Approving work items (Albina Fernando)
Shai Eyal
shai.eyal at yahoo.com
Fri Jun 15 00:12:10 EDT 2007
Albina,
I can think of two simple ways to achieve you requirement:
1. Single workflow template, approval within a loop (until predefined condition is fulfilled).
2. Single workflow template - in runtime the workflow starts for each approver.
In addition, in both ways, the best way to determine the approving user is via rule.
Good luck.
Regards,
Shai Eyal
SAP Logistics senior consultant
SAP Workflow specialist
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Today's Topics:
1. Approving work items (Albina Fernando)
2. RE: Commit Work (Paul.Bakker at osr.treasury.qld.gov.au)
3. RE: Workflow development standards (Dart, Jocelyn)
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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 02:02:48 +0530
From: Albina Fernando <Albina.Fernando at lntinfotech.com>
Subject: Approving work items
To: sap-wug at mit.edu
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<OF4F05F40C.4A97CA60-ON652572FA.0070DDB2-652572FA.0070DDD8 at lntinfotech.com>
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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 06:38:29 +1000
From: Paul.Bakker at osr.treasury.qld.gov.au
Subject: RE: Commit Work
To: "SAP Workflow Users' Group" <sap-wug at mit.edu>
Message-ID:
<OF53DAF750.2F2E0028-ON4A2572FA.0070D3DC-4A2572FA.00716113 at treasury.qld.gov.au>
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Mike,
Let me crawl out on a limb and say that in 4 years of doing workflow (over
half a dozen sites), I have never found a workflow problem that couldn't be
explained logically.
Perhaps that is because I've never been to a real high-volume site like
yours.. I don't know.
Overall, I've always found SAP workflow to be a very stable, predictable
system. As someone else noted, most problems are due to those pesky users.
:-)
cheers
Paul from Brisbane
|---------+---------------------------->
| | "Mike Gambier" |
| | <madgambler at hotma|
| | il.com> |
| | Sent by: |
| | sap-wug-bounces at m|
| | it.edu |
| | |
| | |
| | 15/06/2007 01:36 |
| | Please respond to|
| | "SAP Workflow |
| | Users' Group" |
| | |
|---------+---------------------------->
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| |
| To: sap-wug at mit.edu |
| cc: |
| Subject: RE: Commit Work |
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Andy,
We see a lot of COMMIT issues in our system when it comes to Workflow in
4.6c, and when I mean a lot I mean all sorts of issues, not just simple
steps.
We see the following on occasion, sometimes often:
1. Events that are raised but never heard, even though the event listener
is
out there, waiting.
2. Steps completing but the DB updates not being fast enough for the
Workflow (even with COMMIT WORK AND WAIT explicitly stated in the Method
code, of course LUW concept is boken here).
3. Branches of forks not shutting down when they should (WF becomes
completely frozen)
4. Loops not terminating when their end condition is set (WF becomes
completely frozen)
5. Sub-WFs completing but their Parents still waiting for them to finish
(WF
becomes completely frozen)
6. Deadlines that end but the WF does nothing afterwards (WF becomes
completely frozen)
7. Event containers going 'missing'.
All of these really are down to the Workflow service jobs, SWEQSRV, SWERRE
and SWWDHEX encountering various types of problems (and probably issuing
ROLLBACK statements) and/or the LUW handling being incorrect with partial
commits taking place that Workflow can't handle.
Things like screen messages, short dumps, WF syntax/definition glitches and
unexpected Commits inside code all have a nasty tendancy to interrupt these
programs and therefore expose the whole process chain to unrecoverable
breaks.
The phrase often quoted around here about Workflow is that it is 'flaky'
and
needs constant attention. To be honest we have literally tens of thousands
of WFs in trouble system-wide and it's often really tough to know what to
do
next, particularly after time has elapsed. For most of our WFs we have had
to turn off the technical log due to our volumes so we have all become
familiar with the underlying tables to find out waht's going on.
Thankfully, as we all should know, SAP do give us some handy Transactions
to
help: SWIA, SWPR, SWPC (in increasing order of severity). But, often these
programs require the Workflow entries to be in a consistent state to
qualify
for selection and/or reprocessing. So 'adjustment' of the tables is
sometimes required... And sometimes direct calling of the Workflow Admin
Functions becomes inevitable...
We've recently gone back to SAP and asked them to provide us with a better
tool to analyse the health of our running WF instances. Will publish here
any progress on that front.
Knowing what to do and when is all part of the skill required to look after
Workflow I suppose.
