SAP BI 2025: Information Design Tool Overview

christian_ah-soon · ‎2025 Apr 11

SAP BI 4.0 has been released with a new tool, Information Design Tool, meant to replace Universe Design Tool. Each tool supports its own file format:

UNV universes, created in Universe Design Tool.
UNX universes, created in Information Design Tool.

To avoid forcing the conversion of UNV universes into the UNX universes, both tools have been released and supported in SAP BI 4.x.

In SAP BI 2025, to focus on only one tool and avoid redundancy, Universe Design Tool is no longer released and only Information Design Tool is released and supported. Identically, some Information Design Tool features that have seen only little adoption are no more supported and have been removed from SAP BI 2025:

Multi-source universes, federation layers, and federated tables.
OLAP connections based on MDX.
BI Sets.

Universe conversion is also no longer possible in SAP BI 2025. It means that before upgrading to SAP BI 2025, you must convert all your universes to have only mono-source universes and remove any use of unsupported features.

If you are not familiar with Information Design Tool, this article introduces you to its SAP BI 2025 version and its main differences with Universe Design Tool. It covers the following topics:

Information Design Tool User Interface Framework
Universe Lifecycle in Information Design Tool
Connection
Data Foundation
Business Layer
Linked Universe
Security
SDK
Universe Conversion

Information Design Tool User Interface Framework

Information Design Tool is developed in Java. It proposes a more modern user interface than Universe Design Tool, with many new capabilities offered by this new interface framework.

After you have closed the Welcome page, the Information Design Tool screen is divided into three main panels:

Local Projects: That contains the resources saved locally and organized into local projects.
Repository Resources: That allows you to connect to BI repositories and browse their secured connections and universes.
Editor: That contains the resources (connections, data foundations, business layers…) to edit. You can open and edit several resources at the same time, each resource being displayed in a different tab in this panel.

Information Design Tool Interface

Besides these three panels, you can also access other panels for specific tasks:

The Query Panel: To query and test a universe or a business layer.
The Security Editor: To define and assign data and business security profiles, that are the equivalent of the UNV universe’s row level security.
The Preferences dialog box: To define the tool properties.

Query Panel

Universe Lifecycle in Information Design Tool

In Information Design Tool, universes follow two separate phases:

Authoring where you create and edit the resources that generate the universe:
A connection that contains the different parameters to access the underlying data source: authentication mode, username, password, server name, port… This connection can be relational or OLAP depending on the data source.
A data foundation that contains the relational data source schema (tables, joins, …) the universe will query. The data foundation uses a relational connection. Multidimensional universes do not need data foundation.
A business Layer that contains the list of objects and folders (aka the semantic abstraction) exposed in the reporting tools to create the query.
Consumption, where these resources are published as a UNX universe and can be used by Web Intelligence or Crystal Reports to query the underlying data source. As Crystal Reports for Enterprise is no longer supported in SAP BI 2025, you can query universes in Crystal Reports.

To avoid re-creating and editing the same properties in multiple universes, Information Design Tool proposes resources factorization:

Several data foundations and relational universes can use the same relational connection. In SAP BI 4.x, UNV and UNX universes can already use the same secure connection published in the BI repository.
Several relational business layers can use the same data foundation.
Several multidimensional business layers and multidimensional universes can use the same OLAP connection.

Creating a universe for consumption is done by publishing a business layer. The business layer and its underlying resources (relational connection and data foundation for a relational universe, OLAP connection for a multi-dimensional universe) are gathered to generate the published universe.

The universe can be published locally for Web Intelligence Rich Client or in a BI Repository for enterprise sharing through Web Intelligence and Crystal Reports.

The reverse operation is named universe retrieval:

If the universe has been published locally, it extracts the business layer, the data foundation (if any), and the connection used to create the published universe and save them in a local project.

If the universe is published in a BI repository, then a connection shortcut to the actual secured connection is saved in the local project.

