2 - SAP BW Class Overview 2007 - Guidance Consulting

SAP BW Class Overview
2007
SAP BW Class Overview Guidance Consulting
Copyright© 2007 by Guidance Consulting, Houston, TX
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Copyright© 2007 by Guidance Consulting Instructor: Touseefuddin Syed
2
Introduction
Purpose: This document is prepared to introduce the world of SAP and its reporting tool SAP BW to the
attendees who are prospects to become SAP consultants in the near future or are serious about pursuing a
career in SAP. This is specifically designed to introduce BW but as it is inseparable from SAP R/3,
therefore R/s is discussed in details as to how it is related to BW. It is not expected of the reader to have
prior experience. This introduction should be enough for the purpose it is designed. It is highly expected that
the student has keen interest in learning SAP BW and should be able to understand English and follow
instructor’s directions.
What is covered? SAP BW is introduced and its history on how it began. SAP and its modules are
introduced and discussed comprehensively. SAP R/3 is discussed in details with the platforms it is
supported so that the reader gets a good idea about R/3, what is its purpose and how it is related to SAP BW.
Benefits of BW over other reporting tools are discussed and list of other major competitors are given.
Evolution of SAP BW versions is given and the instructor will discuss about it in the class. Glossaries of
important terms that will be used in this class are listed so that the reader gets familiar with them even
before the class formally gets started. Then there is topic of what kind of roles/titles can be assumed as a
SAP consultant and their responsibilities/duties. This has been just given as guideline and should not be
regarded as the only kind of titles and roles.
What is expected after this overview? It is expected that the reader/attendee will get sound overview and
good knowledge of what SAP is for and if this course is for them. Of course, the reader should have keen
interest in learning these subjects and should be well prepare for the classes to come in future classes.
Instructor will give details on how this can be achieved.
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3
What is SAP BW?

SAP Business Information Warehouse, now known as SAP BI (Business Intelligence) is a data end-to-
end warehousing tool
(1) Used to analyze and perform strategic management reporting,
(2) Used to perform analytical daily reporting and
(3)Used for storing a large volume of data for foreseeable reporting and analytics
r enterprise software applications developed SAP AG.
SAP AG is the largest software enterprise in Europe, with headquarters in Walldorf, Germany. SAP
(System, Application and Programming) was founded in 1972 by five ex-IBM engineers in Mannheim,
Germany. The third largest in the world, but surely is the largest business application and Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) software provider, delivering tightly linked bundles of software programs for
automating everything from distribution, accounting, human resources, and manufacturing to supply-chain
management. More than 47,000 companies in over 120 countries use this software and have a 40%
worldwide share in ERP market.
Readings on R/3:
SAP R/3 is a client/server based application, utilizing a 3-tiered model. A presentation layer, or client,
interfaces with the user. The application layer houses all the business-specific logic and the database layer
records and stores all the information about the system, including transactional and configuration data.
SAP R/3 functionality is structured using its own proprietary language called ABAP (Advanced Business
Application Programming). ABAP, or ABAP/4 is a fourth generation language (4GL), geared towards the
creation of simple, yet powerful programs. R/3 also offers a complete development environment where
developers can either modify existing SAP code to modify existing functionality or develop their own
functions, whether reports or complete transactional systems within the SAP framework.
The SAP has many benefits that come with their products. They have been in the business for 26 years
giving them more experience than their competitors. The R/3 can be integrated with other PC applications.
Applications data can be read using software like Microsoft’s Excel, a spreadsheet package, as a list viewer.
It File Transfer Service allows data to be read and written in the presentation computer.
The openness is also another strongpoint. It is designed as an integrated suite of applications, but the
modules can also be used individually. You also have the ability to expand modules using the ABAP/4
Workbench to meet the specific requirements of your business. The R/3 openness gives companies ability to
run on the hardware platforms of the leading vendors that comply with open systems computing standards
and can be integrated with your in-house applications. It supports many platforms, which makes it easy to
choose the best platform suited depending on performance requirements and existing IT infrastructure. The
following technology environments are supported by the R/3:
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The
R/3 System is infinitely expandable depending on the company’s needs. It has the ability to grow as the
company grows. Tasks are appropriately distributed across a number of computers and can communicate
with each other across the network. If a server starts showing signs of overload, a new server can be brought
in to take some of the load.
The true power of SAP software lies in the real-time updating that connects the entire scope of business
applications. Actually, R/3 stands for real-time integration, release 3. As information is added or changed
within a business application, this integration ensures that all other related functions and applications are
immediately updated to reflect the new input. The responses appear from a departmental to a global scale.
This integration reduces the traditional time delays incurred both by manual methods of information
recording and communication and by un-integrated islands of automation (www.sapfans.com). This gives
the customer, meaning the person using the information, the information that is needed on the desktop right
when it is needed.
The R/3 supports many different countries for its functionality. The languages that are used on the screens,
on-line help, and on-line documentation is driven by the user’s log-on, as is master data that is linked to
language-dependent tables. The heart of this package is its application modules. These modules may not all
be implemented in a typical company but they are all related and are listed below:
EH&S Environmental Health & Safety: Designed for the management of environmental regulatory
information, particularly product safety data as required for Material Safety Data Sheets. EH&S has sub-
modules of Product Safety, Dangerous Goods, Waste, Industrial Hygiene, and Occupational Health.
FI Financial Accounting: Designed for automated management and external reporting of general ledger,
accounts receivable, accounts payable and other sub-ledger accounts with a user defined chart of accounts.
As entries are made relating to sales production and payments journal entries are automatically posted. This
connection means that the "books" are designed to reflect the real situation. The FI module has 8 sub
modules:
* FI-GL (General Ledger Accounting)
* FI-LC (Consolidation)
* FI-AP (Accounts Payable)
* FI-AR (Accounts Receivable)
* FI-BL (Bank Accounting)
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* FI-AA (Asset Accounting)

