SAP University Alliances Version 2.

0 Authors Klaus Freyburger Peter Lehmann

SAP BW Data Modeling

Product SAP Netweaver BI 7.0 Level Undergraduate Beginner

Abstract: This chapter covers the basic aspects and concepts of data modeling with SAP Business Information Warehouse (SAP BW).

2010 All Rights Reserved. SAP UA

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SAP BI Curriculum BI2-M2 SAP BW Data Modeling

Agenda

Overview InfoObjects Key Figures Characteristics InfoProviders DataStore Objects j InfoCubes

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SAP BW Architecture Overview

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SAP BW Data Modeling Architecture Objects and Data Structures

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What is an InfoObject?

InfoObjects are used to focus on business requirements. Note:

The original product name was SAP Business Information Warehouse. The abbrevation BIW conflicted with another product name, so BW was chosen.

InfoObjects are the bricks to build data structures inside SAP BW. InfoObjects represent business objects from an end users view. The most important InfoObject types used for business analysis are Characteristics and Key Figures.
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InfoObject: Characteristics

A Characteristic represents a business object (or concept, business term, business entity). A Characteristic may have attributes which describes the business object in more detail. Example: InfoObject Customer is a characteristic with attributes such as Customer Number, ZIP Code, Region, , , g , etc. The attributes Customer Number, ZIP Code, Region, etc. are also managed as Characteristics and may have their own attributes. Note: What SAP calls a Characteristic is often referred to in the data warehouse community as a Dimension.

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InfoObject: Key Figures

A Key Figure (or variable, measure) is oftenly used to document the performance of a business process over time. It can be found in document records such as invoice, delivery note, purchase order, or goods receipt. Example: InfoObject Revenue or Sales Amount, etc. Note: InfoObjects are unique inside SAP BW, and they are used to build the data structures for analysis requirements. Conceptually unique: the semantics (meaning) of an InfoObject is uniquely defined system-wide inside SAP BW. Logically unique: the data type, value range or field length is uniquely defined system-wide inside SAP BW. From the technical point of view, an InfoObject can viewed as a database field.
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Evolution from a SAP ERP Database Object to an SAP BW InfoObject

SAP BW InfoObjects

R/3

SAP ERP

SAP BW DataSource BW Extraktor

CO
Accounting

Table Costcenter
COSTC
...

DataSource CostCenter Definition

&

InfoObject

"0COSTCENTER"
Mapping

HR
Human Ressources

Table Employee
EMPLO COST_CENTER ...

SAP Business Information Warehouse!!

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InfoObjects Are Bricks for Data Structures

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InfoProviders Provide Access to Data Records

InfoProviders: Are data storage inside SAP BW May store data records physically (persistent) May also be used to access data stored outside SAP BW virtually (transparent views) May be accessed with front end tools such as SAP BusinessExplorer

Note: A query is a view to data within an InfoProvider and does not contain physical data.

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InfoProviders

InfoProviders with physical data:

InfoCubes
Contain data optimized for fast multi-dimensional analysis.

DataStore Objects
Contain detailed data. Used for high data volumes stored in normal database tables. Oft used as data source for InfoCubes. Often d d t f I f C b

InfoProviders with virtual data:

MultiProviders
Often used to create views above two or more InfoCubes with the same Characteristics but different Key Figures. Data resides in the InfoCubes involved and data redundancy is avoided.

VirtualProviders
Data stored somewhere outside SAP BW. Some ERP systems provide data storage which may be accessed directly by SAP BW without changing the end user s view to the data.
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InfoCubes

Provide data storage used for reporting and online analysis. Consist of Key Figures and Characteristics. Contain data stored multi-dimensionally and often aggregated (week, month). Use star database schema, consisting of a fact table surrounded schema by dimension tables. Use a maximum of 3 + 13 dimension tables. 3 dimension tables are pre-defined by SAP.
Time, Unit and DataPackage (for technical information)

13 dimensions may be used by InfoCube developers. Note: In practice, good InfoCube design should not exceed 6-8 dimensions (+ the 3 above) so 13 dimensions are plenty.
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DataStore Objects

Contain single data records such as invoices, purchase orders or customer order items. Consist of key fields (such as order number, order position number) and data fields (Key Figures and Characteristics such as sales amount, net value, customer id, material number). Store data records in relational database tables. Often contain massive volumes of data.

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InfoCube versus DataStore Object

Data Warehouse, Operational Data Store and Data Marts are general layers in a Data Warehouse Architecture.
BI1-M2-01-Data Warehouse

Data Warehouse and Operational Data Store may be implemented with DataStoreObjects. Data Marts will be implemented with InfoCubes.

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Agenda

Overview InfoObjects Key Figures Characteristics InfoProviders DataStore Objects j InfoCubes

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InfoObjects

InfoObjects Key Figures

Revenue, Sales Amount, Net Value, .

Characteristics
Customer, Region, Zip Code,

Units
Unit of Measurement, Currency,

Time
Calender Year, Fiscal Year, Month, Day, Quarter, .

Some Technical Stuff

DataPackageID, RequestID,

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Key Figure Definition: Revenue

Amount, Quantity, ..

Data Type: integer, float, char(10),

EUR, USD, (fix)

Pieces, inch, %, (fix) Unit / Currency (fix) / Currency reference Page 17

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Key Figure Definition: Revenue (cont.)

