You are on page 1of 16

Data Modeling: Creating a Data Mart in SAP BW

The objectives of this workshop are

• to comprehend SAP BW Architecture


• to comprehend and have hands on experience of creating info objects (both characteristics and key figures), info providers,
data store, info cubes and dimensions using SAP BW 7.3

1 Create InfoObjectCatalog and InfoObjects

1.1 Open Data Warehousing Workbench


Navigate to the Data Warehousing Workbench: Modeling by either double clicking it the navigation menu or entering RSA1 in
the command field.

You can skip the documentation

Navigate to functional area for modeling InfoObjects (1). Look for the InfoArea assigned by your lecturer which has the
technical name<course‐ID><user‐ID> (2) and description Student <user-ID> (3).

Page 1 of 16
1.2 Create InfoObjectCatalog for key figures
Right click your InfoArea (1) and select Create InfoObject Catalog (2).

Enter <course‐ID>K<user‐ID> and <course-ID><user-ID> Key Figures for the technical name and description (1) and select Key
Figure (2) as the InfoObject Type. Then click Create (3).

Hints:

The InfoObject Type cannot be changed afterwards. If you have chosen the wrong InfoObject Type you have to delete
your InfoObjectCatalog and create it again.
At this stage you could add existing InfoObjects to your catalog which we don't want to do. We will rather create new
Page 2 of 16
InfoObjects in the following steps.

Click Activate to activate your Key Figure InfoObject Catalog.

Notice that the InfoObject Catalog appears as part of your InfoArea. It is empty but a prerequisite to create your own InfoObjects.

1.3 Create Revenue


Right click your Key Figures InfoObject Catalog (1), and select Create InfoObject (2).

Enter <course‐ID>REV<user‐ID> and <course-ID><user-ID> Revenue for the technical name and description (1). Then click
the checkmark to execute (2).

The Key Figure definition appears in the rightmost panel. On the first tab (Type/unit) (1), leave the defaults of Amount and
Page 3 of 16
Currency (2). Then type 0CURRENCY in the Unit/currency field (3).

This will allow values to be stored in different currencies, which is important since the Bike Company sales data occurs in local
currency. Currency is an InfoObject itself, which means that OLAP navigation can be performed by currency later on. The
leading 0 in 0CURRENCY indicates that it is an InfoObject delivered by SAP. You may, optionally, click on the Aggregation and
Additional Properties tabs to view, but not change, the default settings. Click Save (1) to save the Key Figure properties. Then
click Activate (2) to make it available for use. Alternatively, you can click Activate and your Key Figure will be saved as part of
the process.

If the activation is successful, the Version and Object Status will show your key figure as active and executable (1). You will
also see your key figure appear in your Key Figures InfoObject Catalog (2). If not, refresh the InfoObjects tree (3).

1.4 Create Sales Quantity


Repeat the steps above to create and activate your second key figure,<course‐ID>QTY<user‐ID> (1). Use type Quantity (2)
Page 4 of 16
and0BASE_UOM as unit (3) .

1.5 Create InfoObject Catalog for characteristics


Use the process detailed in 1.2, entering <course‐ID>C<user‐ID> and <course-ID><user-ID> Characteristics as the technical name
and description and being sure to choose Characteristic as the InfoObject Type.

1.6 Create Product Category


Right click your Characteristic InfoObject Catalog (1), and select Create InfoObject (2).

Enter <course‐ID>PC<user‐ID> and <course-ID><user-ID> Product Category for the technical name and description (1), then
execute (2).

On the General tab (1), specify CHAR as the Data type with a length of 3 (2).

Page 5 of 16
Click the Master data/texts tab (1) and make sure that the Master Data checkbox is selected (2). Then choose the desired Text
Table properties (3).

Activate your Characteristic (1) and you will see it listed in your Characteristic InfoObject Catalog (2).

1.7 Maintain Master Data


Right click your Characteristic InfoObject Catalog (1), and select Maintain Master Data (2).

Page 6 of 16
In the following selection screen no additional selections have to be made. Choose Execute (1).

Please note that there is already one empty entry included in the master data table (1). This entry is automatically created by
the SAP BW system. We will come back to this in a subsequent module. Choose Create (2) to start creating the entries for the
different product categories

In the following screen enter product category and description (1) and press Continue (2).

Please note that the language is automatically set to your logon language. Repeat this process until all entries are maintained
as seen in the following screen and save your entries:

Page 7 of 16
1.8 Create Material
Follow similar steps to those above for creating the Material Characteristic and completing its General and Master data/texts
information. Make sure you use 18 as length an medium type text length. In the Master data/texts tab (1) there is one
additional thing to notice. We don't want to enter the master data manually as we did for product category. Assign your own
InfoArea <course‐ID>
<user‐ID> to enable your InfoObject for loading process (2).

