Viewing Object Data

Prerequisites

To view the data contained in Data Builder objects, you must have a scoped role that grants you access to a space with the following privileges:

Data Warehouse General (-R------) - To access SAP Datasphere.
Space Files (-R------) - To read objects in your spaces.
Data Warehouse Data Builder (-R------) - To open Data Builder objects.
Data Warehouse Consumption- To view data in the Data Viewer panel. Two levels of access are available:
- Data Warehouse Consumption (-R------) - To view only data output by views with the Expose for Consumption switch enabled.
  
  The DW Viewer role template, for example, grants this privilege.
- Data Warehouse Consumption (----E---) - To view data from any object or diagram node (where this is supported).
  
  The DW Modeler role template, for example, grants this privilege.

For more information, see Privileges and Permissions and Standard Roles Delivered with SAP Datasphere.

Open the Data Viewer

You can view data in the table, graphical view, SQL view, E/R model, analytic model, and transformation flow editors. The analytic model has an additional analytic data viewer (see Preview Data in an Analytic Model). The data flow editor provides a limited data preview (see Preview Data in Data Flows).

To open the Data Viewer panel
- In the main toolbar, or in a diagram symbol menu, click  (Data Viewer), or
- In the Source Browser, click More Show Data Preview.
If the object contains one or more input parameters, the Input Parameters dialog opens. You can accept the default value, if one is provided, or enter a value for each input parameter. If a value help is available, click  (Value Help) to select from a list of available values, and then click OK.

The values are applied to the data and are displayed on a strip above the table. You can edit the values at any time by clicking the strip to re-open the dialog.
The data is displayed, and the panel header shows the number of rows that are available.
A maximum of 1,000 rows can be shown. If the records you want to see are not shown, then apply filters to find them.
Note
- If a column contains Personal Data or Sensitive Personal Data from a data product, then its header displays the appropriate tag (see Modeling with Personal Data).
- When viewing data in a graphical view, the panel will update as you select different nodes in the diagram, so that it is also showing data from the currently selected diagram node.
- When viewing data in a persisted view, the data is read from the view's persistence table, unless the view has a status of Changes to Deploy, in which case the view is run and the results displayed. Note also that changes and redeployment can impact the data persistence. For more information, see Persist Data in a Graphical or SQL View and Process Source Changes in a Graphical View.
- If the Data Viewer is unable to load data in under three minutes, it will time out and display an error on the Errors tab. If you experience timeouts or slow performance and some or all of the data you want to view is not replicated to SAP Datasphere, consider replicating it (see Replicate Remote Table Data).
- If a column has a HANA Numeric data type its data cannot be shown. Consider, changing the data type to one supported by SAP Datasphere (see Column Data Types).
- If a column has Binary, Large Binary, ST_Point, and ST_Geometry set as data type, the data viewer is unavailable and records are shown as Cannot be shown. If no data can be found, the data viewer shows it as NULL.

The following tools are available in the panel toolbar:

Tool	Description
 (Refresh)	Refresh the data displayed in the panel.
 (Preview SQL)	[graphical views] Preview the SQL generated for the selected node. Use the Copy button to copy the SQL code for pasting into the SQL view editor or elsewhere.
 (Export Support Information)	Download a file containing technical information to send to SAP support.
 (Preview as User)	[views] Open the Preview as User dialog to select another user to preview the data with their permissions and see which records will be visible to them. Select a space user from the list or enter any other user identifier (see View Data as a Different User).
 (Columns Settings)	Open the Settings dialog (see Choose Columns to Display).
 (Close)	Close the panel.

Sort Data

You can sort the data in the following ways:

Click a column header and then click  (Sort Ascending) or  (Sort Descending).
Click  (Columns Settings) to open the View Settings dialog, and then click the Sort tab. Select the columns to sort by, whether to sort each one by ascending or descending order, and click OK to update the viewer.

Filter Data

To filter the data:

Click a column header and then  (Filter) to open the Define Filter dialog, or click  (Columns Settings) and then click the Filter tab.
Choose the appropriate section for your filter:
- Include - Enter one or more filter conditions that must be met in order to display a row.
- Exclude - Enter one or more filter conditions that must be met in order to hide a row.
Select a column to filter on, an operator, and a value.
For example, to filter the data to see only employees born between 1960 and 1969:
- Select the Birth Date column.
- Select the between operator.
- Select Jan 1, 1960 in the From field and Dec 31, 1969 in the To field.
[optional] Click  (Add Filter) to add further conditions in either the Include or Exclude section.
Note
- The filtering options available depend on the data type of the column you filter on.
- Filters applied to text columns are case-sensitive.
- You can combine Include and Exclude conditions
- Using the Filter and Sort tabs in the View Settings dialog allows you to combine filtering and sorting by multiple columns.
- The filtering option empty takes into account both empty and NULL values.
Click OK to apply the filters.

The current filter conditions are displayed in a strip across the top of the panel. Click Clear Filter to remove them.

Choose Columns to Display

To display, hide, or reorder columns, click  (Columns Settings) to open the View Settings dialog. On the Columns tab:

Select a checkbox to display a column or unselect it to hide a column.
Click a column name to select it and then use the arrow buttons to move it up or down in the list.
Use the Show Selected/Show All button to toggle between the two different lists.
Use the Sort and Filter tabs

View Data as a Different User

You can review the effects of any data access controls you apply to a view by checking the records that another user will be allowed to see:

Click  (View as User) to open the View as User dialog.
Select a space user from the list or enter any other user identifier and then click View.
The data viewer updates to show only the records visible to the selected user.
Note

View as User is only available in the graphic view, SQL view, and analytic model editors, and can only simulate data access controls that are applied in the current space and which have a status of Deployed. If the data access controls affecting your object were last deployed before your tenant was updated to version 2024.15 on July 16, 2024, you must re-deploy them.
In addition, if the view:
- Is shared from another space then View as User is not supported.
- Has one or more sources shared from other spaces, then a warning is shown to indicate that you may not see exactly the same records as the user you are impersonating.

For more information about data access controls, see Securing Data with Data Access Controls.

Preview Data in Data Flows

You can preview data for any source or output of a data flow (intermediate nodes do not support data preview), but the following limitations apply:

The preview can only show the first 1,000 records retrieved from the object, and any filters are only applied on these 1,000 records.
The complex filtering available in Define Filter dialog is not available. You can only filter only on simple values by clicking a column header and selecting  (Filter).
The View Settings dialog is not available. Use the Columns dialog to choose columns to display.