What is SAP BI?

Introduction to Business
Intelligence Module
Business intelligence (BI)
Business intelligence (BI) is an application used for giving meaning to
raw data that an organization has. The raw data is cleansed, stored and
applied with business logics to be useful for enterprise users to make
better business decisions. This data can be presented in the form of
reports and can be displayed in the form of tables, charts etc. which is
efficient and easier to analyse and make business decisions.

During all business activities, companies create data about customers,

suppliers and internal activities. Based on these data’s, employees of
various departments like HR, Finance, Accounting, Marketing etc.
prepare their work plan.

Business Intelligence spans a varied set of toolset, of which the Data

Ware House consolidates and loads the data from the different Source
Systems, while reporting tools like Query Designer, Web Application
Designer, and Analyzer are majorly used to create reports which display
the data consolidated by the Datawarehouse for analysing purpose.

Business Intelligence is a SAP product which majorly focuses on

providing its customers/organizations with a user friendly and very
useful form of representing data that could be helpful for analyses
purpose and making business decisions.
In summary, Business Intelligence tools transform raw data into reports
which used for decision making and business forecasting.

Why do we need Datawarehouse & BI?

Organizations have different kinds of data such as finance, Human
resource, customer, supplier data etc., which can be stored on different
kinds of storage units such as DBMS, Excel sheets, SAP R/3 systems
etc…Even the company’s internal data is often distributed across many
different systems and is not particularly well formatted.
A Data Warehouse can help to organize the data. It brings together
heterogeneous Data Sources which are mostly and differing in their
details. Using BI Tools one can derive meaningful reports

What makes SAP BI more effective BI tool?

 Single point of access to all information is possible through BI. The
data from various sources can be accessed at the single place(i.e
BI).
 Data collected from various sources are presented in the form of
reports which is efficient for analysis of the data at a high level.
 SAP BI provides easy to use GUI and better formatting
 Some of the key functionality that makes SAP BI better than rest is
its ability to analyze multidimensional data sources in both web
and MS office environments, flexible dashboards, mobility and a
flexible, scalable BI platform.
 SAP BI is known for its awesome query performance, while
requiring little administration
 Mobile BI for end users on the go
 Easy Integration with other platforms
SAP BI/ Data Warehouse Vs. OLTP systems:
OLTP(Online Transaction Processing):

OLTP systems have detailed day to day transaction data which keeps

changing. For example, R/3 or any other database.

OLAP(Online Analytical Processing):

OLAP systems have data for analysis purpose. The input for this system
is from OLTP systems. The data from the OLTP systems is made use to
prepare the data for analysis purpose.

Business Intelligence is an OLAP system.

Overview of SAP BI Architecture

Conceptual Layers of Data Warehousing with BI

Persistent Staging Area

The data extracted from the Source Systems first enters into the
Persistent Staging Area. The data at this layer is the raw data which is in
unchanged form. The data is consolidated and cleansed only in the next
layers.

Staging area is a temporary table that holds the data and connects to
work area or fact tables. In the absence of staging area the data load will
have to go from the OLTP system to the OLAP system directly which
hamper the performance of OLTP system.

Data Warehouse Layer (DWH Layer)

Data from the Persistent Staging Area is loaded into the DataWareHouse
Layer. It has Corporate information repository. Data in this layer is
stored for a longer period.i.e,Entire History data (for example, last 5
years data) is stored here in this layer.No aggregation of reporting-
relevant data;the granularity of the data stored in this layer is at line-
item (detailed) level.

Operational Data Store Layer

Data is loaded to an Operational Data Store Layer very frequently on a

continuous basis from the source systems. Hence the data in this layer
contains all the changes to the data that was done throughout the day.
Data from Operational data store later can be loaded to the
Datawarehouse layer at particular timings (say end of the day) to
update the date in Datawarehouse Layer. This Operational Data Store
Layer can also be used in case of any emergencies when the data in the
datawarehouse and datamart layers are lost. In such situations data can
be loaded from the Operational Data Store layer to the Data Warehouse
Layer and Data Mart Layer. ODS is not based on star schema model but
they are in a flat files format.

Architected Data Mart Layer

Architected Data Mart Layer also known as Infocube. It is designed to

store summarized and aggregated Data for long period of time. Data
from the Data Warehouse Layer is loaded into the Architected Data Mart
Layer. It is used in Analysis and reporting. The data is at a high level
relevant for creating reports displaying these data. Data manipulation
with business logic is done at this layer. It consists of a central fact
table(Key Figures) surrounded by several dimension tables, it is used to
support BW queries

Key Components of SAP BI System:

Business Intelligence is a core component of SAP NetWeaver. The figure
below shows the key components of a BI system.
  Data warehousing  – This is mainly to Extract, Transform and Load
data from Source systems.
 BI platform – The BI platform layer contains BI services to support
complex analysis tasks and functions. It contains the Analytic
Engine, which processes the data requested through BEx analysis
navigations. Its interface allows entry and manipulation of data as
part of BI Integrated Planning. It also has special analysis tools
such as the Analysis Process Designer (APD) and the Data Mining
which provide analysts at your company with the tools to merge,
mine, pre-process, store, and analyse data.
 BI Suite – These tools helps in creating reports for analysis
purpose.It contains the Business Explorer (BEx) which provides
flexible reporting and analysis tools.

