Using a Namespace for the Development of BW Objects 

Use

To avoid naming conflicts occurring with a customer’s local objects, customer content has to be developed in its own namespace. You can either use your own namespace or an agreed upon subarea of the standard customer namespace (A* to Z*):

1. Scenario: Your own namespace for the development of customer content

We recommend using your own namespace reserved for customer content development in the form of /ABC/. To designate a BW object that was developed in such a namespace, enter the technical name of the object together with the namespace.

For example, an InfoObject can have the technical name /ABC/MATERIAL.

The use of a special namespace for the development of customer content is optional for customers.

Partners must develop their partner content in their own development namespace.

2. Scenario: Standard namespace for the development of customer content

As a customer, you can also develop customer content in the standard customer namespace (A* to Z*). In this case, however, you have to make sure that the content objects and the recipient’s private objects are in different subareas of your namespace.

You can divide up your standard customer namespace so that, for example, A* to D* is reserved for customer content development, and E* to Z* is reserved for the development of private objects.

In the source system, note: For the application component hierarchy, the standard customer namespace Y* and Z* is available.

In the following, we will explain further how you can set up and use your own namespace for the development of customer content in the case of the recommended first scenario.

Prerequisites

To apply for namespaces, you need an ABAP development license (ABAP/r Development Workbench License).

You can find more information about the process of applying for a namespace in SAP Note 84282.

Procedure

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       1.      Apply for a development namespace on the Service Marketplace at Internet address service.sap.com/namespaces.

       2.      In addition the development namespace, also apply for a “generation namespace”. You apply for this with the same process as applying for a development namespace. 

The name of the generation namespace must follow these rules:

¡        The name may have a maximum of seven digits including the slash ("/").

¡        The name must start with the letter “B” and the rest may only consist of numbers.

/B2345/ or /B24/

¡        The descriptive text starts with “BWGEN”. Then the namespace is specified to which this one is assigned.

„BWGEN generation namespace for /ABC/ company ABC …”.

The shorter the name of the generation namespace, the more significant characters you have available for the technical name of the BW object.

       3.      Release the development namespace and the generation namespace in BW and the OLTP system. (The same namespaces are to be used in both systems).

This is done by entering the namespace and the repair license into the namespace table for your development system. From Transport Organizer Tools (transaction SE03), choose Administration ®  Display/Change Namespaces. The screen View Display “Namespaces in the Repository”: Overview opens. (In the OLTP system, the path specifications can deviate depending on the release.

In contrast to the development namespace, you enter the generation namespace only with the role C (customer). Thus you only need the repair license.

You may only create generated objects in the generation namespace. If you create your own, non-generated objects in the generation namespace, there is the danger that these could be overwritten by generated objects for the BW system. Thus you should always use the development namespace for non-generated objects.

       4.      Make the namespaces in your BW system known.

In the Maintaining BW Namespaces transaction (transaction RSNSPACE), you can edit the BW namespaces. Because this transaction uses a transport connection, your entries are listed on an order and can be transported to a target system with it. The system writes partner and customer namespaces such as /ABC/ to the table RSPSPACE. The table RSNSPACE contains the BW standard namespaces such as /BI0/ and /BIC/.

In the OLTP system, set the namespaces to changeable. This setting is made in Transport Organizer Tools (transaction SE03) Administration  ® Setting System Change Option. The System Change Option screen opens, in which you can set the namespaces to Changeable. (In the OLTP system, the path specifications can deviate depending on the release.

       5.      If you use a namespace, you should create a package with the same namespace prefix (such as /ABC/PACK).

Result

You have created a development namespace and a generation namespace.

Note that the length of names for BW objects that are located in such namespaces is restricted. The following table includes some examples. Prerequisite: We are assuming that your development namespace has N characters and your generation namespace has G characters. (Note that the slashes count as well, for example the namespace /ABC/ has five characters).

Maximum length of names for BW objects

BW Object Type	Maximum Length Acc. to Namespace
InfoObject	The maximum length corresponds to the smaller of the numbers: 14 characters - G or 14 characters N. With authorization-relevant InfoObjects /ABC/NAME, the field name for the authorization fields may not have more than 10 characters. If the field name of the characteristic /B24/<NAME> is longer, you have to explicitly define a shorter authorization field name in InfoObject maintenance.
InfoCube	14 characters - G
ODS Object	13 characters - G
InfoSource	25 characters - G
InfoSet	14 characters - G
DataSource	30 characters - G

Further note that existing BW objects can not be automatically copied into the namespace. To put an existing object into the namespace, you have to create a new object in the namespace as a copy of the desired object.

 

See also:

 

Features for Transporting Roles