Connection

In SAP BI 2025, Information Design Tool supports two types of connections: relational and OLAP. The following relational connections to SAP BW are no longer supported:

Data Federation data sources, previously supported by UNX universes.
SAP BAPI connections, previously supported by UNV universes.

Relational Connections

Relation connections can be used to access a wide range of databases, both on-premises and on the cloud. They can also be used to access other types of data sources like OData V2, Text, or Excel.

If some databases or data sources are not supported, you can either use the JDBC generic driver or write your own driver using JavaBean.

If the data source requires an authentication, relational connections support different authentication modes:

Fixed username and password: The credentials are fixed and saved in the connection definition.
BusinessObjects credentials mapping: You can select a Data Source Reference, created by the Administrator in the CMC, that defines the secondary credentials used to authenticate.

Single Sign-On: You do not need to enter any credentials since at logon time, they are retrieved from another authentication system (that can be the SAP BI Platform itself). This mode is supported by some databases only.

OLAP Connections

OLAP connections can be used to access multi-dimensional data sources and support multi-dimensional objects: hierarchies, levels, ... However, in SAP BI 2025, all OLAP connections rely on the BICS driver since MDX drivers supported in SAP 4.X are no more supported. The BICS driver has some limitations and does not support:

Query filters on measures.
Calculated members and named sets.
Member selections with the Ancestors, Parents, and Exclude functions.
Hierarchical measures for Oracle Essbase database.

If the data source requires an authentication, the OLAP connection supports the same authentication modes than the relational connection:

Fixed username and password.
BusinessObjects credentials mapping.
Single Sign-On.

Local Vs Secured Connections

In Information Design Tool, you can create a connection locally on your machine (a local connection) or directly in the BI repository (a secured connection). You can also publish a local connection into the BI repository to create a secured connection.

A universe published in a BI repository must use a secured connection in this BI repository.

To identify a secure connection in your local project, you must create a connection shortcut, that simply contains the path to this secured connection. This shortcut can be created:

By publishing a local connection into a BI repository.
Or by selecting a secured connection and creating a shortcut from it.

Once the connection shortcut is generated, you can link:

Your data foundation to this shortcut if the connection is relational.
Your multi-dimensional business layer to this shortcut if the connection is OLAP.

Then, you can publish your business layer. The generated universe will query the data source through the secured connection identified by the connection shortcut.

Data Foundation

The data foundation contains the schema of the database/data source to query.

Database Schema

The data foundation can be created from a local connection or a connection shortcut (in this case, you must log to the BI repository containing the referenced, secured connection). Like UNV universes, a data foundation contains:

Tables, derived tables, alias tables, columns.
Joins, auto-joins.
Contexts, loops.

Data Foundation

The data foundation introduces new object types that are more powerful and easier to manage than their equivalent in UNV universes:

Parameters (aka prompts): Saved in the data foundation besides the @PROMPT functions.
List of Values: Defined by a static list or a SQL query.
Calculated columns: Used to add a new column on a table by using a formula to compute its values.

All objects created in the data foundation can be used in the business layers based on this data foundation.

Information Design Tool proposes some features to ease large data foundation edition:

Family: You can group tables and assign them a color to identify them more easily.
Views: You can create views containing a sub-set of the tables and joins to focus on specific parts of the schema. When you select a view, this view displays only the tables and the joins between these tables. Views can be useful if your schema contains too many tables and joins. To avoid loading all tables at once, you can also use a Summary View that presents all views statistics and navigate to a specific view from this summary.
Data preview: You can visualize the values of a table or a column and display them in a graph to get its distribution.

Neutral Joins

When Information Design Tool has been released, you could define a join in a context as neutral, besides excluded and included. This neutral join simplifies contexts management, since for each context:

Only the joins in the loop must be defined as included or excluded.
Other joins that have no impact in the context can be defined as neutral.

