This document contains 167 interview questions related to SAP BW. The questions cover a wide range of topics including experience with BEx, InfoCubes, data modeling, extractors, reporting tools, ABAP, ASAP methodology, BW objects like ODS and InfoCubes, partitioning, rollups, aggregates, update rules, hierarchies, and data extraction from various sources including R/3.

1. Most Comprehensive list of Interview
Questions for SAP BW Consultants
1) Please describe your experience with BEx (Business Explorer)A) Rate your level of experience with BEx and the rationale
2) Describe your experience with 3rd party report tools (Crystal Decisions, Business Objects a plus)
3) Describe your experience with the design and implementation of standard & custom InfoCubes.
4) Describe your experience with requirements definition/gathering.
5) What experience have you had creating Functional and Technical specifications?
6) Describe any testing experience you have:
7) Describe your experience with BW extractors
8) Describe how you have used Excel as a compliment to BEx
9) Describe experience with ABAP
10) Describe any hands on experience with ASAP Methodology.
11) Identify SAP functional areas (SEM, CRM, etc.) you have experience in. Describe that experience.
12) What is partitioning and what are the benefits of partitioning in an InfoCube?
13) What does Rollup do?
14) What are the inputs for an infoset?
15) What internally happens when BW objects like Info Object, Info Cube or ODS are created and activated?
16) What is the maximum number of key fields that you can have in an ODS object?
17) What is the specific advantage of LO extraction over LIS extraction?
18) What is the importance of 0REQUID?
19) Can you add programs in the scheduler?
20) What is the importance of the table ROIDOCPRMS?
21) What is the importance of ‘start routine’ in update rules?
22) When is IDOC data transfer used?
23) What is partitioning characteristic in CO-PA used for?
24) What is the advantage of BW reporting on CO-PA data compared with directly running the queries on CO-PA?
25) What is the function of BW statistics cube?
26) When an ODS is in ‘overwrite’ mode, doesuploadingthe same data again andagain createnew entries in the change 27) What is
the function of ‘selective deletion’ tab in the manage->contents of an infocube?
28) When we collapse an infocube, is the consolidated data stored in the same infocube o r is it stored in the new infocube?
29) What is the effect of aggregation on the performance? Are there any negative effects on the performance?
30) What happens when you load transaction data without loading master data?
31) When given a choice between a single infocube and multiple InfoCubes with a multiprovider, what factors does one
32) How many hierarchy levels can be created for a characteristic info object?
33) What is open hub service?

2. 34) What is the function of ‘reconstruction’ tab in an infocube?
35) What are secondary indexes with respect to InfoCubes?
36) What is DB connect and where is it used?
37) Can we extract hierarchies from R/3 for CO-PA?
38) Explain ‘field name for partitioning’ in CO-PA
39) What is V3 update method ?
40) Differences between serialized and non-serialized V3 updates
41) What is the common method of finding the tables used in any R/3 extraction
42) Differences between table view and infoset query
43) How to load data from one InfoCube to another InfoCube ?
44) What is the significance of setup tables in LO extractions ?A) It adds the Selection Criteria to the LO extraction.
45) Difference between extract structure and datasource
46) What happens internally when Delta is Initialized
47) What is referential integrity mechanism ?
48) What is activation of extract structure in LO ?
49) What is the difference between Info IDoc and data IDoc ?
50) What is D-Management in LO ?
51) What is entity relationship model in data modeling ?
52) What is the difference between direct delta and queued delta updates in LO ?
53) What is non-cumulative infocube ?
54) What kind of tools are available to monitor the overall Query Performance?
55) How can we have a delta update for generic data source ?
56) What are the methods available to debug the load failures ?
57) What is datamining concept ?
58) What is scoring ?
59) Usage of Geo-coordinates ?
61) How does the time dependency works for BW objects ?
63) What is I_T_FIELDS?
64) What is C_T_DATA?
65) What is I_UPDMODE?
66) What is I_T_SELECT?
67) What is Serialized V3 Update?
68) What is Direct Delta?
69) What is Queued Delta?
70) What is Unserialized V3 Update?
71) What are the different Update Modes?
72) What are the different ways Data Transfer?

