How to run SAP transaction

STAD
Posted on July 24, 2012

SAP transaction STAD is used to display statistical data for all

transactions/programs or specified transaction/program executed recently.
STAD shows time component and resource usage of a transaction/program
which is important for you to analyze performance of sap system and
application program. User might just execute one transaction/program but STAD
might display many entries for that single transaction/program each entryis a
dialog step in SAP term. How many dialog-steps are displayed under a transaction/program is related
to program/transaction design and how that transaction is executed. You should not bother on that. I
normally pay attention to performance of longest dialog steps in performance
analysis. STAD is one of SAP performance tools I frequently use to
analyze/confirm system/program performance.
Following are general steps of running STAD:
1. Run transaction STAD
2. Tell SAP what you want and how to display data
3. Review and navigate through dialog steps
1. Run SAP transaction STAD
Enter STAD in the command window and return. Preceding /n is optional. But
it is needed if you are running STAD from another transaction window.

2. Tell SAP what you want and how to display data.

This is achieved by specifying input on the STAD start screen which comes up
after you press return on step 1. Be specific as possible so system can quickly
response to your request.

You can play with display mode to understand the display difference this is used
for when several transactions form same or different users are reported based on your instruction.
The Show Business Transaction Tots is helpful for you to understand the total resource and
time usage. You click the corresponding button to select the display mode.
Green button indicates current display mode.

Here, you can specify the period only statistical records generated in specified period
would be reported by STAD. STAD reports data from system memory. How far back can STAD
report depends on setting. Normally, it is 2 days.
The Time is the starting moment for the report. Length is in
Hours:Minutes:Seconds format. Make sure the interval you specified cover the
time which the business transaction is executed and business result is updated
into database.

During you specified internal, many activities from different users can happen in
the system. Here you can enter specific selection parameters to limit output so
you easily look for the data you need.
User it is a sap USER ID either one or all . SAP does not allow you to specify a range of
users.
Transaction it is a sap transaction code. Remember STAD is a transaction code.
Program it is the program name which user is executing.
Task type You enter *, SAP would report all type of task executed under specified SAP user
whether the user is aware of it or not. If you are only interested in special type of task, you need
to enter R for RFC, B for background job, D for online transaction executed directly
by a user.
Time fields is there for you to specify if you are looking for dialog with certain
duration. For example, many jobs under the same user ID can launch Arfc
processes varying in duration, but Arfc call process from a job is always >
100ms. And there are aRFC records under that user ID is less than 100ms.. enter

100 ms into time field can reduce what display by STAD so help you to do an
analysis.

Click on include statistics from memory you need to make sure this is
clicked. If your system is big and you know which server a transaction is
executed, Selecting the server would limit STAD to report statistics data from
that server only. So STAD can give you the result faster. Default is all servers.
I have used following input for demo purpose

Click on execution orhit return/enter key, STAD wouldgiveyou asimple list like
below-

3. Navigation in STAD
Buttons like

allow you to change the

way which information is displayed or what is displayed by SAP. You might want
to use filter to see specific data etc. You can see more details of each displayed
dialog-step by double-clicking them or place the cursor on it then click
button

. Following your click,the details of the statistical record would come up. You

have to scroll down in order to see all of them.

I clicked the bottom entry in above screen,the follow example is a transcated screen
showing a smallpart of statistical recorddetails.

Those buttons in red rectangle are navigation buttons so you can quickly find
specific data. What buttons is available depends on system/instance statistics setting and data
availabilities. For example, following detail screen does not have a client info but has table
button comparing with the above screen.

However, I would like to highlight the button

and

. The 1 one
st

would show top expensive table access in the transaction step, this is important
if most of response time is database request time. The other is to help you find a
parent of a server/child dialog step. The RFC button is helpful as well when you
have unusual Roll time.

If you are wondering how to interpret data displayed by STAD, I would cover that
in a separate posting.