But these neutral joins increase large universes’ query time. Indeed, when the SQL query is generated, Web Intelligence must define if each neutral join must be considered as included or excluded. To work-around this performance issue, in SAP BI 4.3 SP4:

In the data foundation, an option has been introduced to allow only excluded and included joins.
By default, converting a UNV universe creates a data foundation with only excluded or included joins.

Allow Neutral Joins Checkbox

Business Layer

The business layer contains the objects used to query the data source through the Query Panel.

Business Objects

A business layer can be relational or multi-dimensional.

A relational business layer is based on a data foundation. In this business layer, you define: You create in a relational business layer the objects that query the data foundation’s tables (dimensions, details and measures). You can also define predefined filters that can be used when creating the query or always applied in the query. These objects and filters can be organized in folders and sub-folders.

Objects (dimensions, details and measures) that query the data foundation’s tables.
Predefined filters, that can be used in the query when document designers create queries.
Folders and sub-folders to organize these objects.

You can reuse the data foundation’s parameters and list of values and define in this business layer but also define parameters and list of values that offer more choices than in the UNV universes:

The relational business layer can reuse the data foundation’s parameters and list of values. But it can also contain its own:

The business layer’s parameters are like the ones you can create in a data foundation, but you can also create dependencies between them.
The business layer’s lists of values propose more options than the data foundation’s ones:
- They can be defined by a static list, a SQL query or a query based on the business layer’s objects.
- They can be flat or hierarchical.
- They can return one or multiple columns...

Business Layer

A multidimensional business layer is based on an OLAP connection. It exposes multi-dimensional objects that are created automatically from the underlying multidimensional system once you have selected to expose them: analysis dimensions, hierarchies, levels, members, …

A multidimensional business layer is published as a multidimensional universe. Querying such universe proposes several features that takes advantage of the multidimensional metadata:

Level selection in hierarchies.
Member selectors.

Queries and Views

You can also create views in the business layers where you can store objects and folders.

In the Query Panel, you can select the view to display and focus only on the objects and folders it contains. If the view contains meaningful objects, these views can help you to focus on a specific area when you create your queries.

You can create queries and save them in the business layer. These queries can be used later in the Information Design Tool to test the business layer.

Linked Universe

Linked universe was an extremely useful feature proposed by UNV universes. It has been introduced in Information Design Tool in SAP BI 4.2. But because of the lifecycle difference between UNV and UNX universes, its implementation is different:

A derived universe can be linked to one or several core universes.
The core and derived universes must be based on the same relational connection.
The core and derived universes must be single-source, relational and published in the BI repository.
Managing the link between the universes is done by editing the derived universe’s data foundation and business layer.

Derived Data Foundation and Business Layer

To create a derived universe, follow these steps:

Open a session to your BI repository.
Select a published universe.
Right-click this universe and select the Create Linked Universe command from the contextual menu.
Validate the connection.
Name the derived data foundation and business layer.

This command creates a derived data foundation, and a business layer based on this universe:

The tables and joins contained in the core universe data foundation are displayed and available in the derived data foundation. The inherited tables are identified with the name of their core universe. Aliases tables, contexts and views defined in the core data foundation are not inherited.
The objects and folders contained in the core universe business layer are displayed and available in the derived business layer. The inherited objects and folders are identified with the name of their core universe. Business layer views are not inherited.

Derived Data Foundation

You can edit and add content in the derived data foundation and the business layer, but you cannot change the inherited content, except for the object state (Active, Hidden, Deprecated).

When you publish a universe based on a linked data foundation and/or a linked business layer, the universe is dynamically linked to the core universe. If the core universe gets published again with some modified objects, then you will benefit from these changes when you query the derived universe.

Managing Core Universes

When you edit a business layer, in the Core Business Layers tab, you can:

Add a new core universe to this business layer and its underlying data foundation.
Synchronize the content of a core universe in this business layer and its underlying data foundation.
Include the objects from a core universe into this business layer and its underlying data foundation.
Remove the references to a core universe and its objects, from this business layer and its underlying data foundation.

