Postprocessing office method and system

• US 20050144527A1
• Filed: 12/30/2003
• Published: 06/30/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 12/10/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Haas, Rolf W., Bruetzel, Otfried
• Granted Patent: US 7,562,351 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/38
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1438 Restarting or rejuvenating
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention provide improved methods and of and apparatus'"'"' for providing post-processing of errors from mass/batch processing of business processes. In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, a method includes executing a business process; determining a failure occurred during the execution of the business process; obtaining information related to the failed business process; and creating a post-processing order using the information including the errors that occurred when the business process failed. The method also includes correcting the errors identified in the post-processing order and re-executing the failed business process. The method further includes determining whether re-executing the corrected business process was successful; and setting a status of the post-processing order related to the business process to indicate completion and setting a status related to correcting the error to indicate completion, if re-executing the failed business process was successful.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

executing a business process;

determining a failure occurred during the execution of the business process;

obtaining information related to the failure of the business process;

creating a post-processing order using the information and one error;

correcting the error identified in the post-processing order;

re-executing the business process;

determining whether re-executing the business process was successful; and

setting a status of the post-processing order related to the business process to indicate completion and setting a status related to correcting the error, if re-executing the business process was successful.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein executing a business process comprises:

executing the business process in a batch-processing mode.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein executing a business process further comprises:

executing the business process without user interaction during the execution.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein obtaining information related to the failure of the business process comprises:

obtaining information including

an identification of the post-processing order,

a status of the error correction work,

a status of the business process,

an identification of the source business process,

a business object that is most involved in the business process,

a most important error,

one or more implementation-specific fields,

a master business object, which is strongly related to the business object, information on the error log,

information on the correcting of the errors in the post-processing order, and

information on the execution of the business process.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein creating a post-processing order using the information and one error comprises:

creating the post-processing order to include a header using the information and one error.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein creating a post-processing order using the information and one error further comprises:

creating the post-processing order to further include at least one post-processing order position using one or more other errors.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein correcting the error identified in the post-processing order comprises:

correcting a most important error in the post-processing order.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein correcting the error identified in the post-processing order further comprises:

correcting at least one other error identified in the post-processing order, if there is more than one error identified in the post-processing order.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein executing the corrected business process comprises:

immediately executing the corrected business process.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein executing the corrected business process comprises:

scheduling the execution of the corrected business process for a specified time.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining whether to create a new post-processing order or append new errors to the post-processing order, if re-executing the business process failed;

closing the post-processing order related to the failed business process, if it was determined to create the new post-processing order; and

creating the new post-processing order using information related to the failed re-executed business process, one or more post-processing positions and one or more errors related to the failed re-executed business process.

12. The method of claim 10 further comprising:

creating the new post-processing order with a link to the closed post-processing order.

13. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining whether to create a new post-processing order or append new errors to the post-processing order, if re-executing the business process failed;

appending error information to the post-processing order related to the failed business process, if it was determined to append the errors to the post-processing order; and

creating the new post-processing order using information related to the failed re-executed business process, one or more post-processing positions and one or more errors related to the failed re-executed business process.

14. A method comprising:

executing a business process;

determining a failure occurred during the execution of the business process;

obtaining information related to the failed business process;

creating a post-processing order using the information, one or more post-processing order positions and one or more errors;

determining whether to re-execute the business process independently of the post-processing order;

re-executing the failed business process, if the business process is to be re-executed before correcting the one or more errors identified in the post-processing order;

correcting at least one of the one or more errors in the post-processing order, if the failed business process was not re-executed;

re-executing the failed business process, if the at least one error was corrected;

determining whether one of the re-executing the failed business process was successful;

setting a status of the post-processing order related to the business process to indicate completion, if one of the re-executing the failed business process was successful; and

setting a status of error correction work to indicate completion, if one of the re-executing the failed business process was successful.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein creating a post-processing order comprises:

creating the post-processing order to include;

a header having the information related to the failed business process and the most important error identified during the execution of the business process, and zero or more post-processing order positions having information about all of the other errors.

