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alexis_fouquier
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
4,209
In this blog post, I describe the steps I followed to create a real-time reporting solution combining Geo spatial and Financial data. The data is federated from SAP S/4HANA®  Flexible Real Estate Management (RE-FX), SAP Geographical Enablement Framework (SAP Geo Framework) and consumed using Esri ArcGIS (Pro or Insights).

This was an iterative process between the Data provisioning and Data consumption.

Components



  • SAP S/4HANA Flexible Real Estate Management

  • SAP Geographical Enablement Framework

  • Esri ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Insights



Simplified Architecture


The S/4HANA and SAP Geo Framework data are stored in the S4O dedicated tenant. I set up SAP HANA as an ArcGIS Enterprise Geodatabase in a different tenant - named GFO - following Tom Turchioe’s Blog: The new ArcGIS Enterprise Geodatabase for HANA – First Impressions and Luciana Uhlemann Blog: SAP HANA and ArcGIS Pro – Enable Enterprise Geodatabase

I performed the data provisioning and data modelling using SAP HANA Studio.

Data Provisioning


The core data used by this project are the real estate objects from RE-FX:

  • Business Entity (table VIBDBE)

  • Land (table VIBDPR)

  • Building (table VIBDBU)

  • Rental Object (table VIBDRO)


In this implementation of RE-FX, a Business entity is a Project and multiple Land, Building and Rental units are associated with it.

Smart Data Access


In this system, cross tenant access was disabled for security reason, so we used instead Smart Data Access (SDA). I defined a remote source from the SAP HANA GFO tenant pointing the SAP HANA S4O tenant. Then I defined virtual tables pointing either to RE-FX data (SAPABAP1 schema) or the SAP Geo Framework data (SAP_GEF schema). The technical user for the connection only needed read access to the SAPABAP1 and SAP_GEF schemas, therefore preventing any data modification.

 


Smart Data Access


 
CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE SDE.VT_S4O_VIBDBE AT S4O.S4O.SAPABAP1.VIBDBE;
CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE SDE.VT_S4O_VIBDBU AT S4O.S4O.SAPABAP1.VIBDBU;

CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE SDE.VT_SAP_GEF_GEOMETRIE AT REFX.S4O.SAP_GEF."z_gef_geom_28992.polygon";

The shapes of interest were stored in the table z_gef_geom_28992.polygon but there are other tables with different shapes.

Data Modelling


Once the virtual tables were created, I started the modelling.

Keeping in mind that the final objective was to expose jointly the combine financial and Geospatial data to be consumed by ArcGIS, I created multiple calculation views to break down the development cycle in manageable steps.

I started by creating the generic calculation views, then a set of views specific to a business object (Project, Land, Building, Rental unit). This set is composed of the following

  • A foundation view for an object type

  • A view for retrieving the shape from SAP Geo Framework

  • A view to retrieve detailed information about the business object

  • A consolidation view that exposes all the previous


Here, I describe the steps for the business object Building, the process is the same for the other objects (Land, Rental Object,…)

So, for the object Building, we have the following Calculation views:

  • STATUS: Read the Building Status. I developed it to replicate (partially) - in SAP HANA - the ABAP Function Module STATUS_READ. It enables you to read the status of the business object. This a generic calculation view (ie not specific to the Business object Building).

  • BUILDING_FOUNDATION: Provide the Building associated to a project

  • BUILDING_DETAILS: Retrieve the detailed information about a building

  • BUILDING_GEF: Retrieve the building shapes from SAP Geo Framework

  • BUILDING: Associated the Building shape and the detailed information. This is the view that will be consumed by ESRI.


Object Status


The Object Status in S/4HANA is retrieved by using the function module STATUS_READ. I partially replicated the logic in SAP HANA.

