SAP BW Overview

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

Relational & Multidimensional Analysis

Delivered Reports

Delivered Reports (aka Business Content)

Basic Reporting or Predefined (requires

Ad hoc or Predefined (can be designed

by users)

ABAP programmers)
Consumes Resources from
Transaction Processing
Real-time Analysis
Function Specific

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

Data

SAP R/3
DV1
DR1
DC1

BW QA
QB1

Data

SAP R/3
QA2
QR1
QC1

BW PRD
PB1

Data

SAP R/3
PRD
PR1
PC1

BW TRN
TB1

Data

SAP R/3
TRN
TR1
TC1

BW SB
SB1

Data

SAP R/3
SF1
SR1

Basic BW Architecture
BEx

SAP R/3

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

Data Sources

InfoCube

Data Detail Business Content

SAP-BW

Web
Based
BEx

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