Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education

• Reporting Comparison
• BW Overview
• BW Landscape & Architecture
• BW Reporting Tools
• Business Content
• BW Website
• Online Resources
• Discussions/ Q&A

• Line Item Analysis
• Delivered Reports
• Basic Reporting or Predefined (requires
ABAP programmers)
• Consumes Resources from
Transaction Processing
• Real-time Analysis
• Function Specific
• Relational & Multidimensional Analysis
• Delivered Reports (aka Business Content)
• Ad hoc or Predefined (can be designed by users)
• Significantly Faster Processing
• Current (according to update schedule)
& Historical Analysis
• Cross Functional

• The Business Information Warehouse (BW) is
SAP’s architectural solution for data warehousing.
– Seamless integration with R/3
– Built-in functionality that substantially reduces DW design, development and maintenance
• BW is a separate system from the R/3 transaction processing system
– BW data structures are optimized for reporting data efficiently and quickly (analytical processing).
– R/3 data structures are optimized for recording data efficiently and quickly (transaction processing).

BW Dev
DB1
State System BW Landscape
BW QA
QB1
BW PRD
PB1
BW TRN
TB1
BW SB
SB1
Data
SAP R/3
DV1
DR1
DC1
Data
SAP R/3
QA2
QR1
QC1
Data
SAP R/3
PRD
PR1
PC1
Data
SAP R/3
TRN
TR1
TC1
Data
SAP R/3
SF1
SR1

BEx
SAP R/3
Non-SAP
Data Sources
(Flat file, XML or DBConnect)
ODS
InfoCube
Data Detail
Business Content
SAP-BW
Data Sources
Web
Based
BEx
Business
Explorer Tools

Business Explorer (BEx) Query Designer
1. MS-Excel-
Based Analyzer
(Web or GUI)
2. Formatted
Reporting
3. Web Application
Designer

• Queries and solution workbooks embedded in MS
Excel
• Excel functionality can be utilized (calculations, charts, VBA programming, etc.)
• Queries are refreshed at each run; workbooks provide pre-calculated queries
• Incorporates BW Security and, therefore, eliminates the need for an additional layer of security at the reporting level
• Seamless integration with BEx Analyzer for the Web

SAP Menu Bar Add-in

• Advantages of using Business Content
– Pre-Configured SAP-delivered objects allow rapid development (DataSources, Transfer
Structures, ODSs, InfoCubes, Queries, etc.)
– Based on Best Practices
• A solution to build upon
– Provides a good baseline for enhancements of functionality and data models.

http://www.sytecpa.org/BW/index.asp

• SAP Online Documentation - help.sap.com
• Service Marketplace - service.sap.com
– OSS Notes
– Installation and upgrade info
• SAP Developers Network - sdn.sap.com
– Online Forums
– How Tos
• SAP Fans – www.sapfans.com

Thank You