To build the STATUS calculation view:

  1. Start from the JEST table (Individual Object Status) filtering on the Active Object (INACT not X)

  2. Join on OBJNR to Table JSTO to get the Status Profile (STSMA).

  3. Join on STSMA, STAT to Table TJ30 STSMA, ESTAT to get all Status Changes.

  4. Join on STSMA & ESTAT values from TJ30 to table TJ30T to get Status Description.

  5. Read TXT04 (Status Code) and TXT30 (Status Description


 


Calculated View to read the Object Status


 

Object Foundation


The BUILDING_FOUNDATION calculated view return all the building associated to a project. We used the VIBDBE Business Entity table (here a project) and the VIBDBU table (Building)

  1. Start from the VIBDBE table

  2. Join on MANDT, BUKRS (Company Code) and SWENR (Business Entity) to Table VIBDBU

  3. Read INTRENO (Internal Key of Real Estate Object), OBJNR (Object Number), XGETXT (Building Description), and TXT30 (Status Description)


 


Building Foundation


 

Building Details


The BUILDING_DETAILS calculated view provides the Status of the Building and their addresses. We used the STATUS calculations view previously defined as well as the BUILDING FOUNDATION. VIBDBE Business Entity table (here a project) and the VIBDBU table (Building)

  1. Start from the VZOBBJECT table (Object Data - Virtual Object)

  2. Join MANDT, ADROBJNR (Internal Key for Address Objects) to MANDT, INTRENO from the BUILDING_FOUNDATION view, and read ADRNR (address Number)

  3. Join MANDT, ADRNR to CLIENT, ADDRNUMBER from the table ADRC (Addresses) and read the HOUSE_NUM1 (House Number), POST_CODE1 (Post Code), CITY1 (City) and

  4. Join MANDT, OBJNR from the view STATUS and retrieve the Status information


 


Building details



Retrieve the Geometries


The Building and Land have geometries associated. This information is stored under the SAP Geo Framework Schema (SAP_GEF). I created a Calculated view with the following Logic to read the shape of a Building.

Each shape stored in the SAP_GEF_GEOMETRIE table has an Id (GEF_OBJECTID) and an Object number (GEF_OBJKEY). The table VICAINTRENO provides the assignment between the Internal Key of Real Estate Object (INTRENO) (like Building, Land,…) and the Object number (OBJNR).

 

  1. Start from the Building table (VIBDBU) or in our case the Calculated view BUILDING_FOUNDATION built on top of it

  2. Join on INTRENO to Table VICAINTRENO to get the Object Number (OBJNR).

  3. Join OBJNR to GEF_OBJKEY from the table SAP_GEF_GEOMETRIE filtered on the active geometries (Year of GEF_DATE_TO is 9999).

  4. Read GEF_SHAPE i.e. the shape of the building



Retrieving Building Geometries


 

Currently, ArcGIS doesn’t support BIGINT so we used a calculated column to convert the OBJECTID (Key for the shapes) into an INTEGER, so we could consume the information in ArcGIS.

 


Calculated Column


 

One consolidated view


The final step is to join the information from the BUILD_DETAILS and BUILDING_GEF views, and expose the needed data.

 

 


Consolidated view


 

Consumption in ArcGIS


Synonyms


All Calculation view created in Hana Studio contain by default “/” in their name. Currently the consumption of object with “/” in their name from Esri generates an error. As a workaround I defined a synonym for the Calculated views in SAP HANA Studio and then a View in ArcGIS.

 
CREATE SYNONYM  S_BUILDING_GEO FOR "_SYS_BIC"."sde/BUILDING_GEO"

 

ArcGIS Feature Class


From ArcGIS Pro using the “Create Database View” functionality I created a view in SAP HANA on top of the previously defined synonym. You could define the view directly in SAP HANA but doing this way save you from having to list manually all the columns and use a * instead.

 


Create Database View



Enterprise Geodatabase Feature Class


This view is defined as a feature class and is used for reporting.

 

Reporting


Base on the previous view, we were able to represent the asset and to display financial information as well.