The following areas in the Business Explorer can be used for Data
Analyses:

1. BEx Analyser (Microsoft Excel-based analysis tool with pivot-table-

like features)
2. BEx Web Analyser (Web-based analysis tool with pivot-table-like
features)
 3. BEx Web Application Designer (customer-defined and SAP BI
Content provided)
4. BEx Report Designer (highly formatted Web output)

SAP BI/BW Architecture:

BI has three tier architecture:

Database Server: Where data is physically stored.( ODS, PSA, Infocube

and metadata repository).

Application Server: The application server is based on the OLAP

processor. It is used to retrieve data stored in the database server.

Presentation Server: Manages reporting and data access.

1. Data is extracted from the Source Systems.

2. Data is staged at the Persistent Storage Area(PSA). This holds
Source like data.
3. Data is cleansed, loaded and stored in Data Store Object.
4. Data is viewed at multiple dimensions in the Infocube.
5. Data is available by the OLAP processor to the Business Explorer to
display data as per Analysis requirements of the Business.
6. Data can be made available to SAP/Non-SAP, Data Marts by the
Open Hub Service.( InfoSpoke).
SAP Infoobject, Infoarea, Infoobject
Catalog Tutorial

What is an InfoObjects?
Info-Objects take information from the source, then adjust and arrange
the information into either a standard or customized report. Infoobjects
are the smallest available information modules/fields in BI. It is needed
in info-providers like InfoCubes, DSOs, MultiProviders, Queries
etc… These Info-Providers are made up of Info-objects.
Info-object gives all information about the business. For instance
company ‘XYZ’ is interested in finding out how much of “product x”
shipped on “date x” to “factory x”. By defining Info-object for specific
function like “0MATERIAL”, “0DATE” and “0LOCATION” all the
information can be retrieved.

InfoObjects can be classified into the following types:

 Characteristics (for example, customers)

 Key figures (for example, revenue)
 Units (for example, currency, amount unit)
 Time characteristics (for example, fiscal year)
 Technical characteristics (for example, request number)

Characteristics:
Characteristics are Business reference objects used to analyze key
figures.

Examples of characteristics InfoObjects:

  Cost center (0COSTCENTER)
 Material(0MATERIAL)

Key figures:
Key figures provide the values to be evaluated. They are numeric
information that is reported in the query.

Examples of key figure InfoObjects:

 Quantity (0QUANTITY)
 Amount (0AMOUNT)

Units:
Units are paired with Key figure values . They provide assign a unit of
measurement to a Key Figure Value. For instance 10 Kg where 10 is the
KeyFigure and Kg is the unit

Other Examples of Unit Characteristics:

 Currency unit (0CURRENCY) (Holds the currency type of the

transaction e.g. $, EUR, USD…)

 Value unit (0UNIT) (or) unit of measure (Hold the unit of measure
e.g. Gallon, Inch, cm, PC)

Time Characteristic:
Time characteristics give time reference to data.

Examples of Time Characteristics:

 Calendar day (0CALDAY)

 Calendar year (0CALYEAR)
 Fiscal year (0FISCYEAR)

Technical Characteristics:
Technical characteristics are SAP standard objects having their own
administrative purposes.
Examples of Technical Characteristics:

 Info Object 0REQUID – While loading data to various data targets,

SAP allocates unique numbers which are stored in this Info object
 Info Object 0CHNGID – When aggregate change run is done, a
unique number is allocated and stored in this info object.

Before creating an Info Object, Info Area and Info Object Catalog
need to be created.

What is an InfoArea?
 In Business Warehouse, Info-areas are the branches and nodes of a
tree structure.
 It is used to organize info cubes and info objects.
 Each Info-object is assigned to an Info Area.
 Info Area can be thought of as a folder used to hold related files
together.

What is Infoobject Catalog?

 Every info object need to be created within an Info Object Catalog.
 It helps in organization and is no way related to reporting
functions.
 Example: There are tons of InfoObjects for SAP Financials which
can be clubbed into a InfoObject Catalog. This makes
management and maintainence easy.
 An Info Object can be assigned to multiple Catalog

There are 2 types of Info Object Catalog.

1. Characteristic Info Object Catalog

2. Key figure Info Object Catalog

Here is the RoadMAP to create an Infoobject