Tutorial: Use BW Queries as a Data Source

In this tutorial on creating your own dashboards and tiles in Dashboard Builder, you will create tiles and drilldown views whose data supply is based on a BW query. In addition to BAdIs, function modules, and the use of the KPI catalog, this is one of the options for supplying the objects displayed in Dashboard Builder with data.

Note Note

If you want to use function modules or BAdI implementations as data sources for your own tiles in Dashboard Builder, use the examples supplied by SAP as a starting point.

Data Source Type	Example Supplied	More Information
BAdI implementation	DSH_DS_BADI_DATA_DEMO	Using a BAdI Implementation as a Data Source
Function module	DSH_SAMPLE_FM_DATASET	Using a Function Module as a Data Source

End of the note.

Process

Create BW Query

One of the possible data sources for dashboards from Dashboard Builder are BW queries. In this step, you create a BW query that you use to provide values for various tiles. The query is to output telephone costs broken down by the different subsidiaries of a fictitious company, based on test data (see Tutorial Part 1: Creating a BW Query).

Create Simple Tile

In this step, based on your BW query as a data supply in Dashboard Builder, you create a simple tile, which outputs the daily telephone costs of a fictitious company. You first create a dashboard and with it a tile that outputs exactly one number (see Tutorial Part 2: Creating a Simple Tile).

Create Tiles with a Chart

In addition to individual numbers (that represent a KPI for various data sources), you can also output charts in Dashboard Builder, for example, to display the development over time of a measured value or the breakdown of a value by various objects. In this step, you create two tiles, which contain charts. These tiles output the daily or monthly telephone costs of a fictitious company, broken down by its subsidiaries (see Tutorial Part 3: Creating Tiles with a Chart).

Create a Drilldown View

Often, information is output in a concise form in a tile in Dashboard Builder. If a more detailed analysis is to be performed based on this value, the user can click on the tile to display a details page. A possible type for such a details page is the drilldown view. In this step, you create two drilldown views for the number-based tile that you created in the first step of this tutorial. A drilldown view typically contains detailed information on the tile, for example, the development of the displayed value over time (see Tutorial Part 4: Creating a Drilldown View).

Result

You have created a BW query and used this query as a data source for various, custom created tiles and drilldown views in Dashboard Builder.

More Information

The BW query that you create in this tutorial is based on generated test date, which is available to you even without complete configuration of SAP Solution Manager (you only need to have set up the connection to the assigned Business Warehouse).

This test data contains values on the use and costs of telecommunication for a fictitious company with eight subsidiaries; in detail, costs and the number and duration of the conversations are displayed for each pair of subsidiaries.

If you want to use this test data for your own queries, take the following into account when creating the associated BW queries:

The InfoProvider for the test data is 0CCM_GD (Generated Data). This is a virtual InfoCube; meaning that, the data is not stored in BW itself, but is generated when called by the query.
The InfoCube contains the characteristic Profile (CCM_PRFL). You can use this to define whether the values generated should always be identical or should be generated randomly. For use in this tutorial, the profile SAND100 is of particular interest. With this profile, the current date is used as the initial value for the random number generation, which means that – if you call the query on a particular day – the same value is always displayed for a particular metric (such as the costs for telephone calls from one subsidiary at a particular time), meaning that the displayed values are consistent even across multiple calls.

Caution Caution

To be able to use this test data, you also need to run the program CCMSBI_GEN_TESTDATA_SETUP in transaction SE38 in the assigned BW system, which activates the test data.

End of the caution.