SAP BW Overview

Presented by: Ravi Kumar Golla SAP Senior Consultant

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 SAPs 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 Dev DB1 BW QA QB1 BW PRD PB1 BW TRN TB1 BW SB SB1

Data

Data

Data

Data

Data

SAP R/3 DV1 DR1 DC1

SAP R/3 QA2 QR1 QC1

SAP R/3 PRD PR1 PC1

SAP R/3 TRN TR1 TC1

SAP R/3 SF1 SR1

Basic BW Architecture
BEx

SAP R/3

ODS
Non-SAP Data Sources (Flat file, XML or DBConnect)

InfoCube

Data Detail Business Content

SAP-BW

Web Based BEx

Data Sources

Business Explorer Tools

BW Reporting Tools
Business Explorer (BEx) Query Designer
1. MS-ExcelBased 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