Day 2

Todays Objective
Data Modeling Components
Types of Data Modeling
InfoObjects
Types of InfoObjects

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Data Modeling
Mapping reality to data warehousing in
data-managed way.
Data Modeling depends on degree of
closeness, complexity and performance.

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Components of Data Modeling

Quantifiable measures should be put
into a relationship with grouping
measures (characteristics, attributes)
Components of Data Modeling are:
I.
Characteristics
II. Attributes
III. Key Figures
IV. Status Tracking

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Characteristics
Reference variable with business
context (e.g. Customer, Material, Plant)
Grouping of key figure can be made
based on characteristics (e.g. Sale of
material, Cost of plant)

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Attributes
Attributes are characteristics that
depend on other characteristics (e.g.
postal code of area, age of employee )
Attributes can be changed over time,
therefore have 3 views. current view,
key date view and historic view

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Attribute Views
Current View : Attributes are shown as
they are at the time of reporting
Key Date View: All attributes will be
shown as they were on fixed date
Historic View: Attributes will be shown
as they were in the reference period of
the reporting.

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Key Figures
Quantifiable measures that allow
arithmetic operations
Makes sense only if they are related to
characteristics

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Status Tracking
Mapping information in data model at
record level
Status in SAP BW changes with change
in status in SAP R/3
Information cannot be stored at
aggregated level

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Types of Data Modeling

Transactional Structure
Flat Structure
Star Schema
Snowflake Schema

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Transactional Structure
Stores data on atomic level to avoid
redundancies
Provide access to individual transaction
Used to read information once and
transform it into special data models that
are more suitable for analytical
processing
Disadvantages: Bad performance,
limited business analysis options and
increases system burden

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Flat Structure
OLAP specific data model
1st step to separate analytical data from
transaction data
Store data in aggregated form
Minimizes database use

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Star Schema

Offers better performance than flat

structure
Data is distributed into several tables
Consist of central fact table and several
relationally linked dimension tables
Relational link between fact table and
dimension table is made with surrogate key
Fact table includes only key figures and 4
byte key fields for the dimensions
Continue..
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Star Schema

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Snowflake Schema
Enhancement of star schema with
master data tables
Allow attributes to be displayed with
historic view as well as with current view
Attributes can be added to dimensions
or to master data tables or to both
Complexity is higher than star schema
Continue..

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Snowflake Schema

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InfoProvider
InfoObject
DSO
InfoCube
MultiProvider
InfoSet

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InfoObjects
Smallest available information module or
field in SAP BW
Uniquely identified by technical name
Divided into: characteristics, key figures,
units, time-characteristics and technical
characteristics
Contains technical and business
information for transactional and master
data
Continue..

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InfoObjects
SAP delivered InfoObject technical name
begin with 0 (zero), customer InfoObject
technical name should begin with {AZ}
When InfoObjects are created and
activated, underlying data element and
domain get created
On change of data type or length,
underlying domain gets adjusted
Shortening of data length results in loss of
information

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InfoObjects can be used in..

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Characteristics
Business reference objects that are
used to analyze key figures (e.g.
0Material, ZG_BUSUNT)
Data type can be of : CHAR, NUMC,
DATS, TIMS
Following settings are relevant:

Permission of lowercase letters

Conversion routine and output length
SID Tables

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Time Characteristics
Form the time reference frame for many
data analyses and evaluations
Delivered with BI Content
Calendar day (0CALDAY) have largest
granularity
Calendar year (0CALYEAR) or fiscal
year (0FISCYEAR) have smallest
granularity

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Key Figures
Provide the values to be evaluated
E.g. Quantity (0QUANTITY), Amount
(0AMOUNT)
Can not do arithmetic operation on time
and date key figures
Can be stores in fact tables
Unit has to be associated with amount
and quantity

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Units
Can be specified along with the key
figures
Enable key figure values to be paired
with their corresponding units in
evaluations
Type: currency unit and value unit

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Technical Characteristics
Have an organizational function within
BI
E.g. Request ID (0REQUID)and Change
ID (0CHNGID)

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