Mike GT
>From: "Catherall, Andy M" <andy.m.catherall at csplc.com>
>Reply-To: "SAP Workflow Users' Group" <sap-wug at mit.edu>
>To: "SAP Workflow Users' Group" <sap-wug at mit.edu>
>Subject: RE: Commit Work
>Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 06:25:09 -0600
>
>Hi
>
>To expand this 'Commit Work' debate a little further (sorry), I'm
>curious to understand better the implications of Commits in background
>work items.
>
>I've had problems where the code in a background step has errored poorly
>(SAP standard, too!), which has caused the WF to stall quietly, awaiting
>the return from a method that will never complete. Finally, I receive
>the notification from the batch job to say that the Work Item is at
>status 'started'.
>
>A quick look in SM58 shows the error on the RFC that spawned the
>background job. The underlying cause of the error is corrected
>(sometimes, it is little more than an object locked by a user) and the
>RFC can be resubmitted.
>
>What I have discovered is that you cannot assume the LUW is correct, or
>that the workflow will resume correctly - or even at all.
>
>My theory is this that the code being run as a separate session via RFC
>is frequently not *designed* specifically for this, and has Commits in
>places that destroy the LUW. Based on this theory, it would be
>preferable to use BAPIs where possible, and only commit at appropriate
>logic points.
>
>Thoughts...?
>
>I'm also curious to know if there is any wisdom on restarting background
>tasks that have errored... On 4.6c
>
>
>Thanks
>Andy
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu@CADSCHW On Behalf Of "Alon Raskin"
><araskin at 3i-consulting.com>
>Sent: 12 June 2007 14:21
>To: SAP Workflow Users' Group
>Subject: RE: Commit Work
>
>Hi Mikey,
>
>I completely understand your point of view. There is just something
>about doing my own COMMIT WORK (and wait) in the method that makes me
>feel uncomfortable. It means that I am going to end the LUW myself and
>not give the caller (the workflow sub-system) a chance to do its own
>COMMIT WORK or ROLLBACK.
>
>To be honest I have only seen a COMMIT WORK 'break' things once. It was
>on an IS-U implementation in Sydney, and the workflow just hung. When we
>removed the COMMIT WORK all was well. I guess the COMMIT WORK was
>leaving the workflow tables in some sort of inconsistent state.
>
>I am sure there has to be a better way...
>
>Perhaps the answer is to never call BAPIs directly from a Workflow but
>rather wrap the BAPI in a 'standard' method. 'The Good Book' (not the
>one with Abraham and Moses but the one with Rickayzen and Dart) even
>mentions it is a good idea to wrap BAPI calls in standard methods but it
>suggests this for different reasons then the one I am thinking of.
>
>Ps. I am coming to the UK in 2nd and 3rd week of July. Any chance of a
>Poker game with the boys?
>
>Alon Raskin
>e: araskin at 3i-consulting.com <mailto:araskin at 3i-consulting.com>
>p: +1 207 523 3489
>c: +1 207 409 4983
>f: +1 806 403 4983
>
>
>________________________________
>
>From: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu on behalf of Mike Gambier
>Sent: Tue 6/12/2007 04:04
>To: sap-wug at mit.edu
>Subject: Re: Commit Work
>
>
>
>Hey Gavin & Alon,
>
>On that same UK project (which is still going on by the way, only now
>it's live with 16 million customers and going to be upgraded to ERP 2005
>at some point), we still occasionally see DB update issues every now and
>then, even with explicit COMMIT WORK AND WAIT statements littered (as
>you say) inside the BOR Methods.
>
>After more analysis the problems seem to be related to timing issues
>with object instances that have their own buffering (and when the
>buffers are refreshed), buffering at the DB level for SQL performance
>and V1 and V2 updates actually being carried out at the DB level.
>
>Simply put Workflow can sometimes be too quick to proceed to the next
>step, particularly when the system its on as a whole has a lot of
>traffic.
>
>My advice to anyone who absolutely positively needs to have performed
>the update in a previous step first is to:
>
>a) Consider adding explicit COMMIT WORK AND WAIT statements driven by
>optional importing parameters to their methods - more load on the system
>and delays to the Workflow but a greater chance of success. You can then
>experiment by setting the parameters on certain sensitive steps to see
>if this helps. If it doesn't you can always remove the flag setting in
>the binding later.
>
>b) remember to refresh buffered instances after the data has been
>updated.
>Often overlooked this one. Same goes for the binding to between the step
>and the Workflow. If you have specified the binding make sure any
>updated instances are actually passed back to the WF container.
>
>c) build in to the WF definition decent error handling and possible
>retries (e.g. temporary exceptions). Think about how certain you have to
>be that the previous DB update has actually worked to carry on with the
>WF. Sometimes after several tries you may actually want to stop the WF
>altogether because it would be too risky to carry on.
