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Welcome to Archiving in T24 learning unit of the T24 Administration Course.

In this learning unit, you will learn about the archiving process in T24.

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After completing this learning unit, you will be able to:

1. Analyze the importance of archiving data in T24

2. State the archival process in T24

3. Identify the importance of ARCHIVE application in T24

4. State the advantage of the archival process in T24

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Lots of transactions could be processed on a normal working day in a bank.
Whenever you input an FT transaction, statement entries are generated. STMT.ENTRY
is the application that contains details of all entries over customer and internal
accounts. Entries are generated in this file by every on-line and batch process which
involves debiting or crediting Accounts. On a normal working day there could be lot
of entries updated in this application. Over a period of time this may occupy a lot
space in the database and could be a performance hindrance. In order to avoid such
problems data in these files can be archived.

1. Archiving process removes data from the application and moves it to historic data

2. In T24 the archived records are stored in a $ARC file in T24 and it is deleted from
the application

3. The archived records are stored for future reporting purpose

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Archiving executes as a service and can be setup in two steps:
a) Configure ARCHIVE application
b) Setup ARC.GENERIC.REQUEST

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The files to be Archived must have an entry in ARCHIVE application. Create a
record in ARCHIVE, for each set of files which must be Archived.
DESCRIPTION – A general description is specified in this field. Based on what
factor are you going to archive the records? Lets say that you are going to
archive records based on date,

PURGE.DATE –In this field you specify a valid T24 date. Records older than
purge date will be archived.

RETENTION.PERIOD – If you do not specify purge date you may specify the
date in the RETENTION.PERIOD field. Records older than the retention period
will then be archived. Value in this field is specified in the format NNY or NNM
where, NN is either a number of months or years. This field is only used if the
field PURGE.DATE is null. For example lets say TODAY is 22nd March 2013.
In RETENTION.PERIOD the value specified is 01M , meaning the records
older than 1 February 2013 will be archived.

ARCHIVE.DATA – Use ARCHIVE.DATA to archive or delete the selected

records. Choose “Y” to archive and “N/None” just to delete.

$ARC.PATHNAME – Specify the pathname of the directory where the $ARC

file will reside. If the directory does not exist, it will be created. If this field is left

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blank and ARCHIVE.DATA is set to 'Y', the $ARC file will be created in archive
directory which will be created under bnk.run. Always specify the path name
for the archive files.

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Can you stop the archiving process after a certain number of records are
processed?
STOP.INDICATOR - When this field is set to Y the archiving process is halted.
This field works in unison with the CHECK.NO.OF.RECS field
CHECK.NO.OF.RECS – Here you specify the number of records processed
each time before STOP.INDICATOR is checked. This field may be changed
whilst archival is running and will take effect the next time the record is
checked. The default value is 1000 records.
ROUTINE – This field indicates a valid multithreaded routine that will be
responsible for archiving the set of files specified in the ARCHIVE record.
These are application specific routines and should not be changed unless a
site specific program has been written. In this example, the generic
ARC.GENERIC routine is used for archiving FUNDS.TRANSFER. But for
FOREX, the routine is ARC.FOREX. This record routine is responsible to
decide on the archival logic and to do archiving. Separate ARC.FOREX.LOAD,
ARC.FOREX.SELECT routines should be available for opening and selecting
all necessary files for archiving. Howsoever, it is not necessary to create a
separate ARC.FOREX service. It is the responsibility of ARC.GENERIC
service to simply invoke ARC.FOREX.LOAD, ARC.FOREX.SELECT,
ARC.FOREX routines internally for archiving in the presence of ROUTINE
field.

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Field range COMPANY.RUN.IN to TIME.ENDED are related multi-value fields,
which are system populated when archiving is run. They maintain a history of
each time archiving was run.
COMPANY.RUN.IN – The company for which archival was run. This field is
updated by T24.
TIME.STARTED- Time when the archival was started is updated here.
USER.ID – T24 updates this field with the user id who initiated the archival
process.
DATE.SELECTED – PURGE.DATE selected for the archival process by the
user is updated here.

STOP.REQUESTED – This field is updated to YES if stop indicator is

requested by the user else it is updated as NO.

RECS.DELETED – Total number of records that were deleted from the main
file when archiving is run

RECS.PROCESSED – Total number of records that were processed by the

archival process

ERROR.MSG - Maintains a history of any error which caused archiving to terminate.

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TIME.ENDED – End time of the archival process is updated here
Note: There are a few more fields in the ARCHIVE application which would be
discussed later in this course.

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FIELD.TO.CHECK – This field can indicate the date field in the contract, which
should be compared with the Purge date for archiving. If this field is left blank,
then the standard DATE.TIME field is used for comparison. For e.g., to archive
the history records of FUNDS.TRANSFER, use PROCESSING.DATE of the
contract.
SEL.REC.TO.PROCESS – This field will store the number of records to be
processed for archiving.
GENERIC.METHOD
a) To indicate “Y” when generic archival process must be executed. This
allows archival service (ARC.GENERIC service) to take care of all selection &
purging of records. For example, FUNDS.TRANSFER, TELLER,
STMT.ENTRY.DETAIL, etc are archived using the generic archival process
based on the inputs provided in MAIN.FILE, FIELD.TO.CHECK or
FILTER.ROUTINE.
b) To indicate “No/None” when application specific archival routine specified in
the field ROUTINE must be invoked.
MAIN.FILE – Accepts the file name that has to be archived. Example:-
FUNDS.TRANSFER$HIS.
FILTER.RTN – Hook routine to select/ignore a contract for archiving. It is used
as an alternative to FIELD.TO.CHECK.
RELATED.FILES.RTN – Hook routine that returns the names of related files
that have to be archived along with the main archival record in a dynamic

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array.

