Show TOC

Extraction Using SAP QueryLocate this document in the navigation structure

Use

SAP Query is a comprehensive tool for defining reports. It recognizes many different forms of reporting. It allows users to define and execute their own evaluations of data in the SAP system without requiring ABAP programming know-how.

To define the structure of evaluations, you enter texts in SAP Query and select fields and options. InfoSets and functional groups allow you to easily select the relevant fields.

An InfoSet is a special view of a set of data (logical database, table join, table, sequential file). It serves as the data source for SAP Query. An InfoSet determines which tables or fields of these tables are referenced in an evaluation. InfoSets are usually based on logical databases.

The maintenance of InfoSets is one component of SAP Query. When an InfoSet is created, a data source is selected in an application system. Since a data source can have a large number of fields, fields can be combined into logical units; the functional groups. Functional groups are groups of several fields that form a logical unit within an InfoSet. Any fields that you want to use in an extraction structure have to be assigned to a functional group. In generic data extraction using an InfoSet, all the fields of all functional groups for this InfoSet are available.

The relevance of SAP Query to SAP BW lies in the definition of the extraction structure by selecting fields of a logical database, a table join or other datasets in an InfoSet. This allows you to use generic data extraction for master or transaction data from any InfoSet. A query is generated for an InfoSet. The query obtains the data and transfers it to the generic extractor.

InfoSets represent an additional, easily manageable data source for generic data extraction. They allow you to use logical databases of all SAP applications, table joins, and further datasets as data sources for SAP BW. For more information about SAP Query, in particular InfoSets, see the Start of the navigation path SAP Query documentation Next navigation step System Administration End of the navigation path.

In the following section, the terms SAP Query and InfoSet are used independently of the source system release. Depending on the source system release, SAP Query is the same as an ABAP Query or ABAP/4 query. The InfoSet is also called a functional area in some source system releases.