Walkthrough Checklist for Query Performance and best practice

1. If exclusions exist, make sure they exist in the global filter area. Try to remove
exclusions by subtracting out inclusions.
2. Use Constant Selection to ignore filters in order to move more filters to the global filter
area. (Use ABAPer to test and validate that this ensures better code)
3. Within structures, make sure the filter order exists with the highest level filter first.
4. Check code for all exit variables used in a report.
5. Move Time restrictions to a global filter whenever possible.
6. Within structures, use user exit variables to calculate things like QTD, YTD. This
should generate better code than using overlapping restrictions to achieve the same thing.
(Use ABAPer to test and validate that this ensures better code).
7. When queries are written on multiproviders, restrict to InfoProvider in global filter
whenever possible. MultiProvider (MultiCube) queries require additional database table
joins to read data compared to those queries against standard InfoCubes (InfoProviders),
and you should therefore hardcode the infoprovider in the global filter whenever possible
to eliminate this problem.
8. Move all global calculated and restricted key figures to local as to analyze any filters
that can be removed and moved to the global definition in a query. Then you can change
the calculated key figure and go back to utilizing the global calculated key figure if
desired
9. If Alternative UOM solution is used, turn off query cache.
10. Set read mode of query based on static or dynamic. Reading data during navigation
minimizes the impact on the R/3 database and application server resources because only
data that the user requires will be retrieved. For queries involving large hierarchies with
many nodes, it would be wise to select Read data during navigation and when expanding
the hierarchy option to avoid reading data for the hierarchy nodes that are not expanded.
Reserve the Read all data mode for special queries—for instance, when a majority of the
users need a given query to slice and dice against all dimensions, or when the data is
needed for data mining. This mode places heavy demand on database and memory
resources and might impact other SAP BW processes and tasks.
11. Turn off formatting and results rows to minimize Frontend time whenever possible.
12. Check for nested hierarchies. Always a bad idea.
13. If "Display as hierarchy" is being used, look for other options to remove it to increase
performance.
14. Use Constant Selection instead of SUMCT and SUMGT within formulas.
15. Do review of order of restrictions in formulas. Do as many restrictions as you can
before calculations. Try to avoid calculations before restrictions.
16. Check Sequential vs Parallel read on Multiproviders.
17. Turn off warning messages on queries.
18. Check to see if performance improves by removing text display (Use ABAPer to test
and validate that this ensures better code).
19. Check to see where currency conversions are happening if they are used.
20. Check aggregation and exception aggregation on calculated key figures. Before
aggregation is generally slower and should not be used unless explicitly needed.
21. Avoid Cell Editor use if at all possible.
22. Make sure queries are regenerated in production using RSRT after changes to
statistics, consistency changes, or aggregates.
23. Within the free characteristics, filter on the least granular objects first and make sure
those come first in the order.
24. Leverage characteristics or navigational attributes rather than hierarchies. Using a
hierarchy requires reading temporary hierarchy tables and creates additional overhead
compared to characteristics and navigational attributes. Therefore, characteristics or
navigational attributes result in significantly better query performance than hierarchies,
especially as the size of the hierarchy ( e.g., the number of nodes and levels) and the
complexity of the selection criteria increase.
25. If hierarchies are used, minimize the number of nodes to include in the query results.
Including all nodes in the query results (even the ones that are not needed or blank) slows
down the query processing. The "not assigned" nodes in the hierarchy should be filtered
out, and you should use a variable to reduce the number of hierarchy nodes selected.