How-to Guide

SAP NetWeaver 2004s

How To…
Trigger an
ALERT from a
Process Chain
Version 1.05 – May 2006

Applicable Releases:
SAP NetWeaver 2004s
(BI & Web Application Server Capability)
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1 Business Scenario
Alert Management (ALM) comes into play, when business-critical problems occur. Within
ALM, conditions for critical situations are pre-defined. When an alert is triggered in ALM
that meets these conditions, responsible or interested parties are determined and
informed immediately.

Examples for business-critical problems could be the dropping of revenue for a particular
customer under a certain threshold or a critical amount of stock for a certain stock part.
On the other hand, technical problems in the BI system could also be significant enough
to alert a responsible person immediately.

NOTE Starting with the release SAP NetWeaver 2004s, a feature has been
introduced to trigger an Alert in case of an erroneous process chain.
You find this functionality in the ‘Process Chain’ menu (Æ Attributes Æ
Alerting). For further information on the topic, please refer to the Release Notes
or online documentation of SAP NetWeaver 2004s.

2 Introduction
The Alert Framework is provided as part of the SAP Web Application Server, starting
with the release 6.20. The application that wants to trigger alerts must define its own
alert categories and implement the triggering of the alert. For more information on the
basic settings for the Alert Framework, please consult the online documentation for SAP
NetWeaver.

Currently, alerts in BI can be triggered as a follow-on action for an exception in the

Reporting Agent. For further information about the creation of alerts via the Reporting
Agent, please refer to the online documentation or to the HowTo paper.

For problems arising in the administrative area of the BI system, like extraction,
staging, etc., there is currently no standard functionality to trigger an alert. Within
the process chain maintenance, you can initiate a mail as the result of a process
type. Yet a mail has only notification character, opposed to an alert, which should
only be triggered if immediate action is required.

This paper describes how you can incorporate an existing alert category in a
process chain. The alert can be triggered based on the result of a predecessor
process type (i.e. successful, not successful, in any case) and is implemented as
a customer-defined process type. The process type does not effect the further
processing of the remaining process chain.

Disclaimer: The custom-defined process type described in this paper is only one way to
implement the triggering of an alert. We do not guarantee the correctness of the ABAP coding or
stability of the solution in future releases.

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3 The Step By Step Solution
First, create an appropriate Alert Category. Next implement a custom-defined process
type. For additional information about this topic, please consult the online documentation
or the HowTo paper “HowTo... Implement custom process types” in the SAP Developer
Network (SDN). The selection of the alert category for the process type and the
triggering of the alert during run time has been realized by different implementation of
some of the methods. In the following steps, only these methods and their contents is
described. The methods GET_HEADER, WILDCARD_ENABLED, EXISTS,
GIVE_CHAIN remain unchanged.

3.1 Defining an Alert Category

For detailed information on the definition of an Alert Category please refer to the online
documentation for the Alert Management. We just stress some of the settings of the Alert
Category used in the scenario.

1. In the container, you can define

elements that can be filled
dynamically on the triggering of the
Alert. We named our only container
element ZTEXT, which is a 255
character field.
Multiple container elements can be
defined.

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2. The container elements can be used
in the text of the alert as variables. In
addition to the container elements,
you can also incorporate system
variables in the texts of an alert.
To pick a variable, press the
button.

3.2 Implementing the Class for the custom-defined process type

1. In order to choose an existing alert method IF_RSPC_GET_VARIANT~GET_VARIANT.

category on the insertion of the
process type, the GET_VARIANT data: l_t_alerts type standard table of
DDSHRETVAL,
method calls a F4 value help on the l_s_alerts type DDSHRETVAL.
existing alert categories. The alert
picked, is stored in the variant of the
process type. * ...Choose an existing ALERT
CALL FUNCTION 'F4TOOL_CHECKTABLE_HELP'
EXPORTING
CHECKTABLE = 'SALRTCAT'
RETFIELD = 'CATEGORY'
WINDOW_TITLE = 'Select Alert'
TABLES
RETURN_TAB = l_t_alerts.

* ... Store variant information

read table l_t_alerts into l_s_alerts
index 1.
e_variant = l_s_alerts-fieldval.
concatenate 'Trigger Alert:' l_s_alerts-fieldval
into e_variant_text.

endmethod.

