Transferring Data from Flat Files (3.x) 

Purpose

SAP BW supports the transfer of data from flat files, files in ASCII format (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) or CSV format (Comma Separated Value). For example, if budget planning for a company’s branch offices is done in Microsoft Excel, this planning data can be loaded into SAP BW so that a plan-actual comparison can be performed. The data for the flat file can be transferred to SAP BW from a workstation or from an application server.

Prerequisites

See Maintaining InfoSources (Flat Files)

Process Flow

Definition and updating of metadata, that is, the DataSource is done manually for flat files in SAP BW. You can find more information about this, as well as about creating InfoSources for flat files under:

·        Flexibly Updating Data from Flat Files

·        Updating Master Data from a Flat File

·        Uploading Hierarchies from Flat Files

The structure of the flat file and the metadata (transfer structure of the DataSource) defined in SAP BW have to correspond to one another to enable correct data transfer. Make especially sure that the sequence of the InfoObjects corresponds to the sequence of the columns in the flat file.

The transfer of data to SAP BW takes place via a file interface. Determine the parameters for data transfer in an InfoPackage and schedule the data request. You can find more information under Maintaining InfoPackages® Procedure for Flat Files.

For flat files, delta transfer in the case of flexible updating is supported. You can establish if and which delta processes are supported during maintenance of the transfer structure. With additive deltas, the extracted data is added in BW. DataSources with this delta process type can supply both ODS objects and InfoCubes with data. During transfer of the new status for modified records, the values are overwritten in BW. DataSources with this delta process type can write the data into ODS objects and master data tables. You can find additional information under InfoSources with Flexible Updating of Flat Files.