Job & Automation Monitoring

The purpose of Job & Automation Monitoring is to provide a central job monitoring solution for all SAP products to complement local job scheduling. It gives transparency about the current status of the different automation processes (for simplification called "jobs" in the later text) regarding execution status, application status, start delay and run time. The goal of the application is to serve as a central tool that integrates with local tools rather than replacing them. It provides an overview and rating of jobs based on their latest execution, allowing users to analyze data process flows across different services and systems.

The graphic below illustrates the overall concept of Job & Automation Monitoring:

With Job & Automation Monitoring in SAP Cloud ALM, currently it is possible to monitor SAP S/4HANA Application Jobs, SAP ABAP Jobs, SAP BW Process Chains, SAP Build Process Automation Jobs (or SAP Intelligent RPA jobs) and SAP Business Workflow.

Jobs defined with SAP Job Scheduler Service can be monitored in a custom BTP Application with some instrumentation effort. For a full list of the supported solutions and job types, please check SAP Cloud ALM for Operations Expert Portal page.

The collected job execution data is provided aggregated (hourly and lower resolution) to SAP Cloud ALM analytics APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) for external usage (for example for Grafana Consumption). Jobs and workflows are executed in the managed cloud and on-premise services. The individual executions are captured (start, end times, and status) by the local execution infrastructures. Customers can choose to forward execution data to SAP Cloud ALM for Operations, where the individual execution data is assembled and correlated with definition data. 

There are no specific prerequisites for Job & Automation Monitoring. On the one hand, the type of the job or automation must be supported by SAP Cloud ALM, and on the other hand, you need the authorization role for Job & Automation Monitoring in SAP Cloud ALM.

Additionally, the general setup for the managed system has to be performed in the sending service. Two examples follow, showing SAP Intelligent RPA and SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud Edition.

Please find below screenshots displaying the general setup in SAP Intelligent RPA and SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud Edition:

The data push configuration needs to be done as documented in SAP Cloud ALM for Operations Expert Portal, where you would also find a list of all the supported products of Job & Automation Monitoring.

The next figure shows an example from a SAP ECC system, where the configuration in the managed system is done via Report /SDF/ALM_SETUP. Details can be found in the SAP Cloud ALM for Operations Expert Portal.

The next screenshots display the configuration of Data Push in SAP ERP Central Component via Report /SDF/ALM_SETUP:

Once the connection to the managed system is established, a periodic job acts as a constant heartbeat to exchange information with SAP Cloud ALM. This ensures that the job stays connected and synchronized with the central system. The job also functions as a constant scheduler that collects data and sends it to a SAP Cloud ALM. The configuration of the data collection and the data push to the SAP Cloud ALM system are one-time activities. Once the data is in SAP Cloud ALM, users have the flexibility to control the collection process, in terms of enabling or disabling the collection as per their requirements.

In the Job & Automation Monitoring app, you can evaluate the status of automated actions and background jobs.

From the Home Page of SAP Cloud ALM, choose the group SAP Cloud ALM for Operations then open the tile Job & Automation Monitoring.

On the Overview page, you can get a summary on the overall job situation. It provides information on the job and automation status of every service or system in your scope:

From the overview cards, you can drill down into the list of alert situations and the list of jobs. The card provides an overview on the status of the monitored job types with respect to Execution Status, Application Status, and Run Time for the chosen time frame. The cards show automations with technical issues with respect to the latest executions.

The number of jobs with an exception is determined by the status of the latest execution of the job. The number reflects those with the worst rating. At the bottom, the number of open alerts is displayed for the respective service/system. You can navigate to the monitoring application and the alert list from this card.

In this example, there are 95 application jobs from Integrated Business Planning being monitored. Additionally, there are two process chains being monitored in an SAP HANA system, however, the number of jobs in these chains is not visible using this card. By selecting the number of Open Alerts, your are forwarded to the Alert Overview, and by selecting the header of the tile, you can see the list of jobs.

The Favorites page provides the same drill downs to the list of jobs and to the list of alert situations:

Favorites can, for example, be defined from the list of jobs based on specific filter conditions by clicking the star icon. Once this favorite is defined, it is available on the favorites part of the overview page. It ensures quick access to specific filter criteria you are using repeatedly. Users also have the option to provide a more descriptive name for the card by making use of the rename option within the favorites area.

The Monitoring page provides information on the job and automation situation for the services/systems in scope:

The job executions are grouped and every job is rated based on its latest execution regarding:

• Execution Status
• Application Status
• Start Delay
• Run Time

The list of jobs is sorted by default on the execution status for every job and it is indicated if there is an open alert. By selecting a job or an automated action name, you can view the execution details of the selected job or an automated action in a table with the recent job or automated action executions, sorted by planned start time: 

Consider that you want to understand former executions of failed jobs.

