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Archiving (transaction SARA)

Data archiving removes bulk data which is no longer required in the System, but which must be retained accessibly, from the database. Data in the R/3 database can only be archived via archiving objects, which describe the data structure. Financial accounting documents, for example are archived via the archiving object FI_DOCUMNT, which comprises the document header, company-code-dependent postings, change documents, SAPscript texts and other elements. The application archiving objects are pre-defined in the system. The archiving programs are scheduled as background jobs, but can run during on-line processing. The system need not be shutdown.

The archiving procedure comprises two main steps:

You can check how the archive filenames and archive destination are setup in transaction FILE

Always remembers to check the setting before any archiving.  The settings will determine things like whether the delete programs will start automatically.  (it is not advisable to start your delete programs automatically).

You can configure all the customizing settings with transaction AOBJ - Archive Objects.

MM_MATBEL - Archive material document

MM_ACCTIT - Archive accounting interface tables PP_ORDER - Archive production order FI_DOCUMNT - Archive Financial Accounting Documents SD_VBRK - Archive Billing Documents

There are no posting date or fiscal year/period selection.  You can only specify the billing documents date.  In order that you do not archive the wrong record, you have to write a ABAP query or report to print out the various billing documents number ranges you want to archive.  You can extract the data from table VBRK - Billing: Header Data.

RV_LIKP - Archiving Deliveries

VORL - Maintain the retention period. Number of days which must have elapsed since the delivery was created, before the
              delivery can be archived.

VLAL - Archive deliveries

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