SAP Archiving – Why XARCH Flag is Set in Secondary Indexes during Archiving FI Documents
Friends, some days ago I discussed about archiving procedure and what data gets archived when financial documents are archived by using archiving object FI_DOCUMNT. During archiving of FI documents, data from header table(BKPF), line item table(BSEG), tax data(BSET), intercompany posting(BVOR) etc is written to archive file and then deleted from the database. But, corresponding secondary index data is not deleted. There is a flag called XARCH in all secondary index tables namely, BSIS, BSAS, BSAK, BSAD(BSID and BSIK are not considered during archiving FI documents). This flag is set to X for archived FI documents.
Why data from secondary index tables is not deleted during archiving.
It is not that data from secondary index tables cannot be deleted during archiving of financial documents. The secondary indexes data can be deleted immediately after delete phase via post processing program or we can say post processing step.
But, secondary indexes are not deleted because line item display transactions display line items from secondary index tables. Below are the line items display transactions.
Line item display transaction for G/L accounts : FBL3N
FBL3N selects line items for G/L accounts from secondary index tables BSIS or BSAS or from both depending upon whether you want to view only open items or only cleared items or all items(both open and cleared) respectively.
Line item display transaction for Vendor accounts : FBL1N
FBL1N selects line items for vendor accounts from secondary index tables BSIK or BSAK or from both depending upon whether you want to view only open items or only cleared items or all items(both open and cleared) respectively.
Line item display transaction for Customer accounts : FBL5N
FBL5N selects line items for vendor accounts from secondary index tables BSID or BSAD or from both depending upon whether you want to view only open items or only cleared items or all items(both open and cleared) respectively.
Does that mean that data from secondary index tables is never deleted?
No. This is not the case. Actually, we define life time of secondary indexes in the customizing setting depending upon the business requirement. The life time indicates the number of days for which secondary indexes should remain in database after archiving. Once the life time is achieved, secondary indexes can be deleted by using post processing step. The post processing step will not deleted secondary indexes for which life time is remaining.
Note : Actually this is a kind of limitation that we cannot deleted secondary indexes even after archiving because line item display transactions reads data from secondary index tables. Now, this limitation is easily bypassed with the help of SAP Archive Information Structures or in short SAP AS technology.
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Related posts:
- SAP FI – Line Item Display Flag in Account Settings
- SAP Archiving – What Data gets Archived via Object FI_DOCUMNT
- SAP Archiving – SAP AS or Archive Information System For FI_DOCUMNT
- SAP Archiving – Archive Administration SARA
- SAP Archiving – Effect of selecting ‘Retain account display balance’ in Post processing program for FI_DOCUMNT