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2. If the user wants to define his own
alert category, he can do so either
on the insertion of the process type
or by maintaining the variant within
an existing process chain. The
functionality is provide on the create
button ( ) on the Process Variant
maintenance pop-up.
The coding is provided in the
method MAINTAIN.
3. The 2 previous steps are needed to
maintain the process type during the
design time of the process chain.
During the run time of the process
chain, the EXECUTE method is
performing the actual action of the
process type, i.e. the triggering of
the alert.
The following activities are
performed:
- The Alert Category is named
‘ZALERT’
-The Alert Category has a
Container Element named ‘ZTEXT’,
which is filled with a text that
contains the process chain ID
- As additional recipient (besides
the fixed recipients specified in the
Alert Category and the user that
have subscribed to the alert) the
user ‘ALERT_REC’ will receive the
alert with a specific message
attached.
method IF_RSPC_MAINTAIN~MAINTAIN.
data: l_alert_name TYPE RSPC_VARIANT.
* ... Call ALERT Category maintenance
Call transaction 'ALRTCATDEF'.
If i_variant is initial.
* ... Since no return value, pick one from the list
IF_RSPC_GET_VARIANT~GET_VARIANT( importing
e_variant = e_variant
e_variant_text = e_variant_text ).
else.
e_variant = i_variant.
concatenate ‘Trigger alert:‘ i_variant
into e_variant_text.
endif.
endmethod.
method IF_RSPC_EXECUTE~EXECUTE.
data: l_unique_id TYPE sysuuid_25,
L_S_alert type swcont,
l_t_alert type table of swcont,
l_s_recipients type SALRTSRCP,
l_t_recipients type table of salrtsrcp,
l_s_processlist type RSPC_S_PROCESSLIST.
* ... Get Instance
CALL FUNCTION 'RSSM_UNIQUE_ID'
IMPORTING
e_uni_idc25 = l_unique_id.
e_instance = l_unique_id.
* ... Declaration of the alert-container
* Fill container element ZTEXT
READ TABLE I_T_PROCESSLIST into l_S_PROCESSLIST
index 1.
l_s_alert-element = 'ZTEXT'. "<mycontainer-elem>
CONCATENATE 'The process chain '
l_s_processlist-CHAIN_ID
' was errorneous. Please check'
into l_s_alert-value.
APPEND l_s_alert TO l_t_alert.
IF l_t_alert IS NOT INITIAL.
* ... Build container via macros
CALL FUNCTION 'RSRAS_BUILD_CAM_CONTAINER'
TABLES
c_t_swcont = l_t_alert.
ENDIF.
* ... Add some additional recipients
* ... Could be any message or none
l_s_recipients-UNAME = 'ALERT_REC'.
l_s_recipients-MSGID = 'RSM1'.
l_s_recipients-MSGNO = '799'.
l_s_recipients-MSGV1 = 'Process Chain Error'.
append l_s_recipients to l_t_recipients.
* ... Trigger ALERT
call function 'SALRT_CREATE_API'
EXPORTING
ip_category = i_variant
TABLES
it_container = l_t_alert
IT_RECIPIENTS = L_T_Recipients.
if sy-subrc ne 0.
e_state = 'R'. “Indicate erroneous
else.
e_state = 'G'. “Indicate succesful
endif.
endmethod.
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3.3 Using the new process type in a process chain

After the newly created process type has been entered in the process chain maintenance
(Menu Settings Æ Maintain Process types), it can be used in a process chain. We have
specified the Alert Icon ( ) as icon for the process type, and have assigned to
the process types of the group ‘General Services’.

1. Create a new process chain with the

desired scheduling (start process)
and the administrative activities that
you want to perform. For the
scenario, we assume the loading of
transaction data.

2. Select the process type that you

have implemented for the triggering
of the alert.

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3. Choose an Alert Category or define
a new one.

4. Connect the new process type with

other process types to trigger an
alert depending on the outcome of
the respective process type.
We have chosen to trigger an
ALERT on failure of the loading
process to indicate that further
processing of the data is not
possible, and the loading process
has to be checked.

5. Activate your process chain.

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3.4 Checking the ALERT Inbox for new alerts

After the Process Chain has been executed, and an error occurred in the loading process,
an alert is triggered. The recipients of the alert (in our case the user ‘ALERT_REC’) can
check his Alert Inbox for new alerts. The Alert Inbox is only one channel to receive
alerts. The user can also define alternative channels, like SMS, Mail, etc.

1. We are describing the simplest way

to check a user’s Alert Inbox via a
report executed in the transaction
code SE38. More comfortable ways
could be the integration of the Alert
Inbox in a Web Application or Portal.
For the execution of the report call
transaction code SE38.
Enter the report RSALERTINBOX,
and execute the report.

2. The Alert Inbox is shown as a BSP

Application. The alerts received by
the user via this channel are
displayed.
The screen shot shows the Alert
Inbox with one Alert triggered by the
process chain AK_ALERT1 (the
process chain ID has been passed
via the container, and has been
included in the description of the
Alert Category).

4 Appendix
Further helpful reports for the implementation and testing of alerts are:

• RSALERTPROC - Delivering alerts

• RSALERTDISP - Displaying alerts
• RSALERTINBOX - Calling alert inbox as BSP
• RSALERTPERSONALIZE - Calling personalization settings for alert delivery as BSP
• RSALERTSUBSCRIBE - Calling subscription to alert categories as BSP

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