SAP Basis Tech Supports

Symptom
1. You want to archive IDocs using the RSEXARCA report. You can specify ranges for the creation date or change date. You can usually also make multiple selections. However, if you choose selection options for single values, the IDocs you expected are not all selected. If you want to select all IDocs up to a certain change date, and choose to select only in the form ‘< dd.mm.yyyy’, only the IDocs for the specified date are selected.2. When selecting the data, you notice that the EDIDC~2 (MANDT, UPDDAT, UPDTIM) index is always used on the database, irrespective of the selection options chosen.

Other terms

SARA, IDoc, archiving, IDOC_ARCH_WRI
Reason and Prerequisites

Since IDocs are mass data, data selections must be efficient. Indexes were developed and delivered, for example, the EDIDC~2 index, to accelerate access to tables.
1. In the archiving program, the data selection was programmed in such a way that one interval is assumed. This ensures that the EDIDC~2 index is always used.
However, this has the side effect that you can specify selection options such as ‘< credat’ or ‘<= credat’, which are not supported by the program flow.2. Depending on the selection options chosen, however, there are also cases where using an index other than EDIDC~2 would be a better option.

Solution
1. If you only want to archive IDocs for a single day, you only need to specify a date.
For all other selections using the date, you must always specify a range. This must also be taken into account when you create variants.
If you are using dynamic date calculation, you can use the range ‘Current date +/- ??? days’ to allow for greater periods of time, for instance.
You can select all IDocs up to a certain date by specifying a blank starting date and filling the end date.
If the proposed selection options are not sufficient, you can use every possible selection from the correction instructions when you change the program. To do this, implement the correction instructions using the Note Assistant.2. If you want to use a (better) index other than EDIDC~2, you must change the program. To do this, implement the correction instructions using the Note Assistant.

The performance of all IDoc processes depends on the size of the IDoc tables. For this reason, you should archive IDocs regularly.
These procedures also apply to the IDOC_ARCH_WRI report (See note 582828) in a 6.20 system.