An SAP Business Suite installation is built on a complex database
structure, which comprises many thousand tables with often cryptic names, and may include
large numbers of extensions. In certain environments, there may be multiple servers, each
with different extensions. PowerDesigner allows you to browse the application component and
packages in the hierarchy, and to import them and their supporting logical objects for
analysis, comparison, and merging of data dictionaries.
Procedure
- Create a new PDM targeting the DBMS hosting your Business Suite server. For a
server running SAP MaxDB, use the SAP HANA DBMS.
- Select to open the wizard, and click Next on the
Welcome page.
- Enter your Business Suite connection parameters and then click
Next to connect.
Use the tools to the right of the Connection name
field to create a new connection profile, review the properties of the
existing profile, or delete it. Business Suite connection profiles are
stored in the registry.
Note The user you specify must have read access to the following tables:
The schema name is optional but may, in some environments, provide
the necessary read permissions.
- Use the Browse and Search tabs to navigate in the
component and package hierarchy, select components, packages, tables, and views
to import, and then click Next.
- Browse - Expand the component and package
hierarchy, and select application components and packages in the left
pane to add their tables and views to the import. When you select a
component or package to import, its supporting tables and views are
added to the subtabs in the right pane, and the total number of tables
and views to be imported is updated. Tables are selected for import by
default, but views are not. You can select or deselect tables and views
for import as necessary:
- Search - Choose whether to search for tables
and/or views and whether to match whole words only, enter one or more
strings to search on (separated by commas or new lines), and click
Search. You can filter on your result set
dynamically by entering a string in the filter field. Select tables and
views from your results to add them to the import:
Note Since an ERP system can contain many thousands of
tables, we recommend that you import only a limited subset of components
or packages at a time. You can relaunch the wizard and import additional
components or packages as many times as necessary.
- Review the objects that will be imported and then click
Finish.
The component and package structure is imported, with tables located in
their appropriate package, and global domains and data elements are listed
at the root of the model.
PowerDesigner stores
the technical name of each object in its Code field,
and uses the more intuitive short description of the object as its name.
Thus, for example, the table identified as SCMATRANSACT in
the data dictionary is displayed as Schedule Manager: Registered SAP
Transactions in PowerDesigner.
Each component and package contains a diagram which shows the objects it
contains:
Note Not all packages contain tables. To view the structure of only those
components and packages with diagrams that do contain tables, right-click
the model in the Browser or a diagram background and select View
ABAP Diagrams Containing Tables. Select a diagram in the
tree and click OK to open it.
- Review the imported metadata as appropriate. Configurable and filterable lists
of each type of object are available from the Model menu.
For example, to display the List of Data Elements, select :
Note To view lists of global objects, such as domains and data elements, ensure
that you are in the context of the model root (by double-clicking the
Top-Level Component Diagram) before opening the
list. To view all the components, packages, or tables in the model, ensure
that you are at root, open the list, and click the Include
Sub-Packages tool in the list toolbar. For detailed
information about working with object lists, see Core Features Guide > Modeling
with PowerDesigner > Objects > Object Lists
- [optional] Perform a new import to enrich your model. You can perform as many
imports as necessary, and delete components, packages, or other objects as
appropriate, to simplify your model and focus on the areas that interest
you.
- [optional] To compare two or more Business Suite installations, import each one
into its own PDM, and select . For detailed information about working in this dialog, see Core Features Guide > Modeling with PowerDesigner > Comparing and Merging Models.
- [optional] PowerDesigner supports the merging of Business Suite PDMs and their
generation to HANA to provide the basis for establishing a business intelligence
environment for reporting on your Business Suite transactional data (see Generating an SAP Business Suite Data Dictionary to HANA).