3. 73) What is the major importance for the usage of ODS Object?
74) What is the benefit of using BW reporting over SAP Reporting?
75) Differences between star and extended star schema ?
76) What are the new features of SAP BW 30b?
77) What are the new features of the R3 Plugin PI2002_1.
78) What are the major errors in BW and R3 pertaining to BW?
79) When are tables created in BW?
80) What is a start routine and return table, how do they synchronize with each other?
81) What is the difference between start routineand updateroutine, when, how andwhy are th ey called?82) What are the different Non
– R/3 systems that BW supports?
83) In a general project, how many InfoCubes, InfoObjects, InfoSources, Multi -Providers can you expect? 84) What does a M table
signify?
85) What does a F table signify?
86) What is data warehousing?
87) What is process chain and how you used it?
88) What are Remotecubes and how you accessed and used it in your project?
89) Hope you have worked on enhancements and on which userexit you worked can you explain?
90) What is the t-code for generic extractor?
91) What is infoset query?
92) What is the purpose of aggregates?
93) How you did Datamodeling in your project? Explain
94) As you said you have worked on Cubes and ODS,Which one is better suited for reporting? Explain and what are the
95) What are the different cubes you worked in FI?
96) What is delta upload?What isthe use of delta upload?Data that hasbeen changed or added isextractor or full datais9 7) What are
hierarchies? Explain how you used in your project?
98) What is t-code for CO-PA?
99) What is SID? what is the impact in using SID?
100) What is Table partitioning? What are Return Tables?
101) What is the t-code for Query Monitor?
102) Apart from R/3 ,which legacy db you used for extraction ?
103) What are the three ODS Objects table explain?
104) Can you explain about Start routines how you used in your project give me an example?
105) In update rules for an infocube we can specify separate update rules for characteristics of each of the key figures. In which
situations is the above used?
106) Other than BW, what are the other ETL tools used for SAP R/3 in industry?
107) Does any other ERP software use BW for data warehousing.
108) What is the importance of hierarchies?

4. 109) Where is 0RECORDMODE infoobject used?
110) What is operating concern in CO-PA?
111) Does all the characteristics present in ODS, are key fields.
112) What is the use BAPI, ALE?
113) What is the importance of ‘Compounding’ of infoobjects?
114) Are there any limitations for BEx analyzer?
115) How does BEx analyzer connect to BW?
116) What is field partitioning in CO-PA?
117) Where to check the log for warning messages appearing in activation of transfer rules?
118) What are the advantages of reporting on an infocube to that of reporting on an ODS?
119) How does a navigational attribute differ from other attributes in terms of linking it with the infocube?
120) How does delta update mechanism work in ODS?
121) What is time dependent master data?
122) Can we load transaction data into infocube without loading the master data first?
123) What is difference between ‘saving’ and ‘activating’?
124) Why do we use only one client in BW?
125) What is time dependent master data?
126) What are the advantages of aggregates?
127) In which situations we cannot use aggregates?
128) Aggregates are recommended in the following cases,
129) What does delta initialization do?
130) What is difference between delta and pseudo delta?
131) What are the Third Normal Form and its comparison with Star Schema?
132) What is ASAP methodology
133) Significance of infoset.
134) Differences between multicube and remote cube.
135) Life period of data in “Change Log‿ of an ODS.
136) Drilldown method of Infocube to ODS.
137) What are “inbound ODS‿ and “consistent ODS‿?
138) Life period of data in PSA.
139) How to load data from one infocube to another ?
140) What is “activation‿ of objects ?
141) Are key figures navigable ?
142) What is transactional ODS?
143) Are SIDs static or dynamic?
144) Is data in Infocube editable?
145) What are data-marts?

