SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse and SAP Business Explorer

This section describes all the new functions, enhancements and changes for SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (BW) and SAP Business Explorer (SAP BEx) for Support Package Stack 08.

Changes in the Documentation

Change

More Information

The documentation for obsolete functions has been deleted.

The documentation for BW-BPS, OLAP trace tool (old), update rules, InfoSource 3.x, Classic InfoSet, data archiving 3.x, DataSource 3.x (3.x-specific functions for UD Connect, DB Connect, file transfer) and SOAP-based data transfer (3.x) has been deleted from the 7.3 documentation. This information is still available online however at: Start of the navigation path http://help.sap.com/nw70 Next navigation step Application Help SAP Library SAP NetWeaver SAP NetWeaver by Key Capability Information Integration Business Intelligence End of the navigation path .

The documentation on installing BI Content now contains additional information about how merging the SAP delivery version and the active version affects the transformation rules.

More information:

Checking Settings

Troubleshooting (BI Content Activation)

Functional Changes

SAP HANA Database as a Database for SAP NetWeaver BW

Function	Type of Change	Description
SAP HANA-Optimized InfoCube	Enhanced	SAP HANA-optimized InfoCubes with non-cumulative key figures can now be integrated as the target of update rules into a 3.x data flow. More information: SAP HANA-Optimized InfoCube
Remodeling	Enhanced	The remodeling functionality also supports SAP HANA-optimized InfoCubes and SAP HANA-optimized DataStore objects. More information: Remodeling an InfoCube Remodeling a Data Store Object
Semantically Partitioned Object	Enhanced	Semantically partitioned objects can now be converted into SAP HANA-optimized objects. More information: Converting Semantically Partitioned Objects to SAP HANA-Optimized Objects
VirtualProvider Based on a SAP HANA Model	Enhanced	You can now create proposals for assigning SAP HANA model attributes to the InfoObjects in the VirtualProvider. More information: Creating VirtualProviders Based on a SAP HANA Model
Virtual Master Data	New	If you want purely virtual data in a VirtualProvider in an SAP HANA model, you can create virtual master data. More information: Using Virtual Master Data
Open Hub Destination	Enhanced	Using an open hub destination, you can write data directly to a different SAP HANA database. More information: Database Table as a Destination Type
Transferring Data Using Operational Data Provisioning	New	Using the ODP data replication interface, you can transfer data from specific SAP repositories (especially from SAP HANA and SAP Business ByDesign) to SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse. More information: Transferring Data Using Operational Data Provisioning
Loading Data Using a Data Transfer Process Without a Persistent Staging Area into an InfoProvider	New	Using the ODP data replication interface, you can load mass data directly into an InfoProvider, without the need to have loaded the data into the Persistent Staging Area beforehand. More information: Loading Data from ODP Source Systems Directly into InfoProviders
CompositeProvider	Enhanced	CompositeProviders are now integrated into the Data Warehousing Workbench More information: CompositeProvider
BW Workspace Designer	Enhanced	You can copy calculated and restricted key figures, which have been defined for the individual InfoProviders of a CompositeProvider, as global key figures for the CompositeProvider. More information: Copying and Managing key Figures
Layer Architecture of a Data Warehouse with SAP HANA Database (LSA++)	New	Using an SAP HANA database as your database for SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (BW) provides you with greater flexibility and more ways of meeting its requirements. A new, integrated layer architecture (LSA++) is required to depict a system with different approaches in BI, their persistency layers and virtual data marts. More information: Layer Architecture of a Data Warehouse with SAP HANA Database
Activating Master Data Using a Checkbox in the Data Transfer Process (DTP)	New	A DTP setting is used to automatically activate master data after it has been updated. This is possible due to the fact that aggregates are not used with the SAP HANA database. More information: Activating Master Data

Data Warehousing: Modeling

Function	Type of Change	Description
Graphical Data Flow Modeling	Enhanced	The following enhancements have been made in graphic data flow modeling: In the data flow maintenance screen, you can activate the objects contained in the data flow. This means you can take the dependencies between objects into consideration. More information: Additional Functions in Graphic Data Flow Modeling You can save the data flow documentation in an HTML file as the basis for your project documentation or BW project audit. More information: Saving Data Flow Documentation as an HTML File
Data Flow Display	Enhanced	You can also save the data flow documentation in HTML format from within the data flow display screen. More information: Displaying the Data Flow for an Object
Semantically Partitioned Object	Enhanced	You can now only display the definition of a semantically partitioned object.

Data Warehousing: Data Warehouse Management

Function

Type of Change

Description

Using a Query as the Source of a Data Transfer Process

New

You can use a query as the data source of a data transfer process with extraction mode Full. This allows you to extract query data and to distribute it using an Open Hub Destination to downstream applications, to a SAP HANA database for example. You can also use OLAP functions in the staging process with the query as the data source of a data transfer process.

More information:

Query Properties

Creating a Data Transfer Process

Data Flow Migration

Enhanced

You can compare the data flow before migration to the data flow after migration, to check whether the data flow was correctly migrated.

More information: Checking a Migrated Data Flow

analytic manager

Function	Type of Change	Description
Pruning Based on Metadata	New	A metadata-based pruning function is now available to improve system performance when processing MultiProviders and semantically partitioned objects. More information: Pruning Queries on MultiProviders
Planning on a DataStore Object for Direct Update in Planning Mode	New	In previous versions, it was only possible to use real-time InfoCubes as the data basis for BW-integrated planning. Now you also can use DataStore objects for direct update in planning mode as planning-specific InfoProviders. Aggregation levels are a type of virtual InfoProvider. They are based on a planning-relevant InfoProvider or a MultiProvider that contains an InfoProvider of this type. Aggregation levels are specifically designed so that you can plan data manually or change data using planning functions. More information: InfoProvider Aggregation Level Creating DataStore Objects for Direct Update Tab: Aggregation
Aggregation	Enhanced	The selected key figures are aggregated in the OLAP engine in the BW system. The aggregation behaviour determines how key figure values are aggregated in queries that use different characteristics and characteristic values. In order to calculate the values of key figures, the data from the InfoProvider has to be aggregated to the detail level of the query. Formulas might also have to be calculated. A number of characteristics need to be aggregated here. The basic form of aggregation is standard aggregation. Besides standard aggregation, there is also exception aggregation. For detailed documentation on the rules for standard aggregation and exception aggregation, workflow sequence, currency or conversion and aggregation, formula calculation and formula exception aggregation, and handling special values, see Aggregation.
Easy Query API	Enhanced	The column description in table E_T_COLUMN_DESCRIPTION now has additional detail. COLUMN_Type now has a fourth value: T = formatted key figure More information: Easy Query API