Get a JD Edwards data healthcheck

Discover how the built-in validation checks and audit of exceptions mean you can easily identify issues with your JD Edwards data that can affect your data archiving.

In this article, we look at the detail behind how this works in Purge-it! from transaction level processing and commitment control through to the audit data that’s generated.

Find out how this powerful functionality can help your business.

Let’s dive straight in!

Transaction level processing 

What is transaction level processing?

When we say Purge-it! has transaction level processing we mean everything is performed at a transaction level rather than at a table level.

Let’s take Sales Orders as an example. When Purge-it! archives Sales Orders (SO), it processes one SO at a time. It reads the SO detail and for each line, it checks all tables to ensure it is complete, does not have any open values, and is not related to something that would cause it to be held up from archiving due to related module integrity.  Only once the checks are complete does Purge-it! move the whole order into the archive database in one transaction boundary. Purge-it! then continues to process the next order. 

Another example is General Ledger. When Purge-it! archives the FO911 it checks to see if there’s an existing balancing entry for that account for the period that’s been processed. If there’s no balancing entry, then it creates a balance forward (BF) record. If a BF record already exists for that combination of accounts and fiscal period, then it will append the amounts onto it. This means the FO911 and FO902 will always be synchronized, even if the run has to be stopped or cancelled half way through.

There’s a lot of validation built into Purge-it!  As an example, in General Ledger alone there are over 20 different validations that can be applied to check data is eligible for archiving, many of which are configurable.

Why is transaction level processing important?

The benefit of performing the archiving at transaction level is that you never find yourself in a situation where half an order is in one place and the other half of the order is in another place. In other words, you never face the frustration of having part archived orders or tables even if you stop a job halfway through.

It makes the whole process a lot more controlled, robust, and safe.

Commitment control

Purge-it! uses inbuilt commitment control to protect data boundaries. This ensures your system is never in a situation where some of your data exists in the archive and some of your data is still in production.

For example, if you run the sales module and you’re part way through archiving any one of the 20+ sales tables *, if Purge-it! identifies an issue with the commitments, then the last transaction would be automatically rolled back.

Audit data 

What’s the audit of exceptions?

As part of the archive process, Purge-it! generates detailed audit data. It shows what’s been successfully archived, and in the cases where the data has not been archived, you see the reasons why. 

These exceptions in the data are identified by Purge-it! as part of the audit data that’s generated. This feature allows you to understand any integrity issues in your data that may affect your archiving activities. 

For example, if you have a sales order that hasn’t been archived, it may be that there’s an outstanding accounts receivable document. Alternatively, it could be because the order activity rules haven’t gone to 620 999 for a stock item. 

By highlighting integrity issues with the data, this gives an opportunity to go back to the business to address these. Why does this matter? It’s important because you can be sure that nothing will get out of synch during the archiving process. What’s more it’s not just telling you that there are issues with parts of the JDE data but it’s identifying where the open data is in the system. This makes it far easier for the business to address any problem areas. 

Summary 

When you consider data archiving for JD Edwards, it’s easy to just think about the process as removing older complete data to free up system capacity. However, without the right archiving solution, this can very quickly introduce serious challenges with the integrity of the data, because the JDE data is all interlinked. How will you know that current balances are correct if some of the older figures have been removed? What happens with the auditing?

Purge-it! has all the answers! 

1. Data integrity is maintained throughout data archiving. Nothing gets out of synch.
2. If a process is cancelled mid-way or reversed, the archived data is restored to its original place.
3. Detailed and summarized audit data highlights business process and data integrity issues in your environment.
4. Developed exclusively for JD Edwards systems, the functionality is tailored to meet JDE users’ needs.

* the exact number depends on the release.