Custom Log-Function for Travel Data: What technical bedrock is of use?

[Lukas_Weigelt]

Hi experts ,

System Information:

ECC 6.0 EHP 4 SP 50 Stack 11.

Requirement:

In the above mentioned system environment, the only "logging" function for Travel Data available is the Structure AEND in the Cluster TE. However, the pure information who last did something with a report with what status is not enough for my company. Our special department particulary wants to know the exact data (all data available) of a trip right after the approval of the request, i.e. Status 2 - 1. You could say they want a "snapshot" of the Trip data after the request is approved. So I thought of the following: Within our custom Workflow template, I'll create a step within the workflow which reads the Cluster TE after the status has been changed to 2 - 1 with the FM HRTRV_IF_GET_TRIP. This FM provides me all information I need; the question at this point is, how do I store this? I thought of a few possibilities:

• Transparent Tables with foreign key relations (there are about 20 tables).
• A Cluster Table (containing the 20 Tables, each has between 10 to 80 fields).
• Some kind of Document-Output stored on the App-Server (XML-Files or the like).

I'm tending to use the Cluster-Variant, because I heard it's more performant than Pool-Tables or several single Transparent Tables. But since I only "heard" of it and never actually created a Cluster myself, I wanted to get some advice from the community.

So, what do you guys think would work out best?

Cheers, Lukas

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

If you do not need the "snap shot" in table to report maybe also the enhanced function of the history table would be solution. (saving a PDF of the expense formt to the history table)

[Lukas_Weigelt · Accepted solution]

Are you talking about the TE Cluster structure AEND? If yes, this one is not sufficient, furthermore I think a PDF would not suffice either since the snapshotted data has to be evaluable.

Cheers, Lukas

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

No I'm not talking about segment AEND. It is more a "visible" solution to store a "snap shot" of the expense form to the optical archive. I know that this will not lead to a data base withchange log where you can report on. But is this really needed? I have seen a lot of customers trying to get this out of the system. Of course SAP did a architectural mistake here but at the end who will go to all this data?

With the PDF's you will have at least audit possibility if some employee complain or for other audit cases. So with saving the PDF's in certain situations you can do this. (case by case solution).

At the end it would be very nice to capture all changes BUT to build this up on your own I think the effort will not be paid out. (Maybe SAP starts to bring up something in the new solution Travel on Demand or even the revolutionary HANA 😉

Cheers, Sigi

[Lukas_Weigelt · Accepted solution]

From my personal point of view, I totally agree with your point of view regarding the sufficiency of an optical snapshot. The "deciders" in my company, and the special department which poses the requirements, however, see things differently. Their greatest fear is, that our 'appeal-institue'(not sure if this term is correct english...), will ask for something like "show us all trips where the request has been approved by department xyz"; or some high ranked person wants an evaluation of all requests which have been approved by a certain person or something alike. Even if all legal terms are OK with having an optical snapshot, it won't work since the go-live depends on the acceptance of the special department and its deciders... They want all data available and evaluable of the status after the request approval and there is no room for discussion here 😞

Another point is, optical archives is a very 'unhinged' topic in my company... it already took me some time and persuasion to explain that the internal SAP-Office Kpro thingy isn't really an "optical" archive per definition and doesn't invoke any 'danger'....

Considering "the effort will not be paid out", of course you are right. But not putting the effort into this will probably mean the project will be stopped or greatly delayed. I think I will just create some kind of mirror-cluster which is filled by the cluster data and my custom fields for a pseudo-history within the request workflow :-/, even though there is supposed to be an "advanced" history function in EHP5 within FIN_TRAVEL_3. But then again, we won't implement EHP5 until in about 2 years and I don't believe any 'supposed' functions mentioned in the SAP help before I saw them working..

Aight. 'nuff whined. Siegfried, thanks for your input anyway, I always appreciate it. Other thoughts are of course still welcomed!

Cheers, Lukas

P.S.:

Of course SAP did a architectural mistake here but at the end who will go to all this data?

You certainly earned my sympathy with that one ; wished my periphery had the same sense of pragmatism.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Lukas,

than I would suggest that you use a workflow. The data what and who I would write out to a table with date and hour and status change from the trip.

P.S. SAP got a lot of questions about history table to trips. Until today I think they have not done it because this is not fitting to the technical structure. Therefore they came up with the PDF storage in the history table....

Cheers,

Sigi

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Sorry forgot something. You wrote: "supposed to be an "advanced" history function in EHP5 within FIN_TRAVEL_3." From my understanding this is the PDF storage to the history table. (if not please let me know - I would be very surprised if they will deliver here more table like history....

[Lukas_Weigelt · Accepted solution]

I just re-read http://help.sap.com/erp2005_ehp_05/helpdata/en/1e/9467498ee0444f9d06070d3e267364/frameset.htm

and you are right... the "advanced history logging" is a mere snap shot of the expense form, exactly as you described in your earlier post..... I go bite into my keyboard now and create a custom cluster afterwards....

Cheers, Lukas

[former_member131723]

Hi Lukas

We've seen this question in a number of occasions and whilst cant give you a solution on it, just to confirm that what is written to the AEND regarding trip change is only some information about changes of the trip itself like status changes or pertaining to billable receipts etc. in much the same way as the report RPR_TRIP_HEADER_DATA delivers

Unfortunately changes in the trip data e.g. deleting a receipt are not logged in the travel application.

From support perspective, just to be careful with FM HRTRV_IF_MODIFY_TRIP as it is not released!

cheers

Sally

[Lukas_Weigelt]

Hey Sally,

oh dear, I didn't even check whether the whole HRTRV*-stuff is released. Shouldn't be a problem though, since I compiled all my enhancements into one package which I connected to the switch framework. I.e. as soon as we are in need of support of the standard application, I'll just flip the switch and all my enhancements including these FM-Calls by me are temporarily gone, no worries

Any other thoughts for a development approach or approval/rejection of any of my approach-ideas are welcome!

Cheers, Lukas