>
>Regards,
>
>Mike GT
>
> >From: "Gavin Mooney" <gavinmooney at gmail.com>
> >Reply-To: "SAP Workflow Users' Group" <sap-wug at mit.edu>
> >To: "SAP Workflow Users' Group" <sap-wug at mit.edu>
> >Subject: Re: Commit Work
> >Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 19:11:41 -0300
> >
> >Hey Alon,
> >
> >When I was looking into this issue once on 4.6C (for a project in the
> >UK that you may remember) I found that the code was littered with
> >explicit COMMIT WORK statements, including after the execution of each
> >step. I don't know if this has changed in the newer releases but my
> >guess is that by being a COMMIT WORK and not a COMMIT WORK AND WAIT
> >statement, you can still have update problems.
> >
> >We didn't see this just with BAPIs though. As far as I remember we
> >resolved it either by creating a custom wrapper method that called the
> >standard one and then executed a (SAP authorised) COMMIT WORK or by
> >using async methods and terminating events.
> >
> >I'd be interested to see what experiences other members of the group
> >have had....
> >
> >Regards,
> >Gavin
> >
> >2007/6/11, Dave Weston <Dave.Weston at clockwork.ca>:
> > > Alan, in step 1 are you also calling BAPI_TRANSACTION_COMMIT at the
> > > end
> >to do the commit and apply the changes to the db ? you can also use the
>
> >WAIT parameter to wait for the update to take place as well.
> > >
> > > Dave
> > >
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu on behalf of Alon Raskin
> > > Sent: Mon 6/11/2007 5:09 PM
> > > To: SAP Workflow Users' Group
> > > Subject: Commit Work
> > >
> > > A colleague of mine is having an issue and I wanted to see if anyone
>
> > > has
> >seen this before. I have seen this issue creep up on different
> >implementations so I am sure I am not the first to handle this.
> > >
> > >
> > > *
> > >
> > > Step 1 creates a new document (doesn't matter what it is,
> > > its
> >IS-U) by calling a BAPI
> > > *
> > >
> > > The BAPI returns the ID of the new object which can be seen
> > > in
> >the container of the Workflow
> > > *
> > >
> > > Step 2 then calls SYSTEM.GenericInstantiate to get an
> > > instance
> >of the newly created document
> > > *
> > >
> > > Step 2 errors claiming that the object does not exist.
> > >
> > > I suggested to him to uncheck the Advance with Dialog step as I
> > > thought
> >that this would 'force' the WF sub-system to do a COMMIT WORK between
> >steps but this did not seem to work. I was sure that the Workflow
> >sub-system always executes a COMMIT WORK between steps. Is that not the
>
> >case? We did a test, and created a method where all it did was execute
> >a COMMIT WORK. We inserted this step in between the BAPI and the
> >System.GenericInstantiate and everything worked beautifully. So it is
>definitely a commit issue.
> >Perhaps WF treats methods marked as BAPIs differently to standard
> >methods and doesn't not do an explicit COMMIT WORK? If so, how do
> >people get around this?
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > Alon Raskin
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > SAP-WUG mailing list
> > > SAP-WUG at mit.edu
> > > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/sap-wug
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >_______________________________________________
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> >http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/sap-wug
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Message: 3
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 08:00:31 +0800
From: "Dart, Jocelyn" <jocelyn.dart at sap.com>
Subject: RE: Workflow development standards
To: "SAP Workflow Users' Group" <sap-wug at mit.edu>
Message-ID:
<2EAD340DEF223745B1AC9A10B49FBB4756902D at sgsine13.sin.sap.corp>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Nice ... but hopefully next time they will have updated to use ABAP OO
for Workflow as well.
Regards,
Jocelyn Dart
Senior Consultant
SAP Australia Pty Ltd.
Level 1/168 Walker St.
North Sydney
NSW, 2060
Australia
T +61 412 390 267
M + 61 412 390 267
E jocelyn.dart at sap.com
http://www.sap.com <http://www.sap.com/>
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From: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu [mailto:sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu] On Behalf
Of Sue Doughty
Sent: Thursday, 14 June 2007 9:41 PM
To: SAP Workflow Users' Group
Subject: RE: Workflow development standards
Michelle,
Attached is a presentation -- Workflow - A Journey in Discovery -- that
was given at ASUG this year. They had a great spreadsheet that
contained all the steps of a workflow project and what needed to be done
for each phase. Their email addresses are on the last page....you could
ask them to send you the spreadsheet.
Hope this helps.
Sue Doughty
________________________________
From: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu [mailto:sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu] On Behalf
Of Michelle Van Patten
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 4:31 PM
To: sap-wug at mit.edu
Subject: Workflow development standards
Good afternoon,
Does anyone have development standards for workflow they could share? I
have been tasked with creating them for our company.
Thanks,
Michelle
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