As for any changes in the business layer, you need to republish the universes based on this business layer to take them into consideration.

Derived Business Layer

Security

Defining security at universes level is a good practice to secure data access. UNX universes support the same types of security as UNV universes.

Security Rights

Like any objects in the BI repository, you can secure a published UNX universe with security rights. UNX universe supports the General security rights and some Specific security rights. These Specific security rights are:

Assign security profiles: Allows a designer to assign or un-assign data or business security profiles or business security profiles to a user or a group.
Create and edit queries based on this universe: Allows a user to create or edit queries based on this universe.
Data access: Allows a user to query data through this universe. This right secures data only and does not secure the objects (metadata) seen in the Query Panel.
Edit security profiles: Allows a designer to create, edit, or delete data or business security profiles.
Retrieve universe: Allows a designer to retrieve a universe and edit its data foundation (if any) and business layer.

Besides the General security rights, Information Design Tool supports also Specific security rights to define what actions designers are allowed:

Administer security profiles: Allows a designer to edit and assign data and business security profiles.
Create, modify or delete connections: Allows a designer to create, edit or delete secured connections stored in the BI repository, in the Connections folder.
Publish universes: Allows a designer to publish a universe in the BI repository, in the Universes folder.
Retrieve universes: Allows a designer to retrieve a universe from the BI repository and to edit locally its data foundation and business layer.
Save for all users: When a published universe (UNX) is retrieved from the BI repository, the corresponding data foundation (if any) and business layer are saved as secured resources. This right allows a designer to save them as unsecured resources.
Share projects: Allows a designer to use shared projects.

Object Access Level

UNX universes supports object access levels that behave like for UNV universes:

In the business layer, you can define an access level for each object.
In the CMC, you can associate an object access level for users and groups to any UNX universe based on this business layer and published in the BI repository. These users cannot see the objects above their associated access level.

Object Access Level

For example, a user whose access level for a universe is Restricted:

Can see its objects whose access level is Public, Controlled, and Restricted.
Cannot see its objects whose access level is Confidential, or Private.

Security Profiles

UNV universe row level restrictions are known in UNX universe as data security profile or business security profile.

Data security profiles secure concepts defined in the data foundation. They propose the following security type:

Connections: To define an alternate connection.
Controls: To override some parameters defined.
SQL: To override parameters used to generate the SQL query.
Rows: To associate a WHERE clause to the generated query when a specific table is used.
Tables: To define a replacement table instead of another table defined in the data foundation.

Business security profiles secure objects defined in the business layer, except the Connection business security profile. They propose the following security type:

Connection: To define an alternate OLAP connection. Used only for multidimensional business layers.
Create Query: To grant or deny business layer views, folders, or objects in the Query Panel.
Display Data: To grant or deny objects to retrieve data from the data source.
Filters: To filter data returned by the query. As opposed to Rows data security profiles, this filter is always applied to the query.

The Create Query and Display Data security profiles allows you to secure independently two different use-cases:

When an object can be used by a document designer when creating or editing a query.
When an object is used to retrieve dataset from the underlying data source, at refresh or view time.

These security profiles are defined and assigned to users and groups in the Security Editor panel.

Several security profiles can be defined for the same universe and assigned to different groups containing a user. You can define how the effective security applied to the user is aggregated through the data and business security profile aggregation options.

Security Editor

These security profiles apply at refresh time when the user refreshes the document.

If a Web Intelligence document has the property Apply security filtering on open enabled, and if this document queries a UNX universe, then the business security profiles defined on this universe apply to users at view time, without having to refresh the document.

In Information Design Tool, in the Repository Resources panel, you can create several predefined sessions with different users to different BI Platform repositories. When you are connected to a BI Platform server, you can query a UNX universe published on this repository using the security of the logged user.

