BW4HANA Modeling Scenario Step by Step

The purpose of this document is to provide details on how to do modeling in BW/4HANA with steps. The reader would get the look and feel of the new eclipse based modeling in BW/4HANA and how to create a data model flow in BW/4HANA.

BW/4HANA modeling is eclipsed based and happens within the HANA Studio. The BW GUI still offers a representation of classical administrative workbench without the key modeling capability.

All the modeling of data flows, objects, data models happens within the Eclipsed based SAP HANA Studio.

Objects Overview

SAP BW has been evolving continuously from SAP BW 3x to now BW/4HANA.

With the introduction of HANA DB, the SAP BW versions supporting it are from 7.3 -> 7.4 -> 7.5 before BW/4HANA came in.

These versions introduced modeling objects like Composite providers, Transient providers, Advanced DSO, Open ODS view and so on.

These versions would still have the possibility to consume the old classical BW objects as standalone or being converted to HANA optimized objects.

With BW/4HANA, we can no longer consume the old classical BW objects.

Note that BW 7.5 on HANA with SP4 also gives the opportunity to use eclipse based modeling. However, with BW/HANA we have a more stable platform, more scalability and tighter integration and use of HANA optimized objects. SAP BW/4HANA will receive much of the innovation being developed moving forward.

SAP BW/4HANA is built on top of SAP HANA and provides high-performance capabilities. Aggregates are not required, few indexes are needed, data loads and execution of queries is fast. This performance improvement is achieved by moving the complex BW operations and calculations to the HANA database.

Some might think why do we need BW4/HANA and achieve what is needed in S4HANA itself.

The advantage of SAP BW is not limited only to the performance of an OLAP system. Most SAP BW systems include complex business transformations, consolidation of SAP systems, non-SAP systems etc. SAP BW includes the consolidation of data from multiple systems which eventually provided more agility and governance in the IT landscape.

BW/4HANA Objects	Classical BW objects
Composite Provider	Multi-provider
	Info set
Advanced DSO	Info Cube
	DSO’s
	PSA
Info Object	Info Object
Open ODS View	Virtual Provider
	Transient Provider

Logging into B4/4HANA

Pre- Requisite: Once the SAP HANA Studio with BW/4HANA plugins is installed.

Note – There could be more than one ways to access or create an object or an application. I will try to show what I see as a most feasible option.

When you click on HANA Studio, you get the initial screen layout.

Click on the Workbench on the top right of the screen. You will be directed to the HANA Modeler perspective(screen). I will not be covering about HANA therefore, I will jump to BW/4HANA details.

Click on the below-highlighted icon to change the perspective which in this case will be BW modeling.

The initial screen will look like below

The first step is to add a BW project which is nothing but connecting to your BW/4HANA system.

You can see the list of SAP systems. Select the BW/4HANA system.

Once you provide the required details and finish you will be logged into modeling space

BW Repository contains the Info Areas which in turns contains the modeling objects, data models etc. like in the older versions of BW.

Data sources allow you to connect to source systems, for example, S4(ECC system) and replicate the data sources.

Create a Data Model in BW/4HANA

Now I will focus on creating a data model in BW/4HANA eclipse modeling using the new objects available.

I will try to keep this simple and not dive into every detailed aspect of each object which I will try to cover in other documents on each subject.

Let’s take an example of Sales header data and use this to create the data model.

There is an option to create one object at a time and as well to take a flexible approach to create a data flow which is simpler.

Goto the Unassigned node for example and right click and go to create Info Area

Give the technical details

Under created info area right click and go to create Data flow object

Enter the technical details

The middle section is the modeling space, and on the right, you can see the different modeling objects to consume to design.

First, drag and drop the Datasource

Double click on the dragged item and give the source system name and next

Click next and type the data source string you want to search and next

Enter the technical details and Datasource type and finish

In overview tab of data source

In Extraction tab

In Fields Tab. Here you have the option to change the description, data properties and so on.

Click Activate to activate the data source

Now drag and drop the Datastore Object (advanced). Let us create a staging layer with write optimized DSO.

Double click on the dragged object and enter the technical details below. You can either create a standalone DSO and add info objects to it or you can just make a copy of underlying data source or other object provided below to copy the structure of data source. In this case, we copy the template from the data source.

Provide the data source name

In the general tab, double-click on the write optimized DSO to make this as write optimized Advanced DSO. As you also see there is a check External HANA View, with this the system automatically creates a HANA view. This view can be later used in other native HANA modeling.

In the details tab, you can see the list of fields copied over from the data source. You can change the description, data properties if needed.

In the Settings tab, you have advanced options like Partition, Indexing etc.

Activate the DSO

Simply drag and drop the link to connect the data source to the DSO

Create Transformation by right click on DSO and follow the path. The system itself prompts you with the transformation details

Check the details and continue or you can even copy the rules from existing transformation

The General tab provides you the details. You can write a start, end, and expert routine like older versions here.

You can drag and drop to do the mappings. If the source and target have the same fields the mappings will be done automatically.

The rule details include as you see there is a new type called Lookup. This is similar to read master data in previous versions. Once done activate the transformation.

Similarly, create a DTP by right click on DSO and create DTP.

The system prompts you with the path details and continue.

Check the details and continue

The General tab provides technical details, package size, request status and other options like older versions

In the extraction tab, you provide the semantics for grouping. Here you can provide filter options.

In the update Tab, you provide the type of request handling to happen. Here you can create error DTP for error handling

The runtime properties tab

We have the possibility to use this Advanced DSO for further reporting purposes directly if needed or you can continue to model further by including the Advanced DSO as standard or Cube or any other planning object setting, or even include info source, open hub

For this document, we will continue to create an Advanced DSO standard and an Advanced DSO of type cube. I will not go to each detail tab for this as most of it should be similar.

Drag and drop the advanced DSO and link it to the write optimized DSO.

Click on standard datastore object and you can see the settings being set.

In details tab, we have options to add an info object from the system, add another field to be used in the data model, manage keys to identify the fields which need to be keys for standard DSO, and other details like data property changes and so on like other versions.

Create Transformation and DTP like done earlier and activate the objects.

Next, create an Advanced DSO of type Info cube by clicking on the cube type and follow steps like above to create the object.

Have created another Advanced DSO of type standard just to show the use of Composite provider.

Composite provider does the job of a Multiprovider/Info set.

Drag and drop the Composite provider in the data model layout

Double click and provide the technical details and continue

You have an option to Join objects or Union. Add the objects by clicking Add

The general tab gives you options to check if in future this composite provider would be needed in other data modeling needs and runtime and profile properties which can be adjusted based on the need for performance and optimization accordingly

Drag and drop the fields from each object from the source to target. You can change the rule assignment to a constant if needed.

In the output tab, you can see the list of objects selected. By selecting on each object there is an option to associate the field with the info object in the system. There is an option to maintain the reporting properties. Rest are known technical details which can be maintained based on need.

Activate the composite provider.

The data model can be found under the Info area you created. You can find all the objects created under the respective folder. The entire data model can be found under Data Flow Object. Double click on it.