5. 146) Which one is more denormalized; ODS or Infocube?
148) What is “replication of data source‿ process ?
149) Any quality checks available for inefficient cube designs ?
150) Why not star-schema is implemented for ODS as well ?
151) Why do we need separate update rules for characteristics on each key figure?
152) Use of Hierarchies.
153) What is “Referential Integrity”?
154) What is a Transactional Cube and when is it preferred?
155) When is the data in Change Log table of ODS deleted.
156) On what occasions do we have different update rules for each of the Key Figures in an Info Cube and how would data
157) When are “Hierarchies” used in an info object and how do they differ from the hierarchies available in BEx while
158) What kinds of data fields are used in Line Items, Transactional Figures and Cost of Sales Ledger?
159) What are Aggregates and when are they used?
160) How is the data of different modules stored in R/3?
161) In what cases to we transfer data from one info cube to another.
162) How often do we have a Multi-layered structure in ODS stage and in what cases.
163) How is data extracted from systems other than R/3 and Flat files?
164) When do TRFC and iDOC errors occur?
165) On what occasions do the key figures become attributes of characteri stics?
166) Why is there a restriction of 16 Dim tables in an Info Cube and 16 key fields in an ODS.
167) On what factors does the loading time depend on?
168) How long does it take to load a million records into an info cube from an R/3 system?
169) Will the loading time be same for the same amount of data for non-SAP systems like Flat files.
170) Can you tell me about a situation when you implemented a Remote Cube.
171) What is mySAP.com?
172) How is BW superior to other data warehousing tools (if it is superior)?
173) Can we just load the transactiondatawithout loading the master data from a source system when we are sure we are 174) What is
operating concern and partitioning in CO-PA.
175) What is the difference between value fields and key figures in CO-PA.
176) How is the performance of an info cube measured?
177) What factors are used in measuring the performance of a query?
178) What is process chain and how you used it?
179) What are Remote cubes and how you accessed and used it in your project?
180) Hope you have worked on enhancements and on which user exit you worked can you explain?
181) What is the t-code for generic extractor?
182) What is infoset query?
183) What is the purpose of aggregates?

6. 184) How you did Data modeling in your project? Explain
185) As you said you have worked on Cubesand ODS,Which one isbetter suited for reporting?Expalinand what are the 186) What are
the different cubes you worked in FI?
187) What is deltaupload?What isthe use of deltaupload?Data that hasbeen changed or addedisextractor or full data is188) What are
hierarchies?Explain how you used in your project?
189) What is t-code for CO-PA?
190) What is SID ? what is the impact in using SID?
191) What is Table partitioning? What are Return Tables?
192) What is the t-code for Query Monitor?RSRT193) Apart from R/3 ,which legacy db you used for extraction ?
194) What are the three ODS Objects table explain?
195) Can you explain about Start routines how you used in your project ,give me an example?
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1. How much time does it take to extract 1 million of records from an infocube?
2. How much does it take to load (before question extract) 1 million of records to an infocube?
3. What are the four ASAP Methodologies?
4. How do you measure the size of infocube?
5. Difference between infocube and ODS?
6. Difference between display attributes and navigational attributes?
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1. SOME DATA IS UPLOADED TWICE INTO INFOCUBE. HOW TO CORRECT IT?
2. CAN U ADD A NEW FIELD AT THE ODS LEVEL?
3. CAN NUMBER OF DATASOURCE HAS ONE INFOSOURCE?
4. BRIEF THE DATAFLOW IN BW.
5. CURRENCY CONVERSIONS CAN BE WRITTEN IN UPDATE RULES. WHY NOT IN TRANSFER RULES?
6. WHAT IS PROCEDURE TO UPDATE DATA INTO DATA TARGETS?
7. AS WE USE Sbwnn,SBiw1,sbiw2 for delta update in LIS THEN WHAT IS THE PROCEDURE IN LO-COCKPIT?
8. SIGNIFICANCE OF ODS.
9. WHERE THE PSA DATA IS STORED?
10.WHAT IS DATA SIZE?
11. DIFFERENT TYPES OF INFOCUBES.
12. INFOSET QUERY.
13. IF THERE ARE 2 DATASOURCES HOW MANY TRANSFER STRUCTURES ARE THERE.
14. ROUTINES?