SDK

The Universe Designer COM SDK Object Model is no longer supported and released in SAP BI 2025.

To manage connections (create, edit) and UNX universe (edit, publish, retrieve, secure), you can use the Semantic Layer Java SDK.

To create queries and run them against UNX universe, you can use the Web Intelligence and Semantic Layer REST Web Services:

The Semantic Layer REST Web Services to query a UNX universe published in a BI repository.
The Web Intelligence REST Web Services to query this universe through a Web Intelligence document.

Universe Conversion

This universe conversion can be the opportunity to review your universes. Over the years, some universes may have become huge. Information Design Tool does not limit the number of tables in the data foundation or objects in the business layer. But it is recommended to keep a reasonable size to keep acceptable performance time. Creating a single universe to represent a full database schema with thousands of tables that are then turned as thousands of objects affects performance, both when editing its data foundation or business layer, but also when querying these universes in Web Intelligence or Crystal Reports.

Conversion Workflow

In SAP BI 4.x, you can use Information Design Tool or the Semantic Layer Java SDK to convert UNV universe to UNX universe. This is officially no longer possible in SAP BI 2025. The recommendation is to convert your universe using an SAP BI 4.3 SP4 version of Information Design Tool. In this version, the default conversion creates only included and excluded joins.

In SAP BI 4.x, there are different workflows to convert UNV universes in Information Design Tool.

In the File > Convert .Unv Universe menu, select:
- From a Repository: To convert UNV universes published in a BI repository. If you are not yet connected to a BI repository, you need to log into one before browsing and selecting the universes to convert.
- From a local Folder: To convert UNV universes saved locally on the file folder.
In the Repository Resources panel, select a UNV universe and in its contextual menu, select Convert.

The converted universe is generated next to the source UNV universe.

Unsupported Universes

Following a repository upgrade or a BIAR file promotion, your SAP BI 2025 repository can contain UNV universes. As these universes are no more supported, you cannot:

See and convert them in Information Design Tool.
Create documents or queries with these universes in Web Intelligence or Crystal Reports.
Refresh queries based on these universes.

However, you can still:

See these universes in the CMC.
Change the data source of queries based on these universes.

Identically, if your SAP BI 2025 repository contains UNX multi-source universes or universes based on BI sets, you can only see them in the CMC and change the data source in Web Intelligence.

All these conversions must be done before migrating to SAP BI 2025.

If you have a UNV universes that cannot be converted in UNX universes, like the ones based on SAP BAPI connection, you must:

Create an OLAP connection to the SAP BW system.
Create a multidimensional universe on this OLAP connection.
In Web Intelligence, change the data source of queries based on the original UNV universes to the new multidimensional UNX universe.

Another option in Web Intelligence is to change the data source to a direct query to the OLAP connection.

Connection

Connections based on BAPI are not supported in Information Design Tool. UNV universes created on these connections cannot be converted since they flatten the hierarchies and provide some flexibility that is not supported in business layer.

Other relational connections used by UNV universes and saved in BI repository do not need to be converted since they are already supported by UNX universes. If you have Personal connections created in Universe Design Tool, you need to re-create them in Information Design Tool to use them in a local project.

Data Foundation / Business Layer

The conversion of a UNV universe generates the corresponding data foundation and business layer. As most of its content (tables, objects…) is identically supported into data foundations and business layers, the conversion is simple and should not encounter any problem.

The tables, derived tables, alias tables, joins, contexts… with their properties are re-created in the generated data foundation.
- Starting SAP BI 4.3 SP4, all joins in a context are by default converted as included and excluded like in UNV universes.
- Before SAP BI 4.3 SP4, all joins in a context are converted as neutral if they do not take part of the context.
The folders, objects, prompts, … are re-created along with their properties in the generated business layer.

Security

UNV universe passwords are not converted since they are not supported in Information Design Tool.

