BW 7.30: Dataflow Copy Tool: How to use Dataflow Copy tool to speed up the development activity

[Former Member]

Hello SCN,

As you know creating a data flow takes considerable development time. This affects TCO aspects of the project. To reduce the total cost of development activity, BW 7.3 release supports the copying of existing BW 7.x data flows, i.e. data sources, data targets, transformations and also process chains.

In this blog, I would like to explain how to use Dataflow Copy tool (wizard based tool). You will also understand how to copy an existing BW 7.x data flow and create data flows. This will help you to decrease the overall time of your development.

I present you with sample navigation, using this wizard based tool.

Navigation:

1) Go to DWWB (RSA1)

2) Select “Copy Data flow” from the context menu of the "Info provider" or "Process Chain".

In my case, I have selected an info provider (Ex: Sales Overview).

3) This action leads to the below screen, where I have to select whether to copy the upward, downward or both the data flows of the cube.

In this case, I choose "Downward".

4) After continuing the above step, we will have an option to collect the dependent objects like IP’s and DTP’s as below.

I choose “YES” to continue. This will help in creating required IP's and DTP's automatically.

5) This will lead to Dataflow copy wizard. Where I will configure below steps:

A) No. Of Copies

B) Source Systems

C) Data Sources

D) Info Provider

E) Transformations

F) Directly dependent Process

G) Indirectly dependent process

Now let’s discuss more about features present in the wizard.

We can see that wizard is divided into 2 parts. Left side tells you the step which is currently in progress as well as the errors “RED” traffic light (if any) in the steps. If you find all these steps with “GREEN” traffic light, then you can precede with copying the data flow else the wizard will not allow you to do the same.

We will now discuss in detail about what each step in this wizard is responsible for:

A) No. Of Copies: 

We can determine the number of copies to be created in this step. We can create a maximum of “99999999999” (We may not use these many copies in the real environment).We need to mention the replacement for placeholders for technical & description names as you can see below.

In my case, I will create only 1 copy. If it is "one" copy, we need not worry about the replacement holders as shown above.

 Now I press continue to proceed to the next step in the wizard i.e. Source Systems.

B) Source Systems:

We cannot create a new source system or change the existing source system for the copy flow. But we can create a data source from the existing source system to the new source system i.e. we can create an identical data source for a flat file system based on SAP source system (or we can use an existing flat file system). 

 

We have an additional feature in the wizard. We can check“Display Technical Names” to display technical names of the objects as shown below.

If we assign a wrong object or no object, you can find “RED” status as shown below.

Now I will assign a flat file source system (ex: YFF_SALES) to our new flow as shown below.

Now the status will turn to “GREEN” and we can precede to the next step i.e. “Data Sources”.

C) Data Sources:

In this Step, I will use the option “Create with Template”. This means we create a new data source with help of new template. 

Now I proceed to the next step i.e. Info Provider.

D) Info providers:

We can use the existing info providers or copy to new info providers but we cannot use overwrite here. If in case this option is available, then if we have changed anything to the original info provider to accommodate the changes this would not reflect in “OVERWRITE” and hence may lead to the data loss. Hence “MERGE” option is used.

E) Transformations:

  Before copying transformations, we have to check if source and target fields are present in the Target object. If we don’t have those fields present in the Target object that particular rule cannot be copied (as the field in Target is missing).

Now I proceed to the next Step i.e. Directly Dependent Process.

 

F) Directly Dependent Process:

In this step, the processes are displayed that depend on an object of the data flow. For example, using the “change run” if we include any Master data in the flow.

 In this case we have IP’s and DTP’s to be created (As I selected this option in the previous steps).

Now I proceed to next step i.e. Indirectly Dependent Process.

G) Indirectly Dependent Process:

In this step, the processes are displayed that depend on a direct data-flow-dependent process. For example, I have to use Error DTP (as I am using a DTP here).

With these I havecompleted all the important steps and I can proceed with copying the data flow.

Now system will ask you if I want to continue with data flow copy in the dialog or background.

I choose "Dialog" here, and the logs are displayed as below. 

If we want to check the logs once again, we can use transaction RSCOPY.

We can also see our newly created objects.

6) Hence the copying is completed. Hope you understood the benefits of this new tool.