Documents as Online Documentation 

Definition

Online documentation for a BI object is a document that has been generated for a particular metadata object that can also contain a text created by the user.

Use

Online documentation is usually displayed as F1 help for the object to which it is assigned.

Online documentation is displayed in the following situations:

●     On the Documents screen for the affected metadata object, by choosing the  Display Documentation pushbutton. F1 help is displayed in the Web browser.

●     In the Data Warehousing Workbench, by opening F1 help for a BI object.

●     By choosing a BI object from the metadata repository. The online documentation is displayed under the header Documentation.

●     You open a query in the BEx Analyzer or in the Web browser or you call a Web application. You can display the online documentation for a characteristic by choosing  or Documents → Display Documents from the context menu.

Note that you only see the document symbols if you have chosen the following setting in the query properties: Tab page Display → Display Options → Display Document Links. For more information, see Query Properties.

Structure

The online documentation for a BI object is made up of the following parts:

...

       1.      The first part contains general information about the object, such as

○     Object type (with symbol) and name

○     Date created

○     Technical name

○     System

○     Description (short)

○     Description (long)

       2.      The Documentation part contains the following text:

○     If the user has created a text document or an HTML document for the object and maintained this text as online documentation, the system displays the text.

○     If the user has not created any online documentation, the system displays the Business Content documentation.

To include SAP Content documentation in the online documentation generated for metadata objects, it must be in plain HtmlHttp format for static help and be installed using a Web server. The Content documentation can then be read by the Web server on any front-end platform using the HTTP protocol and displayed in a Web browser.

For more information about maintaining settings variants for online help (transaction SR13), see the SAP Customizing Implementation Guide (IMG) under SAP NetWeaver  → Business Intelligence  → General BI Settings → Settings for Displaying SAP Content Documentation. 

-         If there is no Business Content documentation for the object, the system does not display a text. If there are links to Other Documents, these links are displayed.

       3.      The third part contains links to the online documentation of dependent objects.

For a characteristic this would be, for example:

■      Objects with which the characteristic is compounded

■      Display attributes

■      Navigation attributes

Under Additional Objects, for example:

■      Objects from which the characteristic receives data (transfer rules, for example)

■      Objects from which the characteristic is used

The links are generated dynamically from the metadata repository and are, therefore, always up-to-date, even if changes are made to the data model.

On the tab page: online documentation, you can deactivate the where-used list or the data flow.

Integration

BI Documents for Metadata Objects as HTTP Service

Documents selected as online documentation (or the only document) for a metadata object can be called using a logical URL. This URL has to follow the following schema:

<Protocol>://<Server>:<Port>/sap/bw/doc/meta/fldmeta/default?tlogo=<Objecttype>&objnm=<Name of Object>

The document is displayed without the generated documentation for the metadata repository.

Example of a query:

<Protocol>://<Server>:<Port>/sap/bw/doc/meta/fldmeta/default?tlogo=elem&objnm=<Name of the Query>

This URL is valid for BEx Web runtime (Java) and BEx Web runtime (ABAP).

For more information, see ICF Services in BI.