SAP-Archiving IDOCS in SAP

Archiving IDOCS is a generic requirement sent to BASIS for managing the database size efficiently.

With few simple steps we can perform IDOC archiving easily.

Secnario:- Archive IDOCS using standard archiving methodology


Archive processing should be configured for a default filesystem path location in transaction FILE.

For more details please refer Link:- Define Path for Archiving

example:- /archived_data/idocs.


To archive IDocs for a date range, go to SARA and select ‘Object name’ IDOC and then click on Archive.

Next, create a new variant. Type in a new variant name (ex:-2011 below) and click on Maintain.

Specify a date range (for one year in example) and then click on Attributes.

Enter a description in the attributes screen and save.

Go back to the variant screen and save.

Maintain the Start date and Spool parameters. Deselect Print immediately.

Execute in background and wait for archive job to finish.

Next, once the archiving jobs have finished (check in SM37 for jobs starting with ARV*), run the deletions. 

Go back to the main SARA screen and select object name IDOC and click on delete:

Click on Archive selection button.  

Expand the main folder and select  5 files. Do not select more than 5, since each will use one background process and we don’t to block regular jobs from running. 

Set the start date to immediate and the spool option not to print, as before. 

Repeat until all the newly-archived IDocs have been deleted.

IDOC Archiving completed.