Tab Page: Attributes (SAP Library - Business Intelligence)

Tab Page: Attributes

Use

On this tab page, you specify whether the characteristic has display or navigation attributes, and if so, which properties these attributes have.

Note

This tab page is only available if you have set the With Master Data indicator on the Master Data/Texts tab page.

In the query, display attributes provide additional information about the characteristic. Navigation attributes, on the other hand, are treated like normal characteristics in the query, and can also be evaluated on their own.

Structure

Attributes are InfoObjects that exist already, and that are assigned logically to the new characteristic. You can maintain attributes for a characteristic in the following ways:

● Choose attributes from the Attributes of the Assigned DataSources list.

● Use F4 Help for the input ready fields in the Attributes of the Characteristic list to display all the InfoObjects. Choose the attributes you need.

● In the Attributes list, specify directly in the input ready fields the name of an InfoObject that you want to use as an attribute. If the InfoObject you want to use does not yet exist, you have the option of creating a new InfoObject at this point. Any new InfoObjects that you create are inactive. They are activated when the existing InfoObject is activated.

Properties

Choose Detail/Navigation Attribute to display the detailed view. In the detailed view, you set the following:

Time Dependency

You can decide whether individual attributes are to be time-dependent. If only one attribute is time-dependent, a time-dependent master data table is created. However, there can still be attributes for this characteristic that are not time-dependent.

All time-dependent attributes are in one table, meaning that they all have the same time-dependency, and all time-constant attributes are in another table.

Example

Characteristic: Business Process

Table /BI0/PABCPROCESS - for time-constant attributes

Characteristic: Business Process	Attribute: Cost Center Responsible
Characteristic value: 1010	Attribute value: Jones

Table /BI0/QABCPROCESS - for time-dependent attributes

Business Process	Valid From	Valid To	Company Code
Characteristic value: 1010	01.01.2000	01.06.2000	Attribute value: A
	02.06.2000	01.10.2000	Attribute value: B

A view, /BI0/MABCPROCESS, connects these two tables:

Business Process	Valid From	Valid To	Company Code	Cost Center Responsible
1010	01.01.2000	01.06.2000	A	Jones
	02.06.2000	01.10.2000	B	Jones

Note

In master data updates, you can either load time-dependent and time-constant data individually, or together.

Sequence of Attributes in Input Help

You can determine the sequence in which the attributes of a characteristic are displayed in the input help. There are the following values for this setting:

● 00: The attribute is not displayed in the input help.

● 01: The attribute appears in the first position (far left) in the input help.

● 02: The attribute appears in the second position in the input help.

● 03: ......

Altogether, only 40 fields are permitted in the input help. In addition to the attributes, the characteristic itself, its texts, and the compound characteristics are generated in the input help. The total number of fields cannot be greater than 40.

Navigation Attribute

The attributes are defined as display attributes by default. You can activate an attribute as a navigation attribute in the relevant column. It can be useful to give this navigation attribute a description and a short text. These texts for navigation attributes can also be supplied by the underlying InfoObject. If the text of the characteristic changes, the texts of the navigation attributes are adjusted automatically. This process requires very little maintenance and translation resources.

Caution

When you are defining and executing queries, it is not possible to use the texts to distinguish between navigation attributes and characteristics.

As soon as a characteristic appears in duplicate (as a characteristic and as a navigation attribute) in an InfoProvider, you must give the navigation attribute a different name. For example, you could call the characteristic Cost Center, and call the navigation attribute Person Responsible for the Cost Center.

More information: Elimination of Internal Business Volume. The characteristic pair Sent Cost Center and Received Cost Center has the same reference characteristic and has to be differentiated by the text.

Authorization Relevance

You can mark navigation attributes as authorization-relevant independently of the assigned basic characteristics.

Navigation Attributes for InfoProviders

For characteristics that are flagged as InfoProviders, you can maintain two-level navigation attributes (that is, navigation attributes of navigation attributes) using Navigation Attribute InfoProviders. This is used for master data reporting on the characteristic. For more information, see: InfoObjects as InfoProviders.

This has no effect on characteristics used in other InfoProviders. If you use this characteristic in an InfoCube, the two-level navigation attributes are not available for reporting on this InfoCube.