Editing a Query in the OIW Browser (SAP Library - SAP Open Information Warehouse)

Editing a Query in the OIW Browser

When a query is being edited, the OIW Browser displays its current definition using two lists:

The upper right list contains the Info Objects that are to be displayed in the columns of the query. They are listed in the same order as they appear in the query.

Info objects that contain units (i.e. either units of measurement or currency) can be displayed in two columns: the values on the left and the units on the right. There is a checkbox for each info object that specifies whether an additional column for its units shall appear in the query. This checkbox is inactive for info objects that do not have a unit.

A different checkbox controls the display of the info object. Here you can determine whether its instances shall be represented by their R/3-internal ID or whether the instances’ language-dependent short texts shall be used. For example, materials could appear as material numbers or as material descriptions in a query’s result. Again, this option is not available for all the objects; so this checkbox may also be inactive.

The lower right list contains the info objects for which Selections have been defined. The order of these table entries has no significance. A selection limits the range of values allowed for the result of a query. The values for selections come from the Excel worksheet. When the OIW Browser is active, the cells that will supply selection values for the current query are shown hatched in the Excel worksheet.

You can incorporate new columns into the query by selecting info objects from the OIW Catalog (viz. Display of the OIW Catalog in the OIW Browser) and dragging them either into the list of columns or directly into the Result Area in the Excel worksheet (drag & drop).

You can incorporate new selections into the query by selecting info objects from the catalog and dragging them either into the list of selections or directly into a cell that lies outside (!) the result area in the Excel worksheet (drag & drop). If you drag an info object into the list of selections, a dialog box will appear and you will have to input the position of the selection cell in the worksheet. The result area and all of the selection cells for a query have to be located in the same worksheet.

Note

Each info object can be used only once in each query as a selection criterion. There can, however, be several queries dependent on the same selection cell!

The OIW Browser contains pushbuttons for deleting selections and columns from a query and for rearranging columns. These can be found adjacent to the relevant lists in the browser.

Apart from the simple Info Objects, the OIW Catalog also shows the available Data Sources. Thus you can specify a certain data source for the query by double-clicking on it in the catalog display. If you do not decide on a certain data source, the OIW will automatically choose one of the suitable data sources on its own.

Specifying a certain data source can be important because some of the data sources may refer to pre-aggregated, redundant data stores in the R/3 System. These data stores may sometimes be less up-to-date, but allow a much faster read access.