March 2008 www.SAPexperts.

com

Troubleshoot and Track BDoc Messages

in SAP CRM
by Pavan Kumar Sunkara, Senior SAP Architect, SITA Corp.
See how you can use a Business Document monitoring process in CRM Middleware to quickly
uncover errors when transferring data between SAP CRM and SAP ERP Central Component.

On a recent job, the client had SAP ERP

Central Component (ECC) 5.0 and SAP
CRM 2005. With the large volume of data
loads that move between ECC and SAP
CRM, a significant number of Business
Documents (BDocs) flow through queues.
Usually the BDocs flow smoothly through
the queues, but sometimes they become
stuck in the queues due to errors. My task
was to devise a way to monitor BDocs in
SAP CRM to troubleshoot these errors.
For example, you could encounter an error
when a business object is changed in the
CRM Server, but ECC doesnt receive this
change. The same goes for the reverse
process SAP CRM may not reflect
changes on the ECC side. SAP CRM
doesnt offer a systematic approach to troubleshooting and BDoc monitoring, so I
devised the following procedure to streamline the BDoc monitoring process. Ill show
you a way to identify the BDoc error, find
out where it occurred, locate the BDoc in
the queue, and reprocess the BDoc.

For the BDoc Type (Generation Name),

enter the BDoc type to use as a filter, such
as BUPA_MAIN for a business partner
message, BUS_TRANS_MSG for a transaction (order) message, or PRODUCT_MAT
for a product message. For example, if you
want to display all the error BDocs related
to business transactions, enter BUS_
TRANS_MSG in the BDoc Type field to
filter BDoc errors by transaction.

>> Key Concept

CRM Middleware uses Business
Document (BDoc) messages in
queued Remote Function Calls when
transferring data between SAP CRM
and another system, such as SAP
ERP Central Component. BDoc messages are based on BDoc types,
which contain all the information for
a particular business process, such
as a collection of data related to a
particular business partner.
Message ID field. The system assigns this

If you want to display a particular BDoc

and you know the 32-digit, unique BDoc
ID, such as 464C8CA65C9E00AD00000
000C0A870B2, enter it in the BDoc

ID after it generates the BDoc. You can

ignore this parameter if you dont know the
BDoc ID. In this case, the system displays
all the BDocs based on the BDoc type. You

Analyze the BDoc Messages

The first step in correcting the error is to
analyze the BDoc messages, which you
can access via transaction SMW01
(display BDoc messages) or via menu
path Middleware>Monitoring>Message
Flow>Display BDOC Messages. This
takes you to the selection screen in Figure
1 in which you enter certain parameters to
get information about specific errors.

Figure 1 Selection screen for transaction SMW01 (display BDoc error messages)

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can use the User (Creator) field to filter

BDocs based on a given user.
The BDoc State describes the current processing of a BDoc. Table 1 shows the
possible statuses for this field. Usually you
encounter BDocs with a status that starts
with an E or F. Statuses with an F are final
and mean that the system processed the
BDoc after initially encountering an error.
Statuses with an E are error statuses that
you must correct manually.
Finally, if you want to display inbound
BDocs, select the Inbound check box in the
Flow Context area. To display outbound
BDocs, select the Outbound check box.
After entering the filter criteria in Figure
1, press F8 to execute the transaction with
your selection parameters. The screen in
Figure 2 appears. In the State field you
see three circles. Successfully processed
messages have the right circle shaded in
green, those still in process have the
middle circle shaded in yellow, and those
with a terminal error condition have the
left circle shaded in red.
If a message is in process and the system
does not process it within a reasonable
amount of time, you can restart, view, or

Show BDoc message

errors/receivers

Show BDoc message

classic data

discard the message. The next sections

describe when and how you can carry out
these functions.

View the Error Message

the BDoc errors. In the screen that pops

up, click on the Errors button to see the
list of errors and their descriptions (Figure
3). Then click on the Longtext button to
view the information about the cause
of the error.

In Figure 2, click on the show BDoc

message errors/receivers icon
to see

For example, if the system has triggered a

business partner transfer, you may see the

BDoc State

Meaning

I01

Received (intermediate state)

I02

Written to queued Remote Function Call (qRFC) queue (intermediate state)

I03

After qRFC step (intermediate state)

I04

BDoc stored before update task (intermediate state)

T01

Temporary lack of resources in application layer

F01

Rejected (fully processed)

F02

Confirmed (fully processed)

F03

Set to processed (fully processed)

F04

Confirmed (fully processed by all receivers)

F05

Information (no processing)

E01

Technical error (incomplete)

E02

Partially send, receivers have errors

E03

BDoc cannot be read from database

E04

BDoc validation error

E05

Inbound processing failed

E06

Outbound processing failed

E07

Conversion error

O01

Send to receivers (not all have confirmed)

D01

To be processed (debug)

R01

Table 1

Show BDoc message

trace

Retry after temporary error

BDoc state errors

Show BDoc object links

Show BDoc message

extension data

Troubleshooting

Figure 2 List of BDocs that appear after you execute transaction SMW01

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Neighbors

Delete BDoc

Reprocess BDoc

March 2008 www.SAPexperts.com

error text Pin code missing. This helps

you see that this BDoc is stuck because
the system encountered a missing pin
code when it created the business partner
in the source system. To find the business
partner number and to check the pin code
field value, you need to display the classic and extension data as explained in the
following sections. When you're finished,
close the BDoc error segments window to
go back to the screen in Figure 2.

see if the same object is available. If the

object is not available in the sender system
then you can delete this BDoc. If you find
the object in the sender system and not in
the receiver system, then you confirm that
an error occurred during transfer. In this
case you need to check the BDoc errors as
explained in the previous section.

