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Background

As part of the regular performance analysis and system resource utilization optimization exercise to improve response times of Business ByDesign we would like to inform our users regarding the introduction of new defaults and additional restrictions in usage of background job scheduling functions.

Business ByDesign offers MDRO (Mass Data Run Object) as a way to automate mass processing of a task or business transaction. For example, MDROs are used in business processes in invoice runs, payment authorization runs, balance confirmation runs and outbound logistics confirmation update runs.

(For further details please refer to online help document).

MDROs allow users to schedule processes to run in the background and some MDROs allow running them periodically by specifying a recurrence interval, this recurrence can be set to run yearly, monthly, weekly, daily, hourly or even by the minute.

Please refer screenshot below of typical Job Scheduling UI.

Recent Issues observed with MDRO Scheduling

Every MDRO instance running in the background consumes system resources in direct proportion to the amount of data processed and if these MDROs are scheduled to run very frequently there will be a direct impact on responsiveness of UIs and other activities for the end user.

Our analysis on recent performance issues reported by customers pointed to multiple MDROs being scheduled to run every minute, in most cases there were no valid business reasons for such frequent scheduling, especially in the area of SCM for ATP confirmation runs or MRP runs. These were either scheduled due to lack of awareness of negative effects on performance or due to the fact that users were not aware of any alternatives available to address their business needs.

What is the change in 1508?

In the August 2015 release of Business ByDesign restrictions have now been introduced in ‘By the minute’ recurrence to allow definition to every 15 minutes or at a higher interval. In addition the default recurrence interval has been changed to 30 minutes for ‘by the minute’ and to 4 hours for ‘hourly recurrence patterns.

This restriction will only be applicable for newly scheduled jobs and existing schedules which are still active will NOT be affected – however our recommendation is that such cases are analyzed and rescheduled with actual required frequency. We will initiate clean-up activities in the near future for such scheduled runs in consultation with customers.

If there are genuine cases where customers need job schedules to run within the 15 minute interval, they can contact Business ByDesign Support using the available channels.

What is needed from customers?

If a customer has such background jobs which have been scheduled to run more frequently than actual business needs, it is recommended to change those definitions at the earliest. The changes can be done by logging into the ByDesign system as a key user and following the path Application & User Management Workcenter -> Background Jobs -> All Scheduled Jobs -> Select the corresponding MDRO Job and choose Action ‘Reschedule’. Detailed guidelines are available in the help documentation.

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