of Higher Education 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 SAP R/3 DV1 DR1 DC1 SAP R/3 QA2 QR1 QC1 SAP R/3 PRD PR1 PC1 Data Data Data BW TRN TB1 BW SB SB1 SAP R/3 TRN TR1 TC1 SAP R/3 SF1 SR1
Data Data Basic BW Architecture ODS InfoCube Non-SAP Data Sources (Flat file, XML or DBConnect) BEx Web Based BEx Data Detail Business Content SAP R/3 SAP-BW Data Sources Business Explorer Tools BW Reporting Tools Business Explorer (BEx) Query Designer
1. MS-Excel- Based 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