You can find the business object the BDoc

is carrying by clicking on the show BDoc
message classic data icon
. This shows
you the BDoc header, segments, sender,
and receiver site with high-level information such as the object name and GUID.

If the object is available in both the sender

and receiver systems, then you need to find
the detail data the BDoc is carrying. For
example, say someone triggers a business
partner transfer from ECC to SAP CRM.
You found the business partner number by
clicking on the classic data icon. In this
case you need to check ECC and SAP
CRM to ensure that the same business
partner is available in both the systems.
The extension data shows this information.

After you identify the object, you can

check in the sender and receiver systems to

Display the extension data by clicking on

the show extension data icon
. Com-

Show Classic and Extension Data

Figure 3 BDoc error segments

pare this data with the object in receiver

system. If you find that the data is the
same, then you can delete the BDoc. If the
data is not same, then find the BDoc error
as explained in the previous section.

Middleware Trace
Sometimes you may face a situation in
which the BDoc has errored out and you
are unable to find the cause of the error
even after clicking on the display BDoc
errors icon. In this case the CRM Middleware trace monitor helps you find the
error by displaying the trace level and
trace program name with the line number.
Youll need the assistance of your ABAP
developer for this step.
Click on the show BDoc message trace
icon
, use transaction SMWT, or
follow menu path BDoc Message>Display>BDoc Message Trace to display the
BDoc message trace. All methods lead
you to the Middleware Trace screen
(Figure 4). The developer uses this information to debug the trace program and
find the error.
Click on the troubleshooting icon
to
see the information about troubleshooting
this BDoc (Figure 5 on the next page).
Here you can find the steps you need to
take to resolve the BDoc error.

Figure 4 Middleware trace monitor with detailed message flow

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After you correct the error, click on the

. In the screen
reprocess BDoc icon
that appears, click on the Yes button to
reprocess the BDoc. The system reprocesses the BDoc and BDoc status turns
green if it successfully processed or it may
still remain in same state with a new error.
Then you need to follow all the above
steps again to find the error until the
BDoc is error free.

Outbound and Inbound Queues

In the previous section I discussed how to
display BDoc messages, identify the
errors, and reprocess BDocs. In this
section I discuss inbound and outbound
qRFC queues. Sometimes you may face a
situation in which you trigger an object
download, but the object does not transfer
to the target system and you cannot find a
BDoc error entry using transaction
SMW01. In this case you need to check
the qRFC queues to find out why the
BDoc is stuck in the system.
There are inbound and outbound qRFC
queues. You can employ the same qRFC
outbound queue monitoring that you use

on the CRM Server for ECC. If an object

is not processed correctly within ECC,
and the system doesnt return an error
condition via BAPI parameters, you must
check ECC using transaction SMQ1 (outbound) or SMQ2 (inbound). For example,
when you download a product from ECC
to SAP CRM, you can find the qRFC
entry in ECC transaction SMQ1, which
then flows to SAP CRM with the qRFC
entry in CRM transaction SMQ2.
You display qRFC queues in three steps.
For outbound queues, first go to transaction SMQ1 and click on the execute icon
to access the qRFC Monitor screen for
outbound queues (Figure 6). Select the
Queue Name and then click on the
display icon
to view the entries
under that queue with the status and time
stamp (Figure 7).
You can access additional detailed items by
selecting the queue and clicking on the
display icon (Figure 8). In this screen you
can delete ( ), execute ( ), or debug
an entry ( ). For example, when a user
triggers a product download from ECC to
SAP CRM, you can delete the entry in

Figure 5 SAP guided procedure to resolve the error screen

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Figure 8 (if the product is already available

in CRM), execute the download (to send
the entries to SAP CRM), or debug the
download if it is stuck.

Reduce Data in Inbound

and Outbound Queues
Analyzing the errors and reprocessing the
BDocs following the processes described
earlier reduces data in the CRM Middleware message store and in inbound and
outbound queues. The qRFCs then empty
the queues. However, you should delete or
reorganize the data in certain circumstances, such as successfully processed
BDocs or old logs.
Depending on the selected trace level in
Figure 4, the system writes entries into
internal trace tables. You must delete these
entries in regular intervals to prevent the
tables from becoming too big. Use the following process to reorganize data from
traces, logs, and BDocs.
First, create a variant of program SMO6_
REORG (reorganization) with transaction
SE38. Determine the number of days you

March 2008 www.SAPexperts.com

want to keep the most recent data. The

SAP default is variant SAP&_MW_
REORG with seven days. Then schedule
the reorganization job by using transaction
SM36 or by going to transaction SPRO
and following menu path CRM>CRM
Middleware and related components>
Reorganization>Reorganize Log and
Trace Data.
Figure 6 qRFC outbound queue display after executing transaction SMQ1
Pavan Kumar Sunkara is an
SAP-certified solution
consultant with six years
of SAP experience, including five years with SAP
CRM and one year with
SAP ABAP. He has participated in three
Figure 7 qRFC queue entries

full lifecycle implementation projects

and has expertise in CRM Middleware,
Internet Pricing and Configurator (IPC),
telesales, and teleservice. He currently
works with SITA Corp. as a senior SAP
architect. Pavan has worked with major
clients from various industries, including
hi-tech, manufacturing, and consumer
goods. You may contact him via email at
pavan.sunkara@sitacorp.com.

Figure 8 Details of each queue entry displayed

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