Force your ABAP Report to Run in Background

Despite of any performance tuning you made, some reports may still take forever to execute. One of my last report did, and when i tried to execute it in foreground it gets a TIME_OUT runtime error, apparently the report hits the maximum run time parameter defined in the system.

One solution to this is by running your report in background, since there are no run time limitations of background jobs you can execute any report in any amount of time needed.

The easiest way to do this is by forcing your user to use Execute in Background (F9) menu than the usual Excecute (F8) button they usually use.

Then add these following lines to make sure they choose the right one.

IF SY-batch NE 'X'.
    MESSAGE e001 WITH 'This report could only be executed in background'.
ENDIF.

Though it’s easy too implement it may took some times for users to get used to it and may cause an inconvenience.

Another option is to make your report automatically processed in background when it is being executed using JOB_OPEN, SUBMIT and JOB_CLOSE like following

DATA: d_jobcount LIKE TBTCJOB-JOBCOUNT,
         d_jobname LIKE TBTCJOB-JOBNAME.

d_jobname = 'JOB1'.

CALL FUNCTION 'JOB_OPEN'
EXPORTING
    jobname = d_jobname
IMPORTING
    jobcount = d_jobcount
EXCEPTIONS
    cant_create_job = 1
    invalid_job_data = 2
    jobname_missing = 3
    OTHERS = 4.

IF sy-subrc NE 0.
    MESSAGE s368(00) WITH 'Error Creating Job'
    sy-subrc.
    EXIT.
ENDIF.

SUBMIT <REPORT_NAME>
    VIA JOB d_jobname
    NUMBER d_jobcount
    AND RETURN.

CALL FUNCTION 'JOB_CLOSE'
EXPORTING
    jobcount = d_jobcount
    jobname = d_jobname
    strtimmed = 'X' " Immediate
EXCEPTIONS
    invalid_startdate = 1
    jobname_missing = 2
    job_close_failed = 3
    job_nosteps = 4
    job_notex = 5
    lock_failed = 6
    OTHERS = 7.

 IF sy-subrc > 0.
    MESSAGE s368(00) WITH 'Closing Job Failed'
    sy-subrc.
    EXIT.
 ENDIF.