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Overview of SAP BW with particular reference to release 3.0A

Briony Dobbs, PwC ECOE Walldorf.

A business of

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1. Agenda

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Contents
The rationale behind Datawarehousing and the SAP BW Introducing the Administrator Workbench Data Modeling and Loading (Master Data) The ODS

Data Extraction (OLTP and Remote Systems) Business Content

Special Topics

Production Support

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SAP BW 3.0A - New Features

Infrastructure
Installation

Workbench
ODS Aggregates

Reporting
BEx Web-Reporting Crystal Reports Document Integration Mobile Intelligence Portal Integration

Archiving

MOLAP Master Data

Open Hub

Transformation Engine Hierarchy Upload

XML Exchange

Process Chains Info Sets Data Mining

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2. Data Warehousing and the SAP BW Overview and Concepts

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Business Trends
Globalization Decentralization

Smaller margins

Faster reaction to market Increasing importance of service

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Consequences for Information Systems

Immediate, single-point access to all relevant information regardless of the source Coverage of entire business processes High quality of information Sophisticated decision support Shorter implementation time with fewer resources
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Operational vs. Decision Support Environments

Operational Environment

Decision Support Environment

Detailed, transaction data Current data with minimal history Changing with business events Minimally integrated with data from other modules/applications Highly normalized for performance Update/Insert/Delete 30-60 days of data Only data for specific function of application

Often summarized data Significant history required Fixed as of a specific point in time Significant integration with data from other modules/applications Often highly denormalized or restructured for queries

Read only
2-7 years of data Data not associated with an application, but rather integrated from various applications

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Data Warehouse Objectives

Standardized structures and representation for all enterprise information Easy-to-use access, single-point of access to all enterprise information

Self-service, high quality business reporting and analysis on all levels

Fast and cost-effective to deploy High performance environment fed from heterogeneous sources

Freed-up systems and IT resources in OLTP environment

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SAP Business Information Warehouse

Data Warehouse system with optimized structures for reporting and analysis OLAP engine and tools

Integrated meta data repository

Data extraction and data staging in OLTP Preconfigured support for data sources from R/3 Systems

BAPIs for data sources from non-SAP systems

Automated Data Warehouse management Administrator Workbench for controlling and managing content

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BW and the Business Framework

Data Presentation 3rd party Business Explorer Business Information Warehouse Server

- Separate shipment - Separate release cycle - Separate maintenance - Available for R/3 3.0D and later

Data Sources

R/3

R/2

R/3

R/2

external sources

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Business Content Overview find new

R/3

Data elements, Properties, Relationships

Preconfigured, best practice business objects that reduce the time and expense of data warehouse implementations Includes a wide range of roles, industries and applications Evolutionary in nature

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Business Information Warehouse Architecture

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What is an InfoObject ?
The various OLTP data models are unified for BW Business objects / data elements become InfoObjects
R/3 OLTP
BW Extractor

CO
Controlling

Table of cost centers

KOSTL ...

DataSource for Cost Center

InfoObject 0COSTCENTER

HR
Human Resources

Table of employees
EMPLO COST_CENTER ...

InfoObjects are unique across application components !

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Types of InfoObjects
Characteristics: evaluation groups like Cost Center, Product group, Material Have discrete values stored in their master data tables (e.g. the characteristic Region has the values North, South, ... ) Special types of characteristics:

Time characteristics like Fiscal period, Calendar year, ... Unit characteristics which comprise currencies and units of measure like Local
currency or Sales quantity

Keyfigures: continuously valued numerical fields like amounts and quantities (e.g.: Revenue and Sales quantity)

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DataSource and InfoSource

Business Information Warehouse Server Staging Engine

InfoCubes
Update Rules

Communication structure

InfoSource
Transfer Rules
Transfer Structure

Transfer Rules

Transfer Rules
Transfer Structure

(Replicated)

Transfer Structure

DataSource
Transfer Structure Transfer Structure Transfer Structure Extract Source Structure Extract Source Structure Extract Source Structure

OLTP System 1

OLTP System 2

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InfoCube: SAP BW Design

Central data stores for reports and evaluations Contains two types of data: Key Figures Characteristics

1 Fact Table and up to 16 Dimension Tables 3 Dimensions are predefined by SAP

Time
Unit Info Package

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InfoCube: Example

South

East

Region

Dept. Stores North Wholesale Retail

Customer group

Glass- Ceramics Plastics Pottery Copper Pewter ware

Division
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InfoCube: Multi-dimensional analysis

Query Cache

Characteristics:
Product group Customer group Division Area Company code Region Period Profit Center Bus. Area

InfoCube

Region

East

Customer group
Glass- Ceramics Plastics ware DeptStores Wholesale Retail

North

South

Division

Analysis of Ceramics 1 division

2 Analysis
of Plastics division

3 Analysis
of Plastics division and Southern region

East

South East

Region

Region

South

DeptStores Wholesale Retail Glass- Ceramics Plastics ware

DeptStores Wholesale Retail Glass- Ceramics Plastics ware

South

Customer group

Customer group

Region

East

Customer group
DeptStores Wholesale Retail Glass- Ceramics Plastics ware

North

North

Division

Division
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North

Division

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InfoCube: Characteristics and Key Figures

Customer group 1 100 RT-0001 North Plastics Retail Trade Characteristics

Region

Sales 4,000,000 Hours worked 1,300,000

Key Figures

Division

Key Figures are stored for a unique combination of Characteristic Values

Number of dimensions is degree of granularity / summarization level of the dataset

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