- Using the number of intervals parameter, you can define the number of intervals that are to be created.
- You can also use the interval size parameter, which defines the number of processes per interval.
- When creating intervals, you can take different objects into account (business partner, contract account, billing order). This depends on the background process that is to run, for example:
- Mass billing = billing orders
- Invoicing = EITR (pool of contracts that have not been invoiced yet)
- Request budget billing amounts = contract accounts
- Bill printout = EITERDK (pool of bills that have not been printed yet)
Parallel Processing: Problems of Portioning
Problems
- How is the dataset to be portioned? The dataset is not distributed evenly:
- Contract account numbers or business partner numbers are generally more concentrated in some number intervals than in others.
- Contract accounts have varying numbers of items.
- How many portions should be allocated to each process? Each processing run does not contain the same processes or number of processes:
- Processes on different servers have varying degrees of "performance".
- Furthermore, performance is dependent on other processes that are being carried out at the same time.
Billing Summary
- Billing in SAP Utilities follows a process controlled by billing orders.
- A clerk can either perform actual or simulated billing.
- Extensive outsorting functions are available.
- Billing can be completely reversed by a clerk.
- The billing run can be processed in parallel.