Ask the BW Expert: How Do I Get Custom Hierarchies from Development into Production?

by Frank Bulacher, BI Practice Manager, ICM America Transports,Hierarchies

Follow this simple two-step process for transferring a custom hierarchy for an InfoObject from your development system into your production system.

Dear BW Expert, Ive created a custom hierarchy for an InfoObject directly in the BW development system and did not load it from R/3. How do I get the hierarchy into the production environment? Should I transport the tables and copy the values, or do I have to create a new hierarchy in production?

Actually, you should do neither. The following gives you a short step-by-step description of how to transfer a custom hierarchy that has been created in development to a test or production system. The only prerequisites to achieving this are:

The system where you create the hierarchy (development) and the system where you want to use the hierarchy (production) have to be linked. The development system is the source system ( Figure 1), which is normally the case when you transport all your work from development into production.

Production has to be open for configuration.

Tip! Make sure that no one is working in production at this time and no configuration is being done.

In development, follow these steps: 1. Create your hierarchy for the specific InfoObject. 2. Create an export DataSource for this InfoObject. In production, follow these steps: 1. Replicate the DataSource from the development system. 2. Link the DataSource to the InfoSource of the InfoObject that includes the hierarchies ( Figures 2 and 3).

3. Create an InfoPackage for the InfoObject that includes the hierarchy (Figures 4 and 5). If you have more than one InfoObject, you must create an InfoPackage for each one. 4. Load the InfoObject from the development system into the production system with the same process as for loading data. It is possible to create more than one hierarchy in BW. If you need your hierachies in production, you must load them one at a time. To overwrite the hierarchy, simply change it in the development system and reload it into production.

Figure 1

Make sure the development system is linked to the production system

Figure 2

Assign the DataSource to the InfoObject

Figure 3

Choose the source system

Figure 4

Create an InfoPackage

Figure 5

Choose the hierarchy DataSource for the InfoPackage

Frank Bulacher is the BI practice manager for ICM America. He has been working with BW for more than two years in the U.S. and Europe. Previously, Frank was a consultant in data warehousing and SAP FI/CO with PriceWaterhouseCoopers. He is a graduate of the University of Augsburg, Germany, and of the University of Wales in Swansea, U.K., with a major in banking and informatics. You may contact him via e-mail at fbulacher@icm.de.