Posted in BI / BW, SAP on December 29th, 2006 No Comments »
All reports in SAP business warehouse get their data from Infoproviders. InfoProviders are objects that store data in SAP business warehouse. These Info providers can be objects that physically contain data or logical views, whose data is stored in another system or other info provider.
There are many types of InfoProvider objects in SAP BW. These [...]
Posted in BI / BW, General, SAP on November 24th, 2006 No Comments »
Whilst working with BW BEx users, I often get asked to explain what a key date is and how it affects query results. It’s understandable that this can sometimes be a little confusing to users as you really need to know a little bit about how your BW handles Master Data within your data model [...]
Posted in BI / BW, SAP on November 12th, 2006 No Comments »
Transfer rules and Update rules are the main areas within a BW system where the BW professional can transform your transaction system data into the required format for what ever InfoObject / InfoProvider is being updated.
Quite often when ABAP is used as part of your transfer and update rules there is a need to debug [...]
Posted in BI / BW, BI Top Tips, SAP on November 3rd, 2006 No Comments »
When users run SAP BW queries and use the F4 key to select values for selections and parameters there is the possibility they will get to see sensitive information they are not authorised to view e.g Payroll information (Pay Grade) which could be part of the Employee master data Infoobject.
To alter the settings that determine [...]
Posted in BI / BW, BI Top Tips, SAP on November 2nd, 2006 No Comments »
SAP HR users have difficulty understanding how to use the Action Type and Action Reason dimensions on the employee and personnel action Infocube.
The confusion exists when a user tries to restrict the BW query on Action Reason without first choosing the Action Type. When this happened a pop-up window display all the entries of Action [...]
Posted in BI / BW, BI Top Tips, SAP on November 1st, 2006 No Comments »
It is sometimes unclear how BW handles the formatting of dates. Here is a quick overview:
For BEx reporting, SAP BW uses the settings stored on the users local machine. On your desktop click Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Regional options to view the settings local to your PC.
Some date related reporting objects get [...]
Posted in BI / BW, BI Top Tips, SAP on October 31st, 2006 No Comments »
To resolve problems and answer BW queries, it is often necessary to compare R/3 data with the data reported through BW. Just identifying the Datasource for an extractor can sometimes be a challenge in itself.
For Master Data, Text and Hierarchies take a look at table ‘RODCHABAS‘. This table contains entries of InfoObject/Basic Characteristics together with [...]
Posted in BI / BW, BI Top Tips, SAP on October 30th, 2006 No Comments »
When loading data from R/3, data record errors often occur due to Overlapping Time Period. The reason for this type of error is BW has tried to load multiple records that contain the same key and overlapping validity periods (start date/end date). The records are then rejected during the update.
You can sometimes get around this [...]
Posted in BI / BW, SAP on October 29th, 2006 No Comments »
I visit many SAP BI/BW customers in my job and I often notice that the BI//BW team quite often fail to have their DataSource Replication transported through their SAP landscape. When asked why they do not include it in their transports, the normal answer is a simple ‘we don’t know what object to include‘.
With this [...]
Posted in BI / BW, SAP on October 27th, 2006 No Comments »
A Step-by-Step guide
Have you every wanted to perform calculations using dates defined as characteristics but have never worked out how it can be done? Replacements Path Variables are the key.
Using Replacement Path in your Text and Formula variables, replace values held in a characteristic. The Characteristic value variables are replaced by the results of a [...]
Posted in BI / BW, General on October 26th, 2006 No Comments »
I’ve just found a site that allows you to use their royalty free music in you presentations, blog, Podcasts etc…
Check them out. Some of the sounds are average but most are good. I’ve been looking for royalty free tunes that I can use in my up and coming podcast on SAP BW. Fingers crossed [...]