SAP BW Overview

Pennsylvania State System

of Higher Education

Agenda

• Reporting Comparison• BW Overview• BW Landscape & Architecture• BW Reporting Tools• Business Content• BW Website• Online Resources• Discussions/ Q&A

Reporting Comparison

• Line Item Analysis

• Delivered Reports

• Basic Reporting or Predefined (requires ABAP programmers)

• Consumes Resources from Transaction Processing

• Real-time Analysis

• Function Specific

• Relational & Multidimensional Analysis

• Delivered Reports (aka Business Content)

• Ad hoc or Predefined (can be designed by users)

• Significantly Faster Processing

• Current (according to update schedule) & Historical Analysis

• Cross Functional

BW Overview

• The Business Information Warehouse (BW) is SAP’s architectural solution for data warehousing. – Seamless integration with R/3

– Built-in functionality that substantially reduces DW design, development and maintenance

• BW is a separate system from the R/3 transaction processing system– BW data structures are optimized for reporting data

efficiently and quickly (analytical processing).

– R/3 data structures are optimized for recording data efficiently and quickly (transaction processing).

State System BW Landscape

BW DevDB1

BW QAQB1

BW PRDPB1

SAP R/3DV1DR1DC1

SAP R/3QA2QR1QC1

SAP R/3PRDPR1PC1

Data Data Data

BW TRNTB1

BW SBSB1

SAP R/3TRNTR1TC1

SAP R/3 SF1SR1

Data Data

Basic BW Architecture

ODS InfoCube

Non-SAP Data Sources(Flat file, XMLor DBConnect)

BEx

WebBasedBEx

Data Detail Business Content

SAP R/3

SAP-BW

Data Sources Business Explorer Tools

BW Reporting ToolsBusiness Explorer (BEx) Query Designer

1. MS-Excel-Based Analyzer (Web or GUI)

2. Formatted Reporting

3. Web Application Designer

Business Explorer (BEx) Analyzer• Queries and solution workbooks embedded in MS

Excel

• Excel functionality can be utilized (calculations, charts, VBA programming, etc.)

• Queries are refreshed at each run; workbooks provide pre-calculated queries

• Incorporates BW Security and, therefore, eliminates the need for an additional layer of security at the reporting level

• Seamless integration with BEx Analyzer for the Web

GUI Based or……

SAP Menu Bar Add-in

Web-Based

What is “Business Content?”

• Advantages of using Business Content– Pre-Configured SAP-delivered objects allow

rapid development (DataSources, Transfer Structures, ODSs, InfoCubes, Queries, etc.)

– Based on Best Practices

• A solution to build upon– Provides a good baseline for enhancements of

functionality and data models.

http://www.sytecpa.org/BW/index.asp

Online Resources

• SAP Online Documentation - help.sap.com• Service Marketplace - service.sap.com

– OSS Notes– Installation and upgrade info

• SAP Developers Network - sdn.sap.com– Online Forums– How Tos

• SAP Fans – www.sapfans.com

QUESTIONS

Thank You