* FI-SL (Special Purpose Ledger)
* FI-FM (Funds Management)
CO Controlling: Represents the company's flow of cost and revenue. It is a management instrument for
organizational decisions. It too is automatically updated as events occur.
The CO module has following sub modules:
* CO-OM (Overhead Costing (Cost Centers, Activity Based Costing, Internal Order Costing))
* CO-PA (Profitability Analysis)
* CO-PC (Product Cost Controlling)
AM Asset Management: Designed to manage and supervise individual aspects of fixed assets including
purchase and sale of assets, depreciation and investment management.
PS Project System: Designed to support the planning, control and monitoring of long-term, highly complex
projects with defined goals.
FS Insurance: An integral part of mySAP ERP, SAP for Insurance enables insurance companies to handle
customer and market requirements and simultaneously control profitability and economic viability. In
Release 6.00, SAP for Insurance includes the following components:
* FS-CD (Collections and disbursements)
* FS-CM (Claims management)
* FS-CS (Commissions management)
* FS-PM (Policy management)
* FS-RI (Reinsurance management)
IS Industry Solutions: This one combines the SAP application modules and additional industry-specific
functionality that comes with it. Special techniques have been developed for industries such as banking, oil
and gas, pharmaceuticals, etc. As of Feb 2006, following Industry Specific Solutions are supported by SAP:
* IS-A (Automotive)
* IS-ADEC (Aerospace and Defense)
* IS-AFS (Apparel and Footwear)
* IS-B (Banking)
* IS-BEV (Beverage)
* IS-CWM (Catch Weight Management (Variable Weight Items such as Meats and Cheeses))
* IS-DFS (Defense and Security)
* IS-H (Hospital)
* IS-HER (Higher Education)
* IS-HSS (Hospitality Management)
* IS-HT (High tech)
* IS-M (Media)
* IS-MIN (Mining)
* IS-MP (Milling (or IS-MILL))
* IS-OIL (Oil)
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* IS-PS (Public Sector)

