Many partner friends and customers consult about an efficient and correct way to perform BPC 10 transports recently. As in BPC 10 the transport mechanism has been significantly fine-tuned compared with previous versions with a lot of behavioral changes, I drafted this transport guide to help partners or customers to facilitate the BPC transport process. The version I am demonstrating is BPC 10 SP9 Patch 1. The CLM part is not covered. Any comments or suggestions are very welcome.
Prerequisites Check:
The following prerequisite checks are highly recommended before a transport, especially for the first transport:
- Ensure “Automatic Recording of Changes” has been set in the source system otherwise the transport request generation dialog wont pop up when you package your selected transport objects. You need to perform the following:
- Transaction SCC4 in source system, select the client where BW is installed and click Display.
- Set the option Changes and Transports for Client-Specific Objects to Automatic Recording of Changes.
- After the change is applied and saved, reopen RSA1 and attempt to collect the objects and create the transport request again.
- The BPC version and patch level in source system and in target system need to be equal.
- Make sure the SAP Business Planning and Consolidation installation guide is followed to configure the transport RFC destination. Check transaction RSTPRFC that the right user has been assigned to handle the post-processing of the import. You can refer note 1817817 if you want to know more details about BPC RFC connections.
- Run report UJA_DATA_CHECKER and enter Environment name to check if the environments in source and in target (if exist) are consistent to avoid unnecessary transport issues.
- It is NOT a best practice to assign task profiles or data access profiles directly to users from a design aspect. Furthermore, if you do so, you may receive errors during the transport with error message “Member XXX does not exist in dimension YYY.
Transport Process:
Source System
- Make sure the source Environments to be transported have been set to offline.
- Enter RSA1 --> Transport Connection --> Object Types --> More Types --> Environment --> Double click "Selection".
3. Choose the Environment then click “Transfer Selection”.
4. Choose the Objects that you are about to transport
There are some remarks here:
- For best practice, master data is seldom transported from DEV to either QAS or PRD, however until now, it is suggested to transport the Time Dimension Member for the first transport. From experience, static dimension members (not imported from BW Info Provider or external systems) can be transported to shorten the preparation phase however users must be aware of the possible inconsistencies it may bring. You can uncheck the Dimension Member if you do not want to transport master data.
- BPF templates will be collected here only if it is validated deployed.
- Configurations only need to be transported if you really intend to do so.
- Environment Level Work Status will NOT be transported. See section “Reminder”.
4. After you collect all objects you wish to transport, click the Transport Objects button. In the pop up dialog you generate or enter a transport request. Then click OK.
6. Enter SE09 and release your transport request.
Target System
7. Set the target Environments offline
8. Enter STMS to refresh the transport request and import
9. Verify the transport log to ensure the transport is performed successfully by entering SLG1 and input UJ in OBJECT and UJT in SUBOBJECT field. In External ID field you can enter the Environment name if you like.
Performance Consideration:
If you encounter performance issues during transport, you can refer to the following notes to help you out.
- Increase performance and avoid TIME_OUT: SAP Note 1795221 - Transport failed with TIME_OUT dump - BPC NW 10.0
- SAP Note 1826141 - Transport cost too much memory and time when exporting
Shortcuts:
If you are looking for some utilities to help optimize your operations you can refer to the below information.
- Setting Offline: Using SE16 --> Table UJ0_PARAM_APP --> Enter Environment ID and Field AVAILABLEFLAG, then change the fetched Value to 0 to make the environment offline.
2. You can set the target global parameter to ensure automatic environment offline. However, if is not recommended be utilized in Production system.
3. If your transport process failed somehow, you can perform the report UJT_AFTER_FAIL_PROCESS to make a quick clean in target before follow up re-transport. This report can also be used to help re-activate ENVIRONMENTSHELL (by unchecking the Failed Only option).
Reminders:
- Work Status Settings in Environment level will not be imported according to current design. For details see 1817597 - Environment-level work status are not transported in BPC NW 10. This may lead to some inconsistency state. If you have the issue of setting work status in target system after transport, you need to apply workaround as elaborated in 1823062 - EPM-BPC-NW - Invalid Work Status information after transport.
- If you would like to ensure the model technical names consistent within transport landscape, you have to specify the model level parameters ENABLE_FIXED_CUBENAME in all systems for all models you would like to keep technical names consistent.
3. It is encouraged to include neither BPC generated objects such as Multiproviders / VirtualCubes nor customized BW objects in the BPC transport request. If you do need to get customized objects transported, they should be transported after BPC transports have been done and the models are stabilized on the target system (due to the possible change of the dimension attribute after transport).
SAP China Consulting
BAS Team Manager
Ning