Reporting example


It is also possible to extend the use of these views by processing the spatial data in SAP HANA. For example, we combined multiple shapes into one using the SAP Hana native aggregation methods.
CREATE VIEW "SDE"."VW_PROJECT_BOUNDERIES" ( "PROJECT",
"SHAPE" ) AS select
SWENR AS PROJECT,
ST_ConvexHullAggr(GEF_SHAPE) AS SHAPE
from "SDE"."S_BUILDING_GEO"
where BUKRS = '1000'
Group by SWENR
ORDER BY SWENR WITH READ ONLY


Multiple Shapes using SAP HANA aggregation



Summary


As the ArcGIS data are the same platform as S/4HANA, it was easy to expose the asset on a map in ArcGIS Enterprise alongside financial information. This is a very agile solution as there is no data duplication (or ETL tool involved), only federation giving real-time access to the latest information.

I hope you enjoyed this blog post and looking forward to your comments.

 
8 Comments
tom_turchioe
Participant
Alexis,

This is a very illuminating blog.  It shows the advantages that are gained - not only in terms of work saved, but in terms of simplified or eliminated business processes - that are only possible when ArcGIS geodatabases are in HANA or HANA Cloud.

Any time data is replicated, the replicated data is stale.  ETL has to be maintained and tested - tested every time a change is made before it can go into production - which can take weeks.  Replicated data can also lead to errors which can be hard to detect because the data is stale.  By retrieving the data from RE-FX on the fly, the results in ArcGIS Insights can be looked at side-by-side with transactional data and reports.  Errors can be quickly found.  Steps are eliminated.

Because GEF sits on top of SYNC4GEF, the relationship between the datasets is automatically maintained.  Your blog shows all of this is done with out-of-the-box HANA functionality.  There's no custom development to deliver this kind of value.  When you add the other 3 advantages of ArcGIS on HANA, the combination of HANA + ArcGIS Enterprise + S/4HANA simplifies business processes, offers reduced time to Insight and enables GIS professionals to do higher value work instead of writing, maintaining and testing ETL.
leondaar
Explorer
0 Kudos
Hello Tom,

Please, Could you tell me what do you mean with "SYNC4GEF"? Beacause i was searching info about this but i didnt find nothing. It is a component in SAP (Badi, Bussines funciton, etc) or is a 3rd party tool from Esri?

Many Thanks
stephan_albrecht
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
Hi Guillermo,

Sync4GEF is an Engineered Service provided by SAP Consulting. It is a Framework which supports a bi-directional synchronization of data between Esri and SAP S/4HANA.

Sync4GEF is an Add-On in S/4HANA and does not require any middleware, hardware nor additional software licenses.

Thanks

 

Stephan Albrecht

Chief Consultant
SAP Services
leondaar
Explorer
0 Kudos
Hi Stephan,

Thank you very much for your answer.

Best Regards,
Damian Leonetti
Saritha_K
Contributor
0 Kudos
Hi Alexis,

We have a similar requirement but our S/4 Database would be on Hana runtime edition license and we can provision smaller hana enterprise edition db for Arcgis. Would this still work similar or you see any problems here? please advise.

Regards,

SK
alexis_fouquier
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
0 Kudos
Hi Saritha,

 

You could provision a Hana enterprise for ArcGis. Since this blog was written, we are now accessing the data using CDS views (instead of accessing directly to the Table). This simplify a lot the implementation.

 

Regards

 

Alexis
Saritha_K
Contributor
0 Kudos
Thank you Alexis for your quick revert. I agree moving to Hana enterprise would have been a simpler way out but due to some licensing constraints we have to keep the S/4 on Hana runtime. Hence we thought of this workaround.

From arcgis point of view, its just the arcgis insights services or arcgis pro services that would be needed I assume

Regards

Saritha

 

 
tom_turchioe
Participant
Saritha,

What you plan to do will work and that's what our other customers are doing: stand up the ArcGIS geodatabase on HANA EE (on-prem) or HANA Cloud.  In the work done at PNB, Alexis used Insights (although he sneaks a Pro screenshot for the Create View gptool 🙂 )

Tom