Online Analytical Processing

The OLAP processor in BW provides the functions and services you need to perform a complex analysis of multidimensional data and to access flat repositories. It gets the data from the Enterprise Data Warehouse and provides this data to the BW front end (SAP Business Explorer) and certain interfaces (open analysis interfaces) and SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence as well as third party front ends for reporting and analysis. If your SAP NetWeaver BW system is connected with a SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse Accelerator, you can display the existing query result data from the OLAP processor with SAP BusinessObjects Explorer.  The InfoProviders serve as data providers. The data query of an InfoProvider is defined by a query.

Functions and Services

The OLAP processor offers numerous functions for analyzing the data in a query:

• Navigation in queries, such as filter and drilldown methods (Slice and Dice), navigation in hierarchies (Drill-down) and swapping drilldown elements (Swap)
• Layout design for the result rows and hierarchy structures
• Formulation of conditions to hide irrelevant numbers in analyses and to define exceptions, hereby emphasizing critical values.
• Performance of calculations, such as aggregations, quantity conversions, and currency translations, and use of calculated key figures or formulas.
• Variables for setting query parameters
• Option to call certain applications (targets) inside the BW system and beyond from a query.
• Authorization concept for controlling user rights during data access
• Concepts for optimizing performance during data access, for example by indexing the underlying InfoProvider with aggregates or the SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence Accelerator, or with caching services.

You can find a detailed explanation of how the query works, the individual analysis methods, and how to optimize performance in the following sections of this document.