The first article in this series provided an overview of BW Workspaces, including the roles and responsibilies as well as some general best practices. The second article in the series covered the detailed steps, including screenshots, for the configuration of BW Workspaces, the security setup and the creation of the BW Workspace itself. This article goes into the detailed steps, including screenshots, for creating the local providers and CompositeProviders.
Uploading a Flat File to the BW Workspace
To upload a *.csv flat file to the BW Workspace:
- Launch the URL for the WebDynpro interface, which will have the following format
- Click on the Local Providers tab and then click the Create button
Figure 16: Local Providers Tab
- On the subsequent screen that appears, accept the default value for the Source field as “File” and click Start
Figure 17: Starting the Web-based Interface to Create Local Provider
- The three-step Create Local Provider Wizard will then appear as shown below.
Figure 18: Create Local Provider Workflow
- The first step in the Wizard is the Choose File step, which requires you to:
- BEFORE clicking Transfer File, use the Browse button to select the file that contains the data
- In the Properties section, specify the row in the file with the Header info and row that is the First Data Row, the Separator (e.g. comma, semi-colon, etc.), etc..
- In the Provider section, specify the technical name of the local provider that will be created as well as the Description.
- The screen will be similar to the screenshot below. Click the Transfer File button
Figure 19: Create Local Provider Workflow - Step 1 (Choose File)
- After clicking Transfer File, the File Path field will be populated, the File Type displayed, and the Display File button will be enabled.
Figure 20: Create Local Provider Workflow - Step 1 (Transfer File)
- Click the Display File button in order to see a preview of the data file, then click Close and Next.
Figure 21: Create Local Provider Workflow - Step 1 (Display File)
- The second step in the Wizard is the Edit Columns step, which allows you to select which columns to include, specify the type for each column, and set the flag for the columns that should be treated as Key Figures:
Figure 22: Create Local Provider Workflow - Step 2 (Initial Screen)
- To specify the data type for the specific column, highlight the row and then select an appropriate option from the drop-down in the Type column. For example, to use an InfoObject as the basis for setting the properties of the column, select “InfoObject” from the drop-down in the Type column.
- For the InfoObject field that appears, select the drop-down to search for the InfoObject, enter the technical name of the InfoObject, then click the Start Search button.
Figure 23: Searching for InfoObject to Use as a Type
- When the results are returned, highlight the row and click OK.
Figure 24: Selecting the InfoObject to Use as a Type
- That can be repeated for as many columns as you like in order to use the properties of existing InfoObjects as a type of template for the columns. Alternatively, you could enter the technical name in the InfoObject field on the Edit Columns screen and then click Check. Moreover, instead of using an existing InfoObject as the basis for the type, you could simply select a specific date type from the drop-down list for the Type column. If you place a checkmark in the Key Figure column, then the choices in the drop-down will have data types that can store numerical values.
Figure 25: Create Local Provider Workflow - Step 2 (With Selections Made)
- After defining the types for the columns, click the Upload Data button in order to upload the data from the flat file to new local provider and to move to the confirmation step.
- The third step in the Wizard is the Confirmation step, which allows you to confirm the creation of the local provider and to display the data as it is stored in the newly created local provider.
Figure 26: Create Local Provider Workflow - Step 3 (Confirmation)
Figure 27: Create Local Provider Workflow - Step 3 (Display Data Stored in Provider)
Creation of CompositeProvider via the Web-based Interface
- (Optional) If the user has access to more than one BW Workspace, then it will be necessary to switch to the correct BW Workspace before proceeding to create a CompositeProvider within a specific BW workspace. The steps were already outlined in the next section.
- Launch the URL to start the My Workspace interface (as shown in Figure 28). The URL will be of the format: http://BW_Server:ICM_Port_Number/sap/bc/webdynpro/sap/rsl_ui_my_workspace?sap-language=EN.
Figure 28: MyWorkspace Interface
- From the first tab, click Create and then click Start.
NOTE: In this example, the CompositeProvider will be based upon a MultiProvider. Therefore, click Start without specifying any particular query on the initial screen that appears below.
Figure 29: Initial Screen to Create CompositeProvider
- The Create CompositeProvider Wizard will then appear as shown in the next screenshot.
