Using SAPs Business Explorer Analyzer

BEx Analyzer

SAPs Business Explorer (BEx) is the tool used by end-users for slicing and dicing data. One should note that an individual company may be quite restrictive in allowing end-users access to BExto protect performance. A SAP BW cube on the UAs z900 using DB2 as the SAP BW engine will be used as a vehicle for you gain exposure to SAPs business explorer (BEx). Christine Davis and graduate students have created what is referred to as the frozen foods cube. A short description of the data follows. Note the granularitycustomer by product to the week level. Thus, the granularity is at a summarized level. The cube is shown below and then discussed. Note that there are six dimensions in addition to the time dimension and that the fact table has quite a few entries.

Tysons

This data is actual data derived from Tysons Frozen Foods COPA (Controlling and Profitability Analysis) database from SAPs R/3 product. This database allows the organization to study and
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BEx Analyzer

analyze the profitability of its product lines, customer channels and organizational units. The database has detailed cost breakdowns in over 50 key figures for such things as brokerage costs, freezer charges, product costs, special shipping charges, marketing and corporate costs, etc. The granularity of the data is to the customer by product by week level. The full dataset contains approximately 10 million rows and over 2 years of data. The data cube was designed to allow users and managers from any functional area in the company to understand and analyze the companys operations for profitability improvement in their area. Managers can look at overall profitability by a product line, a product, and channel, an organizational unit etc. They can also look at individual costs and make comparisons across product lines, channels, and organizational units. Logon and getting to the BEx Analyzer There are multiple ways to get to the BEx Analyzer. A couple of ways requires a normal SAP logon (icon on desktop or from Start menu). Logon to SAP is as follows: From either StartProgramsSAP Front End (or the SAP Logon icon on the desktop), you get the following Logon dialog.

Ozark BW 3.5_900 is running on the UA z900 mainframethis is the cube with which we wish to work. Click this entry and then click the Log on button. The SAP logon screen opens to allow you to logon.

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BEx Analyzer

Use Client 200 and enter you user and password. Note that you can change your password.

After logging on, there are a couple of ways to get to the BEx analyzer. One way is to fully expand the Business Explorer tree to get the window shown below.

Logon id and password

Double click RRMX - Analyzernote that Excel opens and should include a SAP toolbar. SAP uses Excel to serve as the front end. The SAP toolbar allows you to create queries that will be displayed in Excel and have additional manipulation functionality. Note that the SAP toolbar has tooltips; further, you will probably want to move the toolbar to your favorite location. In my case, I typically move the SAP toolbar to the top along with other Excel toolbars.
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BEx Analyzer

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BEx Analyzer

Other ways to get to the BEx Analyzer There are a couple of other ways to get to the BEx analyzer. If you work with SAP a lot, or take good notes, you will learn to use transaction codes to navigate SAP instead of the menus. The transaction code to get the BEx analyzer is /nrrmx. Thus, if you put this in the transaction code in the processing text box and click the green check mark (another must while in SAP), Excel will be opened with the SAP toolbar. This is shown below.

Note that you can also get to the BEx Analyzer directly without first logging onto SAP. To do this, use the path: StartBusiness Explorer Business Explorer (SAP BW 3.X) Analyzer (SAP BW 3.x) as shown below.

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BEx Analyzer

Opening the BEx Analyzer using this approach gets you to the same place; however, because you have not logged on, when you try to create a query, a logon dialog will open and require you to logon. Some users prefer to use this approach although no general agreement exists as to the best way to invoke the BEx analyzer. Creating a Query Click the Open icon on the SAP toolbar and select Queries as shown below.

Selecting Queries opens the Select query window.

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BEx Analyzer

New Query Button

Click the InfoAreas button to open folders that may include infocubes (cubes) that you can query

Click the InfoAreas button to open folders to locate Infocubes (cubes). For this case, a cube has already been created for you. For illustration purposes, use the Frozen Foods Incorporated Profitability Cube. Expanding the tree will list all the queries that have been created. To create a new query, click the New Query Button.

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BEx Analyzer

Click the New Query Icon which opens Query Designer window. The Query Designer is divided into six sub areas: 1. Directory tree of the selected InfoCube All available objects (key figures and dimensions) of the infocube display in the directory tree in the left screen area of the Query Designer. 2. Columns You define the columns of your report in this area. 3. Rows You define the rows of your report in this area. 4. Free Characteristics You transfer those characteristics into the free characteristics area that do not display in the initial view of the results when you execute the query in the BEx Analyzer or on the Web. You can then integrate these characteristics into the results through the navigation steps. You can also use free characteristics for selecting filter values in the report. 5. Filter The characteristics displayed in the filter appear neither in the drilldown nor as free characteristics in the query analysis. These characteristics are only used as global filters on the infocube data. 6. Preview This area provides preview of the query results.

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BEx Analyzer

5 1

To create a query, you can expand or collapse the directories as needed to locate the values you wish to include in the query. You can use drag & drop to transfer entries from the directory tree to the desired areas of the query designer. Note that the Preview window is grayed out to prevent the user from dropping objects into this area. An example query definition is shown below. Note that the order of the entries can be altered by clicking on an entry and dragging it down below another entry. To run the query, click the quit and run query ( ). A save dialog box will open asking you to provide a Description and Technical name. The technical name is somewhat analogous to a file name and should not include spaces. For illustration, the description was ForClasss1 and the technical name was Class_1. The query results are displayed in a spreadsheet with enhanced SAP navigation capabilities.

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BEx Analyzer

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BEx Analyzer

A portion of the query is shown to the above. The grayed areas in rows 3 to 6 and columns A and B list the key figures and dimensions in column A and leave column B for user action. Note that there is only one key figure; however there are multiple Frozen Foods Sales o entries and Fiscal year/period entries. This is where the user can experiment with the SAP enhancements to the spreadsheet. For example, you can swap columns, eliminate totals, add free dimensions, filter groups, etc. This is typically accomplished in two waysdouble clicking on one of the dimension attributes or rightclicking on something and following the context menu. The best way to learn this is by experimenting. For example, right-click Column B to the right of the Frozen Foods Sales o entry on row 3, select Drilldown and then Down as shown below.

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BEx Analyzer

A portion of the results of this action are shown below. Note that the data is summarized for gross sales for protein 1 and protein 61 with the value protein values being displayed down instead of across. The next screen shot shows the result after right-clicking the Fiscal year/period empty cell (B3) and selecting Down.

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BEx Analyzer

An easy way for the user to reverse the drill down is to click the Back arrow on the SAP add-in tool bar.

To change the time period orientation, reverse the previous drill-down and right-click the Fiscal year/period empty cell (B3) and select Across. Also, right-click the Frozen Foods Sales o empty cell (B4) and select Down. See below for a sample of the output.

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BEx Analyzer

The user can change a query or create new queries. To change a query, click the Change Query icon on the SAP add-in tool bar.

After clicking the Change query icon, select the Change Query (global definition) as shown below. This takes you back to the Query Designer window where you can make changes. After making changes, you need to save the query (diskette icon main menu toolbar) before executing (clicking the green check mark).

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