* IS-R (Retail)
* IS-REA (Recycling Admin)
* IS-SP (Service Provider)
* IS-T (Telecommunications)
* IS-U (Utilities)
HR Human Resources: Complete integrated system for supporting the planning and control of personnel
activities and HR module is sometimes equivalently referred as HCM (Human Capital Management).
HR-PA (Personnel Administration)
HR-PD (Personnel Development)
HR-RC (Recruitment)
PM Plant Maintenance: Equipment servicing and rebuilding. These tasks affect the production plans.
MM Materials Management: Supports the procurement and inventory functions occurring in day-to-day
business operations such as purchasing, inventory management, reorder point processing, etc.
QM Quality Management: A quality control and information system supporting quality planning,
inspection, and control for manufacturing and procurement.
PP Production Planning: Used to plan and control the manufacturing activities of a company. This module
includes; bills of material, routings, work centers, sales and operations planning, master production
scheduling, material requirements planning, shop floor control, production orders, product costing, etc.
SD Sales and Distribution : Helps to optimize all the tasks and activities carried out in sales, delivery and
billing. Key elements are: pre-sales support, inquiry processing, quotation processing, sales order
processing, and delivery processing, billing and sales information system.
SCM Supply Chain Management

SEM Strategic Enterprise Management
WM Warehouse Management: Subdivides the "Storage Location", which is used in the MM Module to
define inventory values by location, into "Storage Types" and then into "Storage Bins". Control of stock to a
physical level down to a warehouse bin. Placement and removal rules can be configured, stock counts can
be done.
HUM Handling Unit Management: Used as a unique ID for each pallet of stock held in the warehouse.
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7
Why SAP BW?

Henry Fu and Biao Fu describe briefly the need of BW “SAP R/3 is a leading ERP (Enterprise Resources
Planning) system. According to SAP, the SAP R/3 developer, as of October 2000, some 30,000 SAP R/3
systems were installed worldwide that had 10 million users. SAP R/3 includes several modules, such as SD
(sales and distribution), MM (materials management), PP (production planning), FI (financial accounting), and
HR (human resources). Basically, you can use SAP R/3 to run your entire business.
SAP R/3's rich business functionality leads to a complex database design. In fact, this system has approximately
10,000 database tables. In addition to the complexity of the relations among these tables, the tables and their
columns sometimes don't even have explicit English descriptions. For many years, using the SAP R/3 data for
business decision support had been a constant problem.
Recognizing this problem, SAP decided to develop a data warehousing solution to help its customers. The result
is SAP Business Information Warehouse, or BW. Since the announcement of its launch in June 1997, BW has
drawn intense interest. According to SAP, as of October 2000, more than 1000 SAP BW systems were installed
worldwide”
This is place of SAP BW in SAP NetWeaver
What SAP BW offers?

The three layers that make up the structure of SAP's BI solution
• Extraction, Transformation and Load (ETL) layer - responsible for extracting data from a specific
source, applying transformation rules, and loading it into SAP BW system.
• Data warehouse area - responsible for storing the information in a various types of structures,
including multidimensional structures called InfoCubes.
• Reporting - responsible for accessing the information in data warehouse area and presenting it in a
user-friendly manner to the analyst or business user.
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Benefits of using BW reporting over SAP Reporting

A) Better Performance, Data Analysis and better Front-End reporting
B) Ability to pull the data from SAP and Non-SAP sources
C) BW stores copies of R/3 transactional data in MDM structures called InfoCubes, which are optimally
arranged for fast response when reporting and querying
D) BW users no longer need to know the source R/3 table name or fields for BW reporting
E) BW tools enable you to create InfoCubes and ODS objects, the challenge is to model them correctly for
optimum performance and ease of use
F) SAP added the ODS objects to the BW architecture to facilitate list reporting out of BW
G) ODS objects can be used for data staging or data transformation tasks inside the BW
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Business content being the most valuable asset for SAP, which delivers standard objects and that, can be
installed at client’s site without having to reinvent the wheel. As of SAP BW version 3.0A, Business
Content delivers:
200+ Roles, 1440+ Workbooks, 1700+ queries 430+ InfoCubes, 460+ InfoSource and 7100+ InfoObjects.
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Major Competitors:
ERP Solutions:
Oracle with Financials, Fusion, etc
Microsoft with Dynamics AX
Baan, JD Edwards
Reporting tools:
Report Writer, COGNOS, Crystal Reports, QuickReport, Qlikview (Qliktech), Web Reporting tool and
Hyperion System 9 BI+, etc...
SAP BW versions
SAP BW: 1.2, 2.0, 2.0C, 3.0, 3.1, 3.5 and BI 7.0 (released in 2006)
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Important terms and their purpose/meaning

