SAP BW-Unit 1-Introduction to BW Reporting

1. BEx Query Designer
Unit 1: Introduction to BW
Reporting
7/17/2007

2. Slide 2
Data Warehouse System
A data warehouse system serves primarily to stage information from various
data sources.
The information is staged in various forms including personalized reports,
freely definable queries, and predefined reports.
A data warehouse can:
– Pool data from different, mostly heterogeneous sources
– Overcome this heterogeneity on different levels (system, schema, and
data)
– Stage data in the form required by the user

3. Slide 3
What We Expect from a Data
Warehouse
The following demands are made on a data warehouse:
– Standardized structuring and presentation of all company
information
– An easy-to-use, single-point of access to all company
information
– Sophisticated business reporting methods for self-service
analysis at all levels
– Fast and cost-effective installation
– A high performance environment
– Data staging from heterogeneous environment
– Release of source systems and IT organization
– Data access that is independent of the source system
– Analysis of data over a specific period of time, and the storage
of historical information (time-dependent master data)

4. Slide 4
SAP Business Information Warehouse
SAP BW provides the following:
– Data warehousing system with optimized data structures for
reporting and analysis
– Separate system
– OLAP engine and tools
– Comprehensive data-warehousing architectural base
– Automated data warehouse management
– Pre-configuration using SAP global business know-how

5. Slide 5
Terminology and Objects in SAP BW:
InfoObject
Business analysis-objects (customers,
sales volumes, and so on) are called
InfoObjects in SAP BW.
InfoObjects are divided into
characteristics and key figures.
Characteristics can be further divided
into units, time characteristics, and
technical characteristics.
Key figures are all data fields that are used to store values or
quantities.

6. Slide 6
Terminology and Objects in SAP BW:
InfoCube
The central data containers that form
the basis for reports and analyses in
SAP BW are called InfoCubes.
They contain key figures (sales
volumes, incoming orders, actual
costs, and so on) and a link to the
characteristics (that is, to the master
data of the SAP BW system [cost centers, customers, materials, and
so on]).
Key figures are stored in a single fact table, with the characteristics
stored in individual dimension tables.

7. Slide 7
Terminology and Objects in SAP BW:
InfoProvider
InfoProvider is the super-ordinate term for an object that you can use
to create reports in Business Explorer (BEx).
InfoProviders deliver data that can be analyzed using a query.
InfoProviders can deliver data from physical data stores…
– InfoCubes
– ODS Objects
– InfoObjects
…or logical views of physical data stores…
– InfoSets
– Remote Cubes
– Virtual InfoCubes
– MultiProviders

8. Slide 8
Terminology and Objects in SAP BW:
Operational Data Store (ODS)
An ODS is a data store in which data is stored at a basic level
(document level).
This data is often from various data sources and/or source systems.
ODS objects should be reported very selectively because ODS objects
are not built for reporting purposes other than in drill-down paths to
retrieve a few detailed records.

9. Slide 9
Terminology and Objects in SAP BW:
MultiProviders
Multi-Providers combine data from of
all types of InfoProviders (InfoCubes,
ODS Objects, InfoObjects and
InfoSets).
Multi-Providers do not store the data,
but access the data from the
underlying InfoProviders.
Multi-Providers require additional
processing in SAP BW.
Multi-Providers should be used sparingly – only when you really need to
combine data from two different InfoProviders.

10. Slide 10
Business Information Warehouse
Architecture
SAP BW enables Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) for staging
information from large amounts of operative and historical data.
OLAP technology permits multi-dimensional analyses according to
various business perspectives (slice and dice).