When converting a UNV universe published in a BI repository, its security is also converted.

During conversion, the security rights applied to the source UNV universe are also applied to the generated UNX universe:

The General security rights are identically created and assigned.
The Specific rights are converted as described in the following table:

UNV Specific Rights	UNX Specific Rights
Create and edit queries based on this universe	Create and edit queries based on this universe
Edit access restrictions	Edit security profiles Assign security profiles
Data Access	Data Access
Unlock universe	N/A
New list of values	N/A
Print universe	N/A
Show table or object values	N/A
N/A	Retrieve universe

Object access levels are converted by:

Setting the same objects access level to the objects in the converted business layer.
Assigning the same access level to the users for the generated universe.

During conversion, universe row restrictions are converted to their corresponding data and business security profiles and are assigned to the same users and groups.

UNV Specific Rights	Security Profile
Connections	Data security profile > Connections
Controls	Data security profile > Controls
SQL	Data security profile > SQL
Objects	Business security profile > Created Query Business security profile > Display Data
Rows	Data security profile > Rows
Tables	Data security profile > Tables

Summary

The following table summarizes UNV universe's conversion.

Universe Design Tool Features SAP BI 4.3	Information Design Tool Features SAP BI 2025	Conversion with Universe Design Tool SAP BI 4.3
UNV universe	UNX universe	Yes, converted as a published universe
Relational connection	Supported	N/A Relational connections are common to UNV and UNX.
Relational connection, based on BAPI	Not supported	Not converted The UNV universes created on these connections must be re-created by using a relational or OLAP connection to the SAP BW system.
Connection authentication modes: Specified user / password BusinessObjects mapping Single Sign-On	Supported	N/A Relational connections are common to UNV and UNX.
PRM customization	Supported	N/A Relational connections are common to UNV and UNX.
Data Federator source	Not supported	N/A
Database schema	Supported in data foundation	Yes, converted as a data foundation
Tables	Supported	Yes
Alias tables	Supported	Yes
Derived tables	Supported	Yes
Joins	Supported	Yes
Self-joins	Supported	Yes
Contexts	Supported	Yes, new conversion method in SAP BI 4.3 SP4
Universe semantic	Supported in business layer	Yes, converted as a business layer
Classes and sub-classes	Supported as folders and sub-folders	Yes, converted as folders and sub-folders
Dimensions	Supported	Yes
Measures	Supported	Yes
Details	Supported as attributes	Yes, converted as attributes
Conditions	Supported as filters	Yes, converted as filters
Object access level	Supported	Yes
@Aggregate_Aware	Supported	Yes
@DeriveTable	Supported	Yes
@Prompt	Supported	Yes You can select to convert @Prompt expressions as Parameters objects.
@Select	Supported	Yes
@Script	Not supported	Not converted
@Variable	Supported	Yes
@Where	Supported	Yes
Control query limits	Supported	Yes
SQL restrictions	Supported	Yes
List of values	Supported	Yes
Custom strategies	Not supported	Not converted
Multilingual universe	Supported	Yes The translations are saved in the generated data foundation and business layer.
Linked universe	Supported	Yes You can select to generate linked universes or copy core universes into the generated universes.
"OLAP" universe, based on BAPI connection	Supported as multidimensional universe	Not converted OLAP universes must be re-created.
Universe based on a stored procedure	Supported	Yes
Universe based on a Data Federator source	Not supported	Not converted
Universe based on JavaBean	Supported	Supported
Universe password	Not supported	Not converted
Universe security rights	Supported with slight differences for UNX universes	Yes
Access restrictions	Supported through data and business security profiles	Yes
Universe object access Level	Supported	Yes
Universe scheduled auto saved	Not supported	Not converted
Applications written with the Universe Designer COM SDK	Supported with the Semantic Layer Java SDK	Not converted Applications must be rewritten with the Semantic Layer Java SDK.