Data Warehouse: Data Warehousing is a concept in which the data is stored and analysis is performed
over it.
ERP: ERP is an acronym for Enterprise Resource Planning. It is a software package/solution most often
used within the manufacturing environment. ERP is a business tool that management uses to operate the
business day-in and day-out. It is usually comprised of several modules such as a financial module, a
distribution module, or a production module. By utilizing an ERP system, the sales department, production
department, operations management, shipping, financial department, purchasing department all have access
to the up-to-date information that is needed to operate smoothly within any manufacturing environment.
InfoCubes: Structures that have the fact tables and their associated dimension tables in a star schema.
ODS (Operational Data Store): ODS Objects allow us to build a multilayer structure for operational data
reporting. They are not based on the star schema and are used primarily for detail reporting, rather than for
dimensional analysis.
MultiCube: A MultiCube is a type of Info Provider that combines data from a number of Info Providers
and makes them available as a whole to reporting.
Remote Cube: Remote Cube is an InfoCube whose transaction data is not managed in the Business
Information Warehouse but externally. Only the structure of the Remote Cube is defined in BW. The data is
read for reporting using a BAPI from another system.
Data-Marts: A data mart is also known as a local data warehouse. It is an implementation of a data
warehouse with a restricted scope of content, with support for analytical processing and serving a single
department, part of an organization, or a particular data analysis problem domain.
PSA (Persistent Staging Area): Stores data in the original format while being imported from the source
system. PSA allows for quality check before the data are loaded into their destinations, such as ODS Objects
or InfoCubes.
Aggregates: An aggregate is a materialized, aggregated view of the data in an InfoCube. In an aggregate,

