Use

With the creation of an aspect for a subarea of your enterprise, you determine what information you wish to retain and evaluate for this area (see also Aspect ).

Features

You maintain aspects in Customizing. To create or change an aspect, you define its data structure online. A fiscal year variant and an aspect currency are assigned to each aspect. The fiscal year variant determines for which period of time the transaction data is stored in EC-EIS or EC-BP. The aspect currency is used as standard for basic key figures, for which nothing else has been determined with respect to the currency (see Currencies ).

You maintain the data structure by transferring evaluation groups ( Characteristics ) and value fields ( Basic Key Figures ) from the field catalog. You can enter any amount of both types of field. You only have to keep to the database limitations for the total length of a data record. For more information, see Customizing.

Characteristics, that are only to be interpreted in conjunction with other characteristics, have to be defined in the compound characteristics definition (see Characteristics ).

As well as the aspect-specific characteristics, every EC-EIS and EC-BP data structure contains the fixed characteristics version , plan/actual indicator, fiscal year and period .(see Master Data ). The facility to hold data in various currencies is explained in Currencies .

When you have selected the characteristics and key figures for an aspect, you must save the aspect and then activate it. The data structure is created in the ABAP Dictionary when you save it. When you activate an aspect, the environment is derived from the description of the data structure and is generated automatically. The environment must be generated before you can maintain or display transaction data. You will find further information on this topic in Customizing.

View Aspects (EC-EIS only)

You can create a view aspect to evaluate the data from several aspects at once. To do this, you make a selection of characteristics and basic key figures from the aspects concerned. This way you define a view of two or more existing aspects without having to create a new database table. A view aspect reads its data from the database tables of the relevant aspects and aggregates them in a common context. When you execute a report using a view aspect, you enter the name of the view aspect. The system handles the data records as if they have been read from a single aspect. You can find information on creating a view aspect in Customizing.

Virtual Aspects (EC-EIS only)

Virtual aspects enable you to evaluate data from any transaction data tables. No transaction data table of the EC-EIS database is generated when you define a virtual aspect. In this case, the transaction data is in any database table.

In contrast to the other aspect types, the selection routines for data collection are not created automatically when the aspect environment is generated. Only calls of function modules are created, which execute the actual data collection. These function modules are in the reserved customer name space, and in particular cases must be created by you in accordance with the respective requirements.

The generated call has the form:

call function 'Z_EIS_READ_DATA_CFNNN' tables sel_tab = reptab rec_tab = tru

_ tab.

‘NNN’ is to be replaced by the specific aspect number (therefore for aspect 600, a function module Z_EIS_READ_DATA_CF600 is called).

The parameters have the following meaning:

The way how the respective module generates the data records of table rec_tab from the selection conditions of table sel_tab , is completely user-defined, and can be adjusted in particular cases to very special needs.

Virtual aspects offer a high degree of flexibility in data storage, but require deeper knowledge about the internal structures of EC-EIS, and a considerable degree of programming knowledge.