BW Workspaces How-to Guide: Part 3b - Busines Power User Perspective

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The first article in this series provided an overview of BW Workspaces, including the roles and responsibilities 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.  The third article in the series described the detailed steps, including screenshots, for creating the local providers and CompositeProviders.  This article in the series describes the detailed steps, including screenshots, for switching between different BW Workspaces, editing BW Workspaces, notifying users of changes, and queries.

Switching Between Different BW Workspaces

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 following procedure are the steps to perform in order to switch between different BW Workspaces:

• Launch the URL, which will be of the following format:
  • http://<<BW_Server:ICM_Port_Number>>/sap/bc/webdynpro/sap/rsl_ui_change_workspace?sap-language=EN
• Select the specific BW Workspace and then click the Save button

Figure 43: Switching Between BW Workspaces

Editing a CompositeProvider via the Web-based Interface

A CompositeProvider can be modified using the steps described in this section.

• Launch the URL to start the MyWorkspace interface.  The URL will be of the format: http://<<BW_Server:ICM_Port_Number>>/sap/bc/webdynpro/sap/rsl_ui_my_workspace?sap-language=EN.
• Highlight the workspace that needs to be modified and then click the button Change
• The Change CompositeProvider screen will then appear, which will show the same workflow that was previously shown in the Section “Creation of
  CompositeProvider via the Web-based Interface”.
• To add another Provider to the CompositeProvider, click on the checkbox that appears next to the Provider.  Click Next.

Figure 44: Workflow to Change a CompositeProvider - Step 1

• For the next step in the Workflow (see the screenshot below), select the desired Connection Type form the drop-down, and then click Detail for Links.

Figure 45: Workflow to Change a CompositeProvider - Step 2

NOTE: The icon in the Information column will give a visual hint about what the resulting data returned from the CompositeProvider will represent.  The Inner Join is the intersection of the data in the specific Provider and the data returned by the CompositeProvider.  The Union is the complete data set of the Provider unioned with the data returned by the CompositeProvider.  The Left Outer Join will return all of the records from the Provider and only the records from the CompositeProvider where the keys match.

• Place a checkmark in the column Dedicated Field ONLY IF the data for that field will come from the specified Provider.  If the data for that field in the
  CompositeProvider will come from more than one Providder, then the Dedicated Field should NOT be checked and the field in the corresponding field to which the data should be mapped in the CompositeProvider should be selected from the drop-down in the column Field of CompositeProvider.  Click Apply.

Figure 46: Workflow to Change a CompositeProvider - Step 2a

NOTE: As the mapping is done in the grid, the graphical representation will automatically be updated

• The Table View tab will show the fields on the left-hand side of the screen that will be included in the CompositeProvider as well as which fields are mapped from the specific providers on the right-hand side of the screen.

Figure 47: CompositeProvider Relationships

• Click the Edit Fields step in the workflow in order to change the description for any field that will appear in the CompositeProvider.

Figure 48: Workflow to Change a CompositeProvider - Step 3

• Click Check and Save in order to activate the changes that were made to the CompositeProvider.

Notifying Users of Changes to the Workspace

The Web-based interface allows the Power User to notify users of the CompositeProvider/query.  The following steps describe how:

• Click the button Inform Users
• Click the button Add User to select the users, including their e-mail addresses
• Select the option to Send with Client Program in order to send the e-mail via the e-mail program on the user’s computer
• Enter the text that should be included in the body of the e-mail.

Figure 49: Notifying Users

• Click OK
• Launch BEx Query Designer and click Open
• Navigate to InfoAreas  and look for the InfoArea @3WORKSPACE_AREA, which is the system default area where the CompositeProviders are stored

Using CompositeProviders with BEx Query Designer

Viewing Queries Created via Workspace Designer

Figure 50: Navigating to CompositeProvider InfoArea via BEx Query Designer

• Double-click the @3WORKSPACE_AREA InfoArea in order to see a list of the CompositeProviders

Figure 51: Navigating CompositeProvider via BEx Query Designer

NOTE: The technical names of the CompositeProviders start with @3 followed by the technical name given to the CompositeProvider at the time it was created.

• Double-click the CompositeProvider in order to see the list of queries that are based upon that CompositeProvider

Figure 52: Navigating to Workspace Query via BEx Query Designer

NOTE: The technical name of the query created within the BW Workspace Wizard workflow starts with $ followed by the technical name specified at the time the query was created.

• Select the query and then click on the button Open.  If the query was created via the Workspace Wizard, then the BEx Query Designer will display error messages instead of the actual query definition (as shown in the screenshot below).

Figure 53: Error Displayed When Opening Workspace Query via BEx Query Designer

NOTE: This is one of the reasons why it is better to use BEx Query Designer to create BEx queries that are based upon CompositeProviders instead of creating queries via the Workspace Designer.

Creating BEx Queries Based Upon CompositeProviders

It is recommended to create BEx queries based upon the CompositeProviders in order to be able to:

• Modify the queries via the BEx Quey Designer
• Use those queries with other SBO frontend products (e.g. SBO Dashboards, Design Studio, etc.)

In order to create BEx Queries based upon a CompositeProvider:

• Launch BEx Query Designer and click the New icon
• Click on InfoAreas and then navigate to the @3WORKSPACE_AREA
• Select the specific CompositeProvider that will be used as the basis for creating the query and click Open

Figure 54: Creating BEx Query Based Upon CompositeProvider

• As with any new BEx query, use drag-n-drop to move the desired characteristics from the dimensions to the Rows and the desired Key Figures to the Columns in the query definition.
• Save the query with an appropriate name (e.g. MBOBJ_SAMPLE01).  Queries created this way can be modified later.

Figure 55: Modifiable BEx Query Based Upon CompositeProvider

• Execute the query to check the results.

Previous Articles in the Series

• BW Workspaces How-to Guide: Part 1 - Introduction
• BW Workspaces How-to Guide: Part 2 - IT Perspective
• BW Workspaces How-to Guide: Part 3a - Business Power User Perspective