Figure 30: Create CompositeProvider Workflow
- The first step in the Wizard is the Select Provider step, which requires you to:
- Specify the technical name of the CompositeProvider in the Name field. As a best practice, the technical name of the CompositeProvider, which is limited to a maximum of 10 characters, should start with the same name as the Workspace.
NOTE: This will allow for easier administration of analysis authorizations.
- Specify a Description for the CompositeProvider.
- Select the Provider(s) that should be included in the specific CompositeProvider being created.
- Review the screen (see the below screenshot as an example), and then click Next.
Figure 31: Create CompositeProvider Workflow - Step 1
- The second step in the Wizard is the Model CompositeProvider step:
Figure 32: Create CompositeProvider Workflow - Step 2
- Select the ConnectionType (i.e. Union, Inner Join, or Left Outer Join)
- For the first provider, click Details for Links
- On the subsequent screen, place a checkmark in the Dedicated Field column for each field that should be included in the CompositeProvider. As you do so, the Linked icon will appear in the Linked column, and the text <Not Linked> will be cleared from the Field of CompositeProvider.
Figure 33: Create CompositeProvider Workflow - Step 2a
NOTE: The graphical display at the bottom of the screen will automatically update as you are selecting the fields at the top of the screen. Alternatively, you can use the graphical portion of the screen to drag and drop the fields from the Provider displayed on the left to the CompositeProvider representation on the right.
Figure 34: Graphical Display of CompositeProvider During Step 2a
- Click Apply
- The following screenshots show that the CompositeModel can be viewed as a Tabular Overview or as a Graphical View
Figure 35: Tabular View of CompositeProvider
Figure 36: Graphical View of CompositeProvider
NOTE: Depending upon the number of fields involved, it may be easier to double-check the mapping via the Tabular
Overview tab.
- For the second Provider, either click Details for Links and then select the specific fields in the CompositeProvider to which the field should be mapped OR click Generate Proposal if all of the fields in the Provider should be included in the CompositeProvider
- Click Apply
- You can always go back to the mapping for a specific Provider by clicking the Details for Link button
NOTE: If there is a checkmark in the Dedicated Field column, then the data for that field in the CompositeProvider is only coming from that Provider.
- Click Apply or Return to your CompositeProvider
- Click Next
- The third step in the Wizard is the Edit Fields step, which includes:
- You can edit the description of the fields that appear in the CompositeProvider by simply typing over the text in the Description column
Figure 37: Create BW Workspace Workflow - Step 3 (Before)
Figure 38: Create BW Workspace Workflow - Step 3 (After)
- You can see the links for each field
- Click Next
- The fourth step in the Wizard is the Create/Copy Queries
NOTE: IF you choose to create queries via the Wizard, you will NOT be able to modify the query via BEX Query Designer. Furthermore, you will NOT be able to consume queries created via this Wizard by other BO frontend tools (e.g. SBO Dashboards, Design Studio, etc.).
Therefore, it is recommended to simply activate the composite provider and then use BEx Query Designer to create the queries. Please see the next section to learn how to proceed with creating BEx Queries on top of CompositeProviders. The remainder of this section describes how to create a query via the Wizard.
- Select “Standard” from the column Type of Query. The system will automatically generate the technical name of the query with a dollar sign (i.e. $) followed by the technical name of the CompositeProvider. However, you can override that by typing in the column Query.
Figure 39: Create BW Workspace Workflow - Step 4
NOTE: Queries will start with $ plus any prefix that was specified by the Central IT Admin. It is a best practice to use the convention $
plus the first few characters of the CompositeProvider followed by additional characters of your choice. This will facilitate the analysis authorizations, which were discussed in a previous section, to work for any query that the Power User creates using the Wizard.
- To create another query, click the Create button, select the Type of Query, and then change the values in the columns Query and Description.
- Click Next
- The fifth step in the Wizard is to Check and Save
- Use either the Table View tab or the Graphical View tab in order to review the model
- Click the button Display Data to see a preview of the data returned from the CompositeProvider
Figure 40: Data Preview
- Click Save and Activate
Figure 41: Create BW Workspace Workflow - Step 5
- The final step in the Wizard is the Confirmation The confirmation step automatically appears once the CompositeProvider has been activated
Figure 42: Create BW Workspace Workflow - Step 6
Next Article in the Series
To get the step-by-step details, including screenshots, for switching between different BW Workspaces, editing BW Workspaces, notifying users of changes, and queries, see part 3b in the series.
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