Pennsylvania State System

of Higher Education

SAP BW Overview
 Agenda

• Reporting Comparison
• BW Overview
• BW Landscape & Architecture
• BW Reporting Tools
• Business Content
• BW Website
• Online Resources
• Discussions/ Q&A
 Reporting Comparison

• Line Item Analysis • Relational & Multidimensional Analysis

• Delivered Reports • Delivered Reports (aka Business Content)

• Basic Reporting or Predefined (requires • Ad hoc or Predefined (can be designed

ABAP programmers) by users)

• Consumes Resources from • Significantly Faster Processing

Transaction Processing

• Real-time Analysis • Current (according to update schedule)

& Historical Analysis

• Function Specific • Cross Functional

 BW Overview

• The Business Information Warehouse (BW) is

SAP’s architectural solution for data
warehousing.
– Seamless integration with R/3
– Built-in functionality that substantially reduces DW design,
development and maintenance
• BW is a separate system from the R/3 transaction
processing system
– BW data structures are optimized for reporting data
efficiently and quickly (analytical processing).
– R/3 data structures are optimized for recording data
efficiently and quickly (transaction processing).
 State System BW Landscape

BW Dev BW QA BW PRD BW TRN BW SB

DB1 QB1 PB1 TB1 SB1

Data Data Data Data Data

SAP R/3 SAP R/3 SAP R/3 SAP R/3 SAP R/3
DV1 QA2 PRD TRN SF1
DR1 QR1 PR1 TR1 SR1
DC1 QC1 PC1 TC1
 Basic BW Architecture

BEx
SAP R/3

ODS InfoCube

Non-SAP
Data Sources
Data Detail Business Content
(Flat file, XML Web
or DBConnect) Based
SAP-BW BEx

Data Sources Business

Explorer Tools
 BW Reporting Tools
Business Explorer (BEx) Query Designer

1. MS-Excel-
Based Analyzer
(Web or GUI)

2. Formatted
Reporting

3. Web
Application
Designer
Business Explorer (BEx) Analyzer
• Queries and solution workbooks embedded in MS
Excel

• Excel functionality can be utilized (calculations,

charts, VBA programming, etc.)

• Queries are refreshed at each run; workbooks provide

pre-calculated queries

• Incorporates BW Security and, therefore, eliminates

the need for an additional layer of security at the
reporting level

• Seamless integration with BEx Analyzer for the Web

GUI Based or……

SAP Menu Bar Add-in

Web-Based
What is “Business Content?”

• Advantages of using Business Content

– Pre-Configured SAP-delivered objects allow
rapid development (DataSources, Transfer
Structures, ODSs, InfoCubes, Queries, etc.)
– Based on Best Practices

• A solution to build upon

– Provides a good baseline for enhancements of
functionality and data models.
http://www.sytecpa.org/BW/index.asp
 Online Resources
• SAP Online Documentation - help.sap.com
• Service Marketplace - service.sap.com
– OSS Notes
– Installation and upgrade info
• SAP Developers Network - sdn.sap.com
– Online Forums
– How Tos
• SAP Fans – www.sapfans.com
QUESTIONS
Thank You