Shortening ILM Retention: The Only Workaround You Require

Problem:

As per BC-ILM, 3.0/3.1 certification standards SAP has changed the way ILM Policy can be updated after being Life and having archiving sessions created under the Policy rules. Shortening the Retention Time is not allowed anymore, only increasing it. Even though it is possible to change the Policy Rule by setting lower retention when trying to convert the existing sessions to apply the new rule it returns an error and the conversion is finished unsuccessfully.

Solution (work around):

There is a (not perfect) workaround for that. Basically we need to create a new Policy as copy of the old one and add a new Available Condition Field so it will change the URI path – the new condition field will create an additional folder level – and the conversion will then be possible. Check the example below:

Old Policy

The MM_EKKO Policy below was initially configured using Item Category and Country Code as Condition Fields having a 10 years retention.

New Blog 01 Shortening ILM Retention: The Only Workaround You Require01 Shortning Shortening ILM Retention: The Only Workaround You Require

MM_EKKO Old ILM Policy

02 Shortning Shortening ILM Retention: The Only Workaround You RequireOld archive file generated with 10 years retention

 

Changing the Old ILM Policy Rule and shortening the Retention Time to 5 years:

03 Shortning Shortening ILM Retention: The Only Workaround You Require
Old ILM Rule updated to 5 years retention

New Blog 03 Shortening ILM Retention: The Only Workaround You Require

Trying to convert the old session to apply the shorter retention:

New Blog 04 Shortening ILM Retention: The Only Workaround You Require
04 Shortning Shortening ILM Retention: The Only Workaround You Require
ILM Conversion not possible – Output error

 

New Policy

Creating a New Policy and adding a third Condition Field to it – Document Type:

New Blog 05 Shortening ILM Retention: The Only Workaround You Require
05 Shortning Shortening ILM Retention: The Only Workaround You Require
New ILM Policy with additional Condition Field

Converting the old session using the New Policy rule:

New Blog 06 Shortening ILM Retention: The Only Workaround You Require
06 Shortning Shortening ILM Retention: The Only Workaround You Require
ILM conversion successfully done

New Blog 07 Shortening ILM Retention: The Only Workaround You Require
07 Shortning Shortening ILM Retention: The Only Workaround You Require
Newly converted archive file with 5 years retention

Newly converted archive file with 5 years retention

 

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