the dataset of an InfoCube is saved redundantly and persistently in a consolidated form into the database.
InfoSet: InfoSet describes data sources that are defined as a rule as joins of ODS objects or Info Objects.
An InfoSet is a semantic view of data sources and is not a physical data target in itself. One can define
reports in the BEx Query designer using activated info sets.
OLAP Processor: is the analytical processing engine. It retrieves data from the database, and it analyzes
and presents those data according to users' requests.
ASAP methodology: ASAP is a standard methodology for efficiently implementing and continually
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optimizing the SAP software. ASAP supports the implementation of the R/3 System and of mySAP.com
Components, and can also be used for upgrade projects. It provides a wide range of tools that helps in all
stages of implementation project - from project planning to the continual improvement of the SAP System.
The two key tools in ASAP are: The Implementation Assistant, which contains the ASAP Roadmap, and
provides a structured framework for your implementation, optimization or upgrade project. The Question &
Answer database allows you to set your project scope and generate your Business Blueprint using the SAP
Reference Structure as a basis.
mySAP.com: SAP solution to integrate all relevant business processes on the Internet. mySAP.com
integrates business processes in SAP and non-SAP systems seamlessly, and provides a complete business
environment for electronic commerce.
NetWeaver: NetWeaver is an integration platform, which integrates people, processes and Information.
Enterprise Portal: A Single point access of different type of software application of different application
environment with different data source from different business organization that consolidates, manage,
analyze and distribute information across and outside of an enterprise.
What is there for you in SAP BW?
The titles listed below are given as examples and most probably you will be assuming one of these roles, if
you seriously are hunting for a future in SAP BW. There could be difference in roles and duties and pay as
there is no official roles given by SAP and these roles depend with client’s requirements and this should
only be taken as a guideline.
SAP BW Report Writer: BW report writer is responsible for developing reports using BEx query designer
after getting the user requirement. Should be familiar with the data modeling, dataflow in cubes and ODS
and other Datamarts. Should perform getting web reports, excel reports or any other reporting tool sitting on
top of BW.
BW Data Extraction Consultant: The BW Data Extraction Consultant is responsible to identify and obtain
the data required to satisfy the requirements of the BW project. This data may include:
» SAP R/3 data
» New Dimension product data
» Data external to SAP within the organization (legacy data)
» Data external to SAP from outside the organization (provider data – D&B, Nielson)
BW Data Access Consultant: The BW Data Access Consultant is responsible to assess the business
requirements, and design and develop a data access solution for the BW project. This solution may include
use of:
» BW’s Business Explorer
» Non-SAP Data Access tools (e.g., Business Objects, Cognos, Crystal Reports, and other certified data
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access tools)
» Visual Basic development
» Web development
» WAP (wireless) development
» R/3 drill-through
SAP BW Developer: The BW Developer is responsible for essentially designing, developing and creating
InfoCubes, ODS, other Datamarts, etc. and maintaining them. Monitoring data loads and correcting any
errors that arise from any complications.
BW Data Architect: The BW Data Architect is responsible for the overall data design of the BW project.
This includes the design of the:
» BW InfoCubes (Basic Cubes, Multi-cubes, Remote cubes, and Aggregates)
» BW ODS Objects
» BW Datamarts
» Logical Models
» BW Process Models
» BW Enterprise Models
SAP BW Consultant: BW consultant is responsible for getting the user requirement, performing gap
analysis, install business content. Extracting data from SAP R/3 or any other source systems to BW. Design
and develop cubes, ODS and other Datamarts depending on requirement.
BW Application Consultant: The BW Application Consultant is responsible for utilizing BW to satisfy the
business requirements identified for the project. As provided in the other roles, if the scope of the BW
project is tightly controlled and can use standard BW Business Content, InfoCubes, and Queries
BW Basis Consultant: The BW Basis Person must be able to advise on BW Landscape issues, Transport
environment, Authorization, Performance Issues of Database and BW, Installation of BW Server, Plug Ins
and Front-end (For all layers there are patches / support packages) that should be regularly installed. This
role can be assumed by the Basis Consultant (However, additional BW skills are absolutely necessary)
SAP BW Team lead/Director: Is responsible for managing the BW team. From initiating to get the user
requirements until post productions support. Assigning roles and to users and duties to BW consultants.
SAP BW Project Manager: Manages the overall implementation.
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References:
1. Some excerpts are used from my BW instructor Vinay Karna of Enterprise Logic.
2. Quotes referred from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAP_Business_Information_Warehouse
3. Adapted from Glossary document which is powered by whatis.com and the Site URL is:
http://searchsap.techtarget.com/gDefinition/0,294236,sid21_gci822844,00.html
4. Adapted from response by Ellen on Wed, 25 Sept 2002 to “What is ERP?” for IT toolbox Popular Q&A
Team from http://sap.ittoolbox.com/documents/popular-q-and-a/what-is-erp-2084#
5. Adapted from various articles from http://www.sapprofessionals.org/
6. Few articles are referred from “Data Warehousing and SAP BW” guide by Henry Fu and Biao Fu, from
the URL: http://www.awprofessional.com/articles/index.asp?rl=1
7. Few PowerPoint slides taken from the SAP Professional Journal book titled “Get the Most out of BW”
from www.SAPpro.com, which were also provided by Vinay Karna.
8. “R/3 reading” taken from “SAP's ANSWER TO ENTERPRISE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT:
AN OVERVIEW OF THE R/3 SYSTEMS” by Josh Toombs at
http://misnt.indstate.edu/harper/SAP.HTM
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15

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SAP BW Class Overview

Copyright© 2007 by Guidance Consulting, Houston, TX

NO WARRANTY: This documentation is delivered as is, and Guidance Consulting makes no

What is SAP BW?

* FI-AA (Asset Accounting)

* IS-PS (Public Sector)

SCM Supply Chain Management

Why SAP BW?

This is place of SAP BW in SAP NetWeaver

What SAP BW offers?

Benefits of using BW reporting over SAP Reporting

Important terms and their purpose/meaning

Aggregates: An aggregate is a materialized, aggregated view of the data in an InfoCube. In an aggregate,

What is there for you in SAP BW?

SAP BW Project Manager: Manages the overall implementation.

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