16. The method of claim 14 wherein creating the post-processing order to include a header having the information related to the failed business process comprises:

creating the header to include;

an identification of the post-processing order,

a status of the error correction work,

a status of the business process,

an identification of the source business process,

a business object that is most involved in the business process,

a most important error,

one or more implementation-specific fields,

at least one master business object, which is strongly related to the business object,

information on the error log,

information on the correcting of the errors in the post-processing order, and

information on the execution of the business process.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein creating the header further comprises:

creating the header to include a worklist.

18. The method of claim 16 wherein creating the header further comprises:

creating the header to include a reference to a related post-processing order.

22. The method of claim 18 wherein said determining whether a failure occurred during the execution of the business process comprises:

determining whether one or more errors occurred during the execution of the business process.

19. A method of post-processing to correct errors resulting from executing a business process, the method comprising:

executing a business process;

determining whether a failure occurred during the execution of the business process;

obtaining information for a post-processing order, if the execution of the business process failed;

creating the post-processing order to include the information and at least one error identified during the execution of the business process, if the execution of the business process failed;

determining whether to re-execute the business process without error correction, if the execution of the business process failed;

correcting the at least one error in the post-processing order, if the execution of the business process failed and the business process was not re-executed;

re-executing the business process, if the at least one error in the post-processing order was corrected;

determining whether one of the re-executions of the business process was successful; and

setting a status of the post-processing order related to the business process to indicate completion; and

setting a status of error correction work to indicate completion.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein said executing a business process comprises:

executing the business process with a plurality of other business processes in a batch-processing mode.

21. The method of claim 19 wherein said executing a business process comprises:

executing the business process using a control program.

23. The method of claim 19 wherein said obtaining information for a post-processing order comprises:

obtaining the business process associated with the post-processing order; and

obtaining a business object in the business process.

24. The method of claim 23 further comprising:

determining a most important error from one or more errors that occurred during the execution of the business process.

25. The method of claim 24 further comprising:

determining at least one master business object to which the business object is strongly related.

26. The method of claim 25 further comprising:

obtaining information on manually processing the post-processing order.

27. The method of claim 19 wherein said creating the post-processing order comprises:

creating the post-processing order to include said information, errors and position information.

28. The method of claim 27 wherein said position information comprises:

a technical key for the post-processing order;

a position number;

one or more message numbers;

a message text for each one or more message numbers; and

a kind of message for each one or more message numbers.

29. The method of claim 19 wherein said determining whether to re-execute the business process without error correction comprises:

determining whether a predetermined period of time has elapsed since the execution of the business process failed.

30. The method of claim 19 wherein said determining whether to re-execute the business process without error correction comprises:

determining whether an instruction to re-execute the business process has been received.

31. A machine-readable medium having stored thereon a data structure comprising:

a header table including;

an identification of a post-processing order field;

a business process type field;

an identification of the business process;

a status of error correction field;

a status of a business process, which created the post-processing order field;

a most important business object type field;

a most important business object identification field;

a plurality of associated fields to define a most important error; and

a most important error message type field.

32. The machine-readable medium of claim 31 wherein the plurality of associated fields to define the most important error comprise:

a most important error class identification field;

a most important error number field; and

at least one most important error information field.

33. The machine-readable medium of claim 32 wherein the at least one most important error information field comprises:

a first most important error information field;

a second most important error information field;

a third most important error information field; and

a fourth most important error information field.

34. The machine-readable medium of claim 31 further comprising:

a position table associated with said header table by the identification of the post-processing order field.

35. The machine-readable medium of claim 34 wherein said position table includes:

the identification of the post-processing order field;

a position number field;

a message number field; and

a plurality of associated fields to define other errors and other error message type fields.

36. The machine-readable medium of claim 34 wherein said header table comprises a single record for each post-processing order and said position table comprises zero, one or more records associated with the single record for each post-processing order.

37. The machine-readable medium of claim 31 wherein said header further comprises:

a worklist field.

38. The machine-readable medium of claim 37 wherein said worklist field further comprises:

an identification of one user responsible for correcting errors identified in the post-processing order.

39. The machine-readable medium of claim 37 wherein said worklist field further comprises:

a link to a list to identify at least one user responsible for correcting errors identified in the post-processing order.