7. 15. BRIEF SOME STRUCTURES USED IN BEX.
16. WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT VARIABLES USED IN BEX?
17. HOW MANY LEVELS YOU CAN GO IN REPORTING?
18. WHAT ARE INDEXES?
19. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 2.1 AND 3.X VERSIONS.
20. IS IT NESSESARY TO INITIALIZE EACH TIME THE DELTA UPDATE IS USED.
21. WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF KPI’S?
22. AFTER THE DATA EXTRACTION WHAT IS THE IMAGE POSITION.
23. REPORTING AND RESTRICTIONS.
24. TOOLS USED FOR PERFORMANCE TUNING.
25. PROCESS CHAINS: IF U ARE USED USING IT THEN HOW WILL U SCHEDULING DATA DAILY.
26. AUTHORIZATIONS.
27. WEB REPORTING.
28. CAN CHARECTERSTIC CAN BE INFOPROVIDER ,INFOOBJECT CAN BE INFOPROVIDER.
29. PROCEDURES OF REPORTING ON MULTICUBES.
30. EXPLAIN TRANPORTATION OF OBJECTS?
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 How we do the SD and MM configuration for BW ?
 What is the t-code to see log of transport connection?
 mm inventory data source with marker significance?
 How can you navigate to see the error idocs ?
 Difference between v1, v2, v3 jobs in extraction?
 What are statistical update and document update?
 Do you have any idea how to improve the performance of the BW..?
 How can you decide the query performance is slow or fast ?
 What is statistical setup and what is the need and why?
 Why we have construct setup tables?
 How can you eliminate the duplicate records in TD, MD?
 What use marker in MM?
 Tell me web template?
 What is dashboard?
 How can you solve the data mismatch tickets between r/3 and bw?
 What is thumb rule?
 What is replacement path tell me one scenario?
 What is difference between PSA & IDOC?
 what we do in Business Blue Print Stage?
 How do we gather the requirements for an Implementation Project?

8.  How do we decide what cubes has to be created
 Who used to make the Technical and Functional Specifications?
 Give me one example of a Functional Specification and explain what information we will get from that?
 What is Customization? How do we do in LO?
 When we use Maintain Data Source, What we do? What we will maintain?
 Tickets and Authorization in SAP Business Warehouse What is tickets? And example?
 Change attribute run.
 An SAP BW functional consultant is responsible for the following: Key responsibilities include:
 Production support
 How to convert a BeX query Global structure to local structure (Steps involved)
 What is the use of Define cell in BeX & where it is useful?
 What is SAP GUI and what use of it?
 What is the RMS Application?
 Bug resolution for the RMS Application?
 Development tasks for RMS release work?
 What is BP Master Data?
 Describe the BP Master Data, Authorization Objects?
 Tell what is localization?
 Workflow SAP GUI
 What is 0Recordmode?
 What is the difference between filter & Restricted Key Figures? Examples & Steps in BI?
 How to create condition and exceptions in Bi.7.0? But I know in Bw3.5 version.?
 The FI Business Flow related to BW. case studies or scenarios
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1. What are the extractor types?
2. What are the steps involved in LO Extraction?
3. How to create a connection with LIS InfoStructures?
4. What is the difference between ODS and InfoCube and MultiProvider?
5. What are Start routines, Transfer routines and Update routines?
6. What is the difference between start routine and update routine, when, how and why are they called?
7. What is the table that is used in start routines?
8. Explain how you used Start routines in your project?
9. What are Return Tables?
10. How do start routine and return table synchronize with each other?
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 What is data integrity?

9.  What is the difference between SAP BW 3.0B and SAP BW 3.1C, 3.5?
 That is the difference between SAP BW 3.5 and 7.0?
 What is index?
 What is KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)?
 What is the use of process chain?
 Difference between Display Attribute and Navigational Attribute ?
 If there are duplicate data in Cubes, how would you fix it?
 What are the differences between ODS and Info Cube?
 What is the use of change log table?
 Difference between InfoSet and Multiprovider
 What is the T.Code for Data Archival and what is it’s advantage?
 What are the Data Loading Tuning from R/3 to BW, FF to BW?
 Performance monitoring and analysis tools in BW
 Difference between Transfer Rules and Update Rules
 What is OSS?
 How to transport BW object?
 How to unlock objects in Transport Organizer?
 What is InfoPackage Group?
 Differences Between Infopackage Groups and Process chains
 What are the critical issues you faced and how did you solve it?
 What is Conversion Routine?
 Difference between Start Routine and Conversion Routine
 What is the use of setup tables in LO extraction?
 R/3 to ODS delta update is good but ODS to Cube delta is broken. How to fix it?
 What is short dump and how to rectify?
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