1. After you have identified an individual job, you can drill down into the list of executions.
2. By selecting the information icon a separate pop-up will open appear.
3. Once you select the Run ID in this pop-up, you will have the possibility to navigate via direct link to the managed component (service/system).

From the Execution Details it is also possible for ABAP Jobs to drill down into Job Log Messages (left hand side) or Application Log Messages (right hand side):

Therefore, the central monitoring brings some benefits, as you do not have to navigate into the remote system to get such information. To make this possible it is necessary that the application log messages are linked to the ABAP job executions (see also the setup description in the SAP Cloud ALM for operation Expert Portal).

The screenshots below display the Monitoring and the Alerting page:

An important part of the application is that you can get alerted on failed job executions. The alerting is offered for the following metrics:

• Execution Status
• Application Status
• Start Delay
• Run Time

In the Monitoring view, you can see if there are open alerts for services or jobs and you can drill down to the alert using the alerting view. From the alert you can also forward navigate via the Run ID into the managed component, comparable to the navigation from the monitoring application.

On the Alerting page you can scan the whole list for Alert Name, Message, Status, Processor, and Object Details. Furthermore, you can Assign or Remove alert processors, confirm open alerts, view the action logs of an alert, and also export the alert list to CSV or XLXS format for download. To analyze an alert, you can drill down to alert details in order to get information on the related message. By choosing the relevant option from the Actions button, you can perform actions, such as adding comments, starting a workflow, sending notifications, and so on per alert:

On the Exception page, you can see the exceptions of jobs and automations related to the application data as per the selected scope. It is built into Job & Automation Monitoring as a reuse component from Integration & Exception Monitoring, and it therefore has powerful capabilities for analyzing exceptions. In general, you can see the number of exceptions with regards to type Error and type Warning. More specifically, you can also identify mid- or long-term trends in exception occurrences.

By selecting the exception icon of a job or an automation, you can drill down to the detailed description of the individual exceptions. These details might also include relevant context information.

The next screenshot shows the Analysis page:

On the Analysis page you can view the values for different metrics of jobs or automations.

You can filter, sort, and change the order of columns and you can drill down into trend graphs for an individual job or automation. In the table view you can filter for specific jobs and services.

In this table, analytical information is offered regarding:

• Number of executions
• Red Execution status
• Red Application Status
• Runtime

In the table view, you can additionally find out which job or automation had:

• Most executions
• Most failures
• Highest overall run time
• Highest average run time
• Bad Runtime/Failure Rate trend

The following screenshot displays the Analysis page drill down features:

After identifying jobs or automations which have high runtimes or failure rates or deteriorations in a given time frame, you can drill down into trend reporting in a graphical form. Here you can find diagrams about:

• Total Number of Executions
• Executions by Executions Status Rating
• Total Number of Executions with Red Executions Status
• Total Run Time of Executions
• Average Run Time of Executions

The following screenshots demonstrate how to easily navigate to a failed execution in a Managed System:

A typical usage example of the alerting would be, if a job produces a warning in the job log and/or has errors in the application log, which would have been undetected:

1. Alerting triggers a chat notification in MS Teams.
2. The notification includes a link that allows users to navigate directly to the corresponding alert for more details.
3. Users can also navigate to the managed system from the alert to access additional information.
4. The example shows that the collector is able to identify critical messages in the job log, even if the job has finished, and recommends investigating the warning and errors in the job log.

To learn about Job & Automation Monitoring, including its Home page, Monitoring page, available metrics, and Alert page with the Actions feature, please watch our demonstration video:

You can follow along with this demonstration either by using the SAP Cloud ALM Public Demo tenant or your own SAP Cloud ALM tenant, if this use case has already been set up. To do this, simply select the Operations group and then choose the Job & Automation Monitoring tile.

In general, there is not much configuration effort for Job & Automation Monitoring. However, when it comes to alerting, you need to configure the events.

The screenshots below demonstrate how to set up alert notifications:

Events can be configured per Managed Component by expanding the Configuration pane (1) and selecting the respective managed component (2). In the events area you can now define events and the actions that should be triggered.

The following screenshots demonstrate how to limit alerts to specific jobs:

Alerts are raised per Job Name, which is contained in the Object Details and can be filtered on. If you want to restrict alerting to specific jobs, make use of the filter options in Event Configuration. Adjust the event name to understand the filtering and configuration done, but as the job name will be appended to the email subject automatically, there is no need to add the job name to the event.

The following screenshots demonstrate how to trigger the sending of an email:

If you would like to trigger the sending of an email, you need to make sure to switch on Create Alert and to enter one or more notification recipients. Here, you see also an example of a triggered email, where the job name was appended to the email subject automatically.