Click on the Attribute tab (1) to enter the technical names of the desired attributes of your material characteristic. Start with
your product category InfoObject, which has technical name <course‐ID>PC<user‐ID> (2) Use the toggle switch (pencil) to
enable product category as attribute for OLAP navigation (3)

Next you can maintain a description for the attribute a reporting time. You want to omit the technical identifier and call the
attribute Product Category.
Page 8 of 16
The following attributes are delivered by UCC. So the technical names are starting with MU0. Enter MU0* in the attribute field (1)
an use value help (2).

NOTE

If you don't enter MU0* before using the value help the system selects all InfoObjects for value help which can take
(depending on your system) quite a while.

This way you can add Components, Color, Sales Price USD and Transfer Price USD (1).

Finally add 0DIVISION (1) as navigation attribute (2). As Navigation Attribute Description you can reference the description of
the corresponding InfoObject (3).

Page 9 of 16
Activate your Material Characteristic and note that it is added to your Characteristic Catalog.

You don't have to maintain master data manually now, since master data will be loaded from flat file in a subsequent exercise.

2 Create InfoCube

2.1 Create new InfoCube


Navigate to functional area for modeling InfoObjects (1). Look for the InfoArea assigned by your lecturer which has the
technical name<course‐ID><user‐ID> (2) and description Student <user-ID>. Notice the material we assigned in a previous
step to the Infoarea as InfoProvider occurs here (3). (The assignment was necessary to enable material for loading process.)

Right click your InfoArea (1) and select Create InfoCube (2).

Enter <course‐ID>R1<user‐ID> and <course-ID><user-ID> GBI Reporting for the technical name and description (1) Keep
the default of Standard InfoCube (optimized for reporting) (2). You will build a Real Time InfoCube in a subsequent case study.
Then click Create (3).

Page 10 of 16
The Edit InfoCube screen will appear. Depending on the size of your screen it makes sense to hide the navigator.

On the left-hand side of the screen, there are various templates to choose from (1). On the right side of the screen, you define
the InfoCube (2). Use drag and drop to assign the InfoObjects in the dimensions and the Key Figures folder.

Page 11 of 16
2.2 Create Dimensions
The initial InfoCube structure contains the three required dimensions (Data Package, Time, Unit) plus one for modeling use
(Dimension 1). Right click Dimension 1 (1) and choose Properties (2).

Enter Product as dimension description.

Right click the Dimensions folder to add another dimension for Customer.

Next we want to add characteristics Material (which you created in the previous step) and Customer (provided by your UCC)
to our dimensions. Since you will first use your InfoObject Catalog for characteristics as template click InfoObject Catalog in
the Template area...

Page 12 of 16
... and choose your characteristics InfoObject Catalog by double-clicking it.

Drag Material (1) to dimension Product (2). Maybe you have to expand the dimension folder to see the result (3).

In order to add a characteristic provided by UCC you have to choose a different InfoObject Catalog. Click InfoObject Catalog in
the Template area and then choose All InfoAreas...

... to select catalog MU0C by double-clicking it (1). Maybe you want to make use of the search function (2).

Page 13 of 16
Drag Customer (1) to dimension Customer (2). Maybe you have to expand the dimension folder to see the result (3).

This finishes the definition of the dimensions. Although the definition of the InfoCube is not done you may want to save the
intermediate result.

2.3 Choose Time Characteristics


Click All InfoObjects in the Template area (1) and expand the folder for Time Characteristics (2).

Page 14 of 16
Transfer 0CALYEAR , 0CALMONTH and 0CALMONTH2 to dimension Time.

2.4 Choose Key Figures


Similar to the selection of the characteristics use your own InfoObject Catalog for key figures to add Sales Quantity and Revenue.
Then use catalog MU0K delivered by UCC to add Discount, Net sales and Cost of Goods Manufactured in USD. The key figures
section of your InfoCube now should look like this:

Page 15 of 16
2.5 Create Navigation Attributes
Expand the Navigation Attributes folder (1). Then all Navigational Attributes of all characteristics included in the InfoCube are
shown. These attributes can potentially be used for OLAP analysis in reports. Now we have to make a selection which one we
really want to use in this InfoCube. Since we want to use all of them in our cube check each attribute. (2)

2.6 Activate InfoCube


Activate your InfoCube (1). Show the Navigation display after activation (2). Your InfoCube now appears in your InfoArea (3).

16

You might also like