Best practice to extract BW data into SAC

[orlando_ledezma]

Hi everyone,

We are just starting our SAC Project and I am trying to figure out what will be the best way to extract data (pros/cons) from BW. We are using Data Import, since we are in BW on HANA 7.5 SP15.

My questions are related to what will be the best way or best practice to bring data from BW:

a) Query

b) Composite Infoprovider

c) Advance DSO

We want to be able to use incremental loads, by month if possible.

My second question is related to Master Data attributes, what will be better:

1) to load master data separate to add the attributes during data modeling to my transactional data

2) to bring the value of the attributes directly from the transactional data since they are available there.

Any feedback is appreciate it.

Best regards,

Orlando

[DebjitSingha]

orlando.ledezma it is much appreciated by the community if you clicked "accept" on the answer which helped you the most. For more information please see this tutorial: Ask and Answer Questions on SAP Community

[DebjitSingha · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Here are my thoughts.

As you already setup acquired connection, let me share some details bout live connection. As your NW is lower than the required SP level (BW 7.52 or higher), you need to setup CORS for live connection. You can find setup steps details (both SAC and BW side) below:

Enable CORS on SAP NetWeaver releases lower than 7.52

Now that both connections are in place for your disposal. Choosing Live vs Acquired data, depends upon your requirement. Say you have highly sensitive data and your compliance do not allow them to go out side of secure company network, then you can pick live connection. As SAC only stores metadata information and data never leaves company network. Data flows from on-prem source system to user browser (in same network) based on metadata imported from SAC. Another scenario is when you want to avoid data replication and you are convinced that running query out of BW will have minimum impact on the SAC story. Beside data wrangling requirement is not there.
Consider the limitations of live connection as well (details below). Live data can not be used in planning scenarios.

Additional documents to consider are:
SAP Analytics Cloud Support Matrix for Live Connectivity to SAP NetWeaver BW and SAP BW/4HANA

Specific Considerations for SAP BW Live Data Connections

Live Data Connections to SAP BW and SAP BW/4HANA

Considering infoprovider/ query also depends upon your requirement, say you want to avoid building the business logic already implemented in Queries, then Query is the obvious choice. In rest of the scenarios consider the limitation by infoproviders from matrix link shared above.
Coming from BW background may find some of the basic features missing from SAC for now. Like "Last Update" information from infoprovider. This info is available readily whether you use Web based reporting tool or AO. This is not available for now in SAC.

Incremental loads are based on date fields only. You can not consider months, year, Fiscal period etc. So if your scenario provide files like "Entry Date" / "Creation Date" then you are in luck. Or you need to add a custom date field in Cube and use that as delta pointer for SAC data import and also confirming the last refresh date in BW Infoprovider.
"Init without data" option is not available as well. So you need to consider batch by batch processing of historical data set first (as full load) and then use filter (Creation date GE 11/11/2020) criteria in jobs to consider going fwd data based on delta.

Remodeling on loaded data model in SAC is challenging, so do some DD before going live with set of fields in model.

I find it easier to setup master data load separately and keep them independent from transaction data. It help with development scenarios where you may not have transaction (say for one company code) but you are suppose to design a story around it. Not to mention reusability of the global dimensions help with development efforts.
Beside power user appreciates the fact that master data (including attributes/ properties) across systems are in sync.

Hope this help!

Viewers/ readers - If you find above information helpful, feel free to up-vote (arrows on left side).

-Debjit

[MKreitlein]

Hello Orlando,

I always would prefer to use BW Queries to upload data into SAC.

In queries you are flexible to even create additional restricted or calculated key figures, plus you can create a customer exit variable which always selects the interval you like to load - you just need to ensure that no data is added in the DSO after the loaded interval.

You can create public dimensions for the infoobjects with texts and attributes.

Then you can as well create a BW query on these and connect them to the public Dimension and directly upload the texts and attributes as well.

Pls be aware that public dimensions can have only their own properties (attributes), it is not (yet, don't know if planned?!) have other public dimensions as properties....

So if you have a "Country" as attribute in Plant and Sales Org both public dimensions, then you have to add a property for the Country key and text to both and load it with the respective query.

You have to consider that you will need the Cloud Connector plus Cloud Agent for the BW Import.

Hope this helps?!

Btw. you are only 1 SP away from good BW Live reporting... most already works with BW 7.50 SP16: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2715030

Regards, Martin

[former_member6443]

Hi Orlando,

Also you need to consider is security IMHO with Import you will need to redefine or mirror the security you have in BW.

This can be challenging but can be done with API's which are well documented.

Best of luck

Afshin

[orlando_ledezma]

Hi Martin,

Thanks so much for your answer. Your explanation makes sense.

We are planning to go to the next SP on Q1 2021, by then our first phase of SAC will be completed (Sales Forecasting) and we will start to migrate our current BOBJ reports and applications to SAC.

We are planning to be using Live Connection by Q2 2021.

Regards,

Orlando

[orlando_ledezma]

Thanks so much, Debjit,

For our first phase we will not be using any live connection but we will be focusing on Import. The way we have built the BW Data Model allows us to use the ADSO since all the calculations are done in there, the query is just used to display the data.

Your answers are very valuable and well documented. I appreciate the time you took to answer my question.

The availability matric in your link seems to be only for Query usage. I could not find one like this when using an ADSO or Composite Provider. Is there one?

Thanks again!

[DebjitSingha]

Glad that is helped. Info provider related detials are also listed in help.sap.