Getting started with Usage and Procedure Logging (UPL)

[shuge_guo]

When I worked on financial related topics, I had experience to use workload statistic (ST03N) to get the information about who has been executed what. But there was always a question from Audit department about how often a certain financial program with high risk was executed (for example Asset Deprecation, transaction: AFAB), which I never knew how to answer.

From this year when I joined into my current new team, I started to know Usage and Procedure Logging (UPL). Honestly saying the first time when I heard this topic, I felt it must be very technical, and very difficult to be used… However, after I get involved more and more and get the detailed introduction and presentation about this topic from an internal Bootcamp, I was really surprised on so many benefits you can get from this functionality and it is so easy to be activated if the right patches are there. At the same time I was so excited to find the answer for the question which I was really struggling for a long time. That’s why I would like to promote this topic to you here.

UPL – What is it? What is the difference to ST03N workload statistic?

UPL is a new functionality available in any ABAP based system based on the core functionality of SAP Coverage Analyzer. Compared with workload statistic (ST03N), the UPL result will be more accurate because it is able to detect also submitted programs or dynamic calls, can detect the usage of any ABAP based unit down to subroutines and will give you the transparency about used modifications, user exits, classes and also single method executions. Furthermore workload statistic (ST03N) only counts dialog steps but not the number of execution, but the UPL can count the number of executed ABAP procedures on a daily base.

UPL – What are benefits of UPL

• No measurable performance impact neither CPU nor runtime


• Supports all ABAP based systems


• Catch also any dynamically called ABAP routines


• Supports all ABAP procedure types down to subroutines

• Get details about the number executed ABAP procedures on a daily base

• BW reporting on top


• Full integration in the Custom Code Lifecycle Management


• Unprecedented granularity level


• Proven accuracy in SAP internal productive system in the last 12 months


• Integrated in Solution Documentation Assistant and ALM

UPL _How it work

The UPL data will be collected every day and saved in an own encrypted data persistency layer on the managed system. Within a predefined period a housekeeping job will purge the outdated UPL data after 14(default) days. If activated from a Solution Manager system, the data will be extracted and collected in an UPL cube on the BW of the Solution Manager for an unlimited history and aggregated weeks and months to support different queries.

UPL_ Learning Materials

• You can find all important contents regarding UPL (How to activate, system preconditions, troubleshooting etc) by How – To Guide