Changing Properties for Fields of Type "Characteristic"

You can change various properties for fields of type "characteristic" by changing the properties directly or by specifying a field association with an InfoObject or an Open ODS view, which can pass on various properties to the field.

1. You are in the Output tab. All fields in the CompositeProvider are displayed here. When you select a field, you can define or change various properties in the detail area on the right the screen.
2. Choose Move to Group in the field context menu to move fields between groups. Specify the new group in which you want to move the field. Choose Browse to open the dialog for editing groups. You can also move fields in the tree display by drag and drop.
3. By choosing Association, you can associate one of the following for a CompositeProvider field: an InfoObject of type Characteristic, Time or Unit, or an Open ODS view. We recommend that you use the association with InfoObjects if your BW system contains relevant InfoObjects. This means you can also use the master data of the InfoObject.
   The default properties and description of the associated InfoObject are applied. You can change these properties by choosing Toggle Default Value/Manual Entry and changing the value.
4. You can chose which name is displayed for this field in the query:
   • Usage of System-Wide Unique Name: A generated name is displayed in the query.
   • Direct Usage of Associated Object by Name: The info object name is displayed in the query.
   More information: Names for CompositeProvider Fields in the Query
5. If you have specified an association and you have set the Direct Usage of Associated Object by Name flag, you can activate the navigation attributes of the InfoObject or the Open ODS view. More information: Activating Navigation Attributes
6. If you have specified an association, you can set a constant from the InfoObject master data. The existing conversion routines are applied for the constant.
   If there is an assignment to this field for a provider, the constant functions as a filter. For providers without a link, the field is set to constant.
7. If there are no assignments or associations for a field, you can change the data type of the field.
8. Authorization Relevance is used to define whether or not the field is authorization relevant. If the field does not have an association, and Direct Usage of Associated Object by Name is not selected, the field can be used in an authorization object. Here you can decide whether the field is included in authorization checks.
9. For associated InfoObjects: If you set the User confirmed Referential Integrity flag, you have to ensure that only one master data record exists for each characteristic value in the provider. If referential integrity exists, this can improve performance. You can also configure this setting later on.
   Note If you have set the flag for referential integrity, you have to make sure in future that only one master data record exists for each characteristic value in the provider. If you do not do this, you might find that records are missing in the query result, because, with referential integrity, the field values with the data of the associated InfoObject are assigned with an inner join.
10. You can define the following query properties under Reporting Properties:
    • Document Property:

      You can specify whether the document property is inherited from the InfoObject. You can then display any documents defined in the executed query.

    • Display:
      This property specifies whether individual characteristic values in the query are displayed, and how they are displayed:

      • No Display: The characteristic display is hidden. This function is particularly useful with the currency/unit characteristic for example, since the currencies are also displayed in the key figures.
      • Key and Text: The characteristic values are displayed with their technical key and their text.
      • Text and Key: The characteristic values are displayed with their text and their technical key.
      • Text: The characteristic values are displayed with their text.
      • Key: The characteristic values are displayed by means of their technical key.

      Here you can select whether the Short Text, Long Text, or Medium Text should be displayed. You can specify which texts are available when editing the InfoObjects in the data Warehousing Workbench.
    • Selection:

      You can restrict the selection conditions.

    • Query Execution Filter:
      This property specifies how filter values are selected for query execution:

      • Values in master data table:

        The system displays all characteristic values from the master data, independently of transaction data.

      • Only posted values for Navigation:

        The system displays posted values only.

      • Only values in InfoProvider:

        The system displays only values contained in the InfoProvider.

11. If you have selected Direct Usage of Associated Object by Name and have associated an InfoObject, you can activate navigation attributes on a field via the context menu provided that the navigation attributes on the associated InfoProviders have been activated too. Navigation attributes can be activated both at field level and as mass maintenance for each folder or if all fields are selected.
    An exception is made to this in the case of characteristics supplied by an InfoProvider that has a column view. The following InfoProviders have a column view: InfoCubes, DataStore objects (with creation of SID values when activated), semantically partitioned objects, InfoObjects, analytic indexes. In this case, navigation attributes can also be used even if they are not activated on the InfoProvider. An additional join is executed for the navigation attribute tables. This usually has a negative impact on performance. You should therefore always activate the relevant navigation attribute on the InfoProvider if possible.
12. Using the field context menu, you can specify compounding to one more other fields.