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Setting Up ARC.GENERIC.REQUEST - Create a ‘SYSTEM’ record
in ARC.GENERIC.REQUEST and specify theARCHIVE ID for Archival. Upon verification
of this record, ARC.GENERICservice is started in the background and in turn it reads
the ARCHIVE record. Based on the Generic.Method set-up or the application
specific ROUTINE, the records are selected for Archival. Ensure that TSM is already
running.

Timing Of The Archiving Process - It is recommended that the Archiving process must
be run after the COB, but before the users are allowed to sign in. However, since
Archiving removes the data that is no longer used, it can be executed even when the
system is Live.

Backups - The system in which Archiving must be run is fully backed up.
Note: Archiving is a one-way process. Data cannot be restored afterwards, except by
fully restoring the database back to the point of pre-archiving.

Post Archiving Actions - Once the Archiving process is complete, the size of all the
files involved (both original and $ARC where applicable) must be reviewed to take the
new number of records in the relevant files into account.

Note: Please ensure DL product is removed from the Company table in the Model
Bank setup to test this process. Because as per the new Data Lifecycle Management

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the content will be written to RO table and then it will be moved to ARC file and RO
tables are not supported in H2 Database.

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The application ARC.GENERIC.REQUEST is used to initiate the actual
archiving process .

ARC.GENERIC.REQUEST application has only one record with id as

SYSTEM.

ARCHIVE.ID – Here you specify a valid ARCHIVE record id. This is a multi-
value field hence you may archive the other files also.

To initiate the archiving process the record in ARC.GENERIC.REQUEST

should be verified.

Before you archive the records you can take a count on the number of records.

Use the COUNT command in TAFJ shell to count the number of records.
tAddUser –u model –p Temenos@1
DBTools –u model –p Temenos@1 –s JQL COUNT FBNK.FUNDS.TRANSFER

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• The TSM service status has to be set as start before starting the service in
TAFJ shell.
• On verifying the ARC.GENERIC.REQUEST the ‘Server Control’ status of
ARC.GENERIC service will be automatically set to start.

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• The archival process is initiated as a service in T24. All the services are
defined in TSA.SERVICE application and for archival process the record
defined in TSA.SERVICE is BNK/ARC.GENERIC. The field
SERVICE.CONTROL in TSA.SERVICE will be set to start once you verify
the SYSTEM record in ARC.GENERIC.REQUEST. The TSM will request
you to manually launch the tSA’s once it is started in the foreground mode.
Execute the following command in TAFJ shell: tRun START.TSM –DEBUG

• Launch the agents in a separate TAFJ shell: tRun tSA <port number of
Agent>

• Lets now see how the records are archived. The archival files are created
under the archive directory. Then the processing date of the
Funds.Transfer$His records are checked against the PURGE.DATE , if the
date of the record is less than the PURGE.DATE then the record is copied
to the $ARC file and then it is removed from the main file. Else the record is
retained in the main file.

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Lets now see how purge date is calculated for archival process. Assume that T24 date
is 22nd March 2016.

1. If PURGE.DATE is set to 1 March 2016, then records older than this date is
archived(deleted)

2. Now lets say that instead of specifying the PURGE.DATE you have set
RETENTION.PERIOD to 01M . What is the value calculated for the purge date?
Purge date value is 1 Feb 2016. When RETENTION.PERIOD is specified always the
purge date is calculated to the first day of the month.

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DBTools –u admin –p Temenos@1 –s JQL COUNT FUNDS.TRANSFER

DBTools –u admin –p Temenos@1 –s JQL COUNT FUNDS.TRANSFER$ARC

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Using enquiries you can view the records stored in $ARC files. You can copy
existing enquiry and change the field FILE.NAME to read $ARC file.

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Here you see a list of records that are stored in the FUNDA.TRANSFER$ARC
file.

Note: DEFAULT.ARCHIVE.VIEW is the generic enquiry used to view the

archived records.

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Temenos provides you a set of files that can be archived. Some of them are
CATEG.ENTRY, FOREX, FUNDS.TRANSFER and STMT.ENTRY.DETAIL.

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RO table setup is not available in H2 DB. So cannot demonstrate the same in the
Model Bank area.

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1. Archiving process removes data from the application and moves it to
historic data

2. Archived records are stored in the $ARC files

3. Files to be archived need to have an entry in ARCHIVE application

4. ARC.GENERIC.REQUEST application has only one record with id as

SYSTEM

5. The archival process is initiated once the SYSTEM record is verified in

ARC.GENERIC.REQUEST application

6. Enquiries can be used to view the records stored in the $ARC files

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1. Archived records are stored in a $ARC file and it is deleted from the
application – True / False
Answer : True

2. In the archive record it is mandatory to specify the value for fields

RETENTION.PERIOD and PURGE.DATE – True / False
Answer : False

3. The archival process is executed as a service in T24 – True / False

Answer: True

4. Services for archival need to be started manually by the user – True / False
Answer: False

5. In the ARCHIVE record when STOP.INDICATOR field is set to Y the

archiving process is halted after processing a certain number of records as
specified in CHECK.NO.OF.RECS field - True / False
Answer : True

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In this learning unit, you have learnt about the archiving process in T24. You will be able to,

1. Analyze the importance of archiving data in T24

2. State the archival process in T24

3. Identify the importance of ARCHIVE application in T24

4. State the advantage of the archival process in T24

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