POWL (Power list) takes long time to Refresh in portal application

[Former Member]

A portal application has POWL where, when the list is displayed for the first time, it displays in reasonable amount of time, but when the "Refresh" button is clicked, it takes very long time to refresh and display the data. Please advise what can be the reason for this and how to approach investigation of this issue. I am new to this area so do not have much info about feeder classes etc. I have seen notes related to SRM portal but not about normal portal application. Please provide your expert advise.

[ionbarbu]

Hi Avanti,

When the refresh button is pressed in the POWL application, the FEEDER CLASS for the POWL fetches the latest data from the back end system using the given selection criteria. If the runtime of this refresh is inadequate, perhaps the selection criteria should be modified.

To do this, please have a look at the POWL application in the POWL_COCKPIT transaction, and from there, navigate to the query in question. Once you find the query, use the "Maintain query" button and you will now be able to maintain selection criteria. If performance is key, then make sure the correct selection fields are enabled, and perhaps think about setting fields as mandatory in order to prevent the undesired long run times.

Regards

Ion Barbu

[Former Member]

Hi Ion,

There is no powl_cockpit transaction in my sap system. Is there any other alternative for this?

The issue is that the program powl_wload runs everyday to refresh the queries but some queries do not get refreshed because this program fails to do so when system resources are not available. As a result some users cannot see refreshed data on their screen. SAP says this is the limitation of this program.

Running this program with discard cache opton is also not recommended by SAP beacuse all user settings etc will get refreshed.

Refresh on Query switch will again reduce the performance of the system as many users will try to refresh at the same time.

Please advise what approach should be taken.

Thanks.

[ionbarbu]

Hi Avanti

Can you provide the system details of the back-end ECC environment you are working with, as well as some details about the POWL application in question? Is it a standard object from SAP or a custom development?

If you are unable to reach powl_cockpit, it sounds like you are on EHP4 or lower. This would also explain why the powl_wload job with the discard flag is over-writing the user settings. Have you checked OSS note 1774911?

Do you know if an upgrade is planned for your customer? This would be highly advisable to avoid these issues without making any other changes.

The fundamental problem as I have understood it lies in the fact that the application refresh is fetching too much data at a time, causing undesired performance. The simplest solution here would be to reduce the amount of data that is selected for the refresh. To do this, you can use the powl_query transaction, navigating to your query, and double clicking on it. Here you will see the parameters and settings for the query, which can be adapted as stated in my first reply. Also consider the usage of mandatory fields, in case parameters are not static.

Hope this helps, good luck!

Ion Barbu

PS. Do you use hierarchies in the display of data in the POWL? In the past I have found that this display technique sometimes causes performance issues.