After all these years/tears - CDS Query vs BEx Query

[sap_cohort]

Hi, Would like to get some firm definition or thoughts from other developers out there on this CDS Query vs BEx Query tug of war.

Been trying to stick with CDS Query building, but finding too many deficiencies when compared to BEx Query!
My feeling is that SAP would really like us to use the CDS Analytical Query Road.

The only direction I can find is to use CDS Query as an initial effort and then BEx Query for anything where CDS Query cannot provide the needed functionality. This seems to have been the route for quite a few years now so I don't know if SAP is making an effort to level the playing field between the two.

My biggest probs with CDS View the dynamic periods columns like BEx can do.

So I'm considering all out BEx Query effort going forward for my team due to the CDS Query shortcomings.

To justify this I have a couple of questions I'd like to get from the community

1. Are you using both CDS and BEx Query strategy?

2. Is SAP trying to level the functionality gap between CDS and BEx Query? Been sooo long.

3. Will it be a problem going all BEx Query Development down the line somehow?
(Like from a security method or converting from BEx to CDS Query later on)

Thanks for any input!

[Jelena]

Not sure if it's helpful but there is some feedback on your question on Twitter.

I got a bit confused by "CDS queries" and "CDS analytical queries" referred to like they are different things. Did some googling and it appears to be the same concept (cubes/dimensions/special annotation). If this is not correct, might want to clarify. (There is a lot of terminology confusion around CDS, unfortunately.)

Since BEx queries are relevant only to SAP customers who are using BW/BI/BOBJ, this is not a question for broader customer base, I suspect. For the same reason, I'd suggest to add a respective tag (maybe Analytics?), so that you get a response from someone who works with those products. The tag assigned now is for a very specific tool, not for BW in general. I suspect this is the reason there has been no response: ABAPers don't really care and BW folks never saw this question.

[marcfbe · Accepted solution]

BW queries support way more features compared to CDS-based modeling. It's not even a fair comparison. See for example:

https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_BW4HANA/107a6e8a38b74ede94c833ca3b7b6f51/154ae7c8f61343da89c150d48417a...

It's also not "either or". It's "both". Model things as close to the database as possible. This means using CDS views, especially, since many are delivered by SAP.

Next, check if your front-end analytic tool supports the remaining requirements (BOBJ, SAC, 3rd-party).

When you need mature OLAP features (as linked above), then BW queries are the way to go.

Best,
Marc
@marcfbe

PS: See also https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/BI/OT-CDS+Embedded+Reporting+on+ABAP+CDS+views

[sap_cohort · Accepted solution]

Thanks for your input. Greatly appreciated as always!
Just trying to future proof ourselves and head in the right direction.

I have heard the "It's both" as you mentioned for a long time while under the impression that ABAP CDS Query was the direction and that CDS Query was being tooled to eventually be a BW Query equal. I don't have any hard info on this.
"Try to use CDS Query and if that doesn't cover the needed functionality then default to BW Query".
I really dislike the idea of using two tools in this case.

With ABAP CDS Query not having all of the functionality of BW Query and BW Query able to use Transient Provider what benefit at all is there to us developing CDS Query? (CDS Query translates to BW Query anyway)

I ask this question so I can consider and firm up a direction and possibly simplify our teams development path.
Currently, thinking that we should just always default to BW Query to make the path more direct.

Thanks again for any thoughts and opinions. It's all helpful to everyone I'm sure!

[wilbert_sison2]

Hi Kenneth,

A few months back I worked on an S4 Implementation on an existing SAP landscape containing ECC and BW. There are a few reasons why the client could not move away from BW - mostly related to 2 reasons : existing end-user reporting tool deployment and data lineage - some non-SAP systems.

But with the analytical reporting we needed in S4, CDS was the way to go. Those primarily covered finance analytical reporting over 1m-5m records per hit. The frontends were the Analytical Query Tool, Custom Fiori Apps, KPI reporting. There were a few cases, where we needed to deliver reporting to non-S4 users and we had CDS exposed as Transient Providers to BI and then Bex Query from there.

Anyway, CDS is primarily an S4 solution. If your data is primarily residing in S4, it would be the preferred solution. On BI assets - Bex would be the main frontend. And like my client - there would be business cases for that. It would also make sense to have other reporting tools outside of that scope within the Enterprise.

Hope the perspective helped,

regards,

Wilbert 🙂