No Employee per Month Last value 520 500 Jan Feb 520 520 Last value 521

515

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Aggregation: Last Value, gg g , Maximum, Average Reference Characteristic, e.g. Quarter Aggregation: Summation, Minimum, Maximum The reference characteristic allows the use of a function to aggregate data instead of summation. Example: Number of Employees at the end of the quarter. Sum does not make sense!
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Key Figure Definition: Revenue (cont.)

If the Key Figure is noncumulative (e.g., warehouse stock), this field defines an InfoObject representing noncumulative change. This InfoObject is either positive or negative. So, the stock amount can be calculated from it.

Two fields are used to calculate the noncumulative amounts. Inflow is the InfoObject which represents the stock inflow amount. Outflow is vice versa.
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Key Figure Definition: Revenue (cont.)

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Characteristic Definition: Sales Organisation

Data Types: Num, Char, Date,

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Conversion Routine

Database values Are stored in internal format appropriate to the database Date as YYYYMMDD Are presented to a user in external format according to his local settings, e.g., in g, Europe Date: DD.MM.YYYY Numbers: 1.234,56 US Date: MM/DD/YYYY Numbers: 1,234.56 Transformation external internal format is performed by a conversion routine
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ALPHA Conversion Routine

Alphanumeric database fields Datatype CHAR in SAP Can store character and number values Have conversion exit ALPHA as default Eliminates leading blanks after user input User input of RB0010 and RB0010 refers to same object p j Stores numbers with leading 0s in database Numeric values are stored in natural order in database, e.g. 0002 first, then 0010 Material Group in SAP Business Content has numerical values with trailing blanks Conversion exit ALPHA must not be used

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MATN1 Conversion Routine

Database field Material often requires special treatment. Datatype CHAR in SAP Conversion exit MATN1 is used Edit format can be defined in transaction OMSL E.g. _ _-_ _ _ _ User Input RB-0010 is stored as RB0010

Since the OMSL format setting is system-wide, we do not use it in the Bike Company Curriculum.

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An InfoObject may have attributes!

SAP BI Curriculum BI2-M2 SAP BW Data Modeling

Characteristic Definition: Sales Organisation (cont.)

Texts: Descriptive texts Multi-language texts Time dependent texts

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Characteristic Definition: Sales Organisation (cont.)

Attributes Usable for OLAP operations or display only

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Time Characteristics

Time characteristics are always necessary and define the timerelated reference point for data analysis purposes. Time characteristics are predefined by SAP and cannot be changed.

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Units/Currencies

Units and Currencies are used to define Key Figures in more detail. A Unit may be an InfoObject which defines the Unit of a Key Figure. A Currency may be an InfoObject which defines the Currency of a Key Figure Examples:
0CURRENCY 0BASE_UOM

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Agenda

Overview InfoObjects Key Figures Characteristics InfoProviders DataStore Objects j InfoCubes

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5 Steps to Define a DataStore Object

5 steps to Define an DataStore Object

1) Define a name for a DataStoreObject 2) Choose the key fields 3) Choose the data fields 4) Define attributes used for data analysis l i 5) Activate the DataStoreObject

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Choosing InfoObjects to Build a DataStore Object

Select the relevant InfoObjects

Direct InfoObject name input (1) or Choose InfoObjects by InfoObjectCatalog and drag & drop the InfoObjects (2)

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7 Steps to Define an InfoCube

7 Steps to Define an InfoCube

1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) Choose a name for an InfoCube Create Dimensions as needed Assign Characteristics to Dimensions Choose Time Characteristics C oose ey gu es Choose Key Figures Define Navigational Attributes Activate InfoCube

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Create New Dimensions If Needed

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What is a Dimension Inside SAP BW?

A dimension is a group of characteristics which belong to the same business object (semantically). Each characteristic may contain additional attributes which are relevant for data analysis or not!!!
Navigational attributes are InfoObjects which are used to perform data analysis. Display attributes are InfoObjects for which data analysis does not make sense (e.g. a house number or a family name) This has an impact to cube design!

Note: In data warehouse community, the term Dimension is used for what SAP calls Characteristic .

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Excursion: SAP BW - Enhanced Star Schema

Attributes are not part of a dimension!

Dimension
NAV

Characteristic as part of a dimension

NAV NAV

Characteristic as navigation attribute

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Displayed in the Frontend Tool

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Basic Characteristic and Its Navigation Attributes

1. 1 Dimension

3. Navigation Attributes are ready to be used in analysis.

2. Characteristic
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Steps to Create an InfoCube

Define the InfoObjects needed.

Key Figures Characteristices

Define which Characteristics may be chosen to create a semantic cluster for semantic dimensions.
Examples are: Sales, Production, Material Management, Finance, etc.

Define which attributes are appropriate to perform data analysis

OLAP attributes define them as navigational attributes Non-OLAP attributes define them as display attributes

Done! Deploy the InfoCube inside SAP BW!

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Summary

Key Figures and Characteristics are defined as InfoObjects. InfoObjects are the smallest bricks to define InfoProviders within SAP BW. InfoProviders are used to store data within SAP BW or allow SAP BW to access data stored somewhere else. The most important InfoProviders are InfoCubes and DataStore Objects. The definition of an SAP BW InfoCube is no Witchery!

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