calculation frequency to increase the time between checks.

Available Metrics

For Data Flow Verification the following metrics are collected:

  • Number of missing documents for today
  • Number of missing documents for yesterday
  • Number of missing documents for current period
  • AIF Messages with status error for today
  • AIF Messages with status error for yesterday
  • AIF Messages with status error for current period

For all metrics the following filter parameters are available:

  • Report Name: Select the report from the drop-down box
  • Client: Client in the SAP cFIN system
  • Source System: Enter the source system the documents are replicated from to the cFIN system
  • Variant Name: Select a variant created in the cFIN system (Depends on the selected report)
    Note: You should either enter a source system or select a variant, not both. 
  • Time Period: Select the respective timeframe for the metric
  • Date: ENTRY_DATE (date of entry) or POST_DATE (posting date)