SAP BW: Create a fixed length file with Open Hub Destination

At my current project we are using SAP BW and its Open Hub Destination (Open Hub) object to create a number of flat file interfaces to export data from SAP BW to other systems. An Open Hub creates a comma separated value (CSV) file which can be placed on a local directory or on an application server. The Open Hub uses a standard transformation and DTP to transform and load data from an InfoCube, DSO or InfoObject. If you are exporting to an application server you can also use Process Chains for scheduling.

Now we got this fancy old-school requirement to create an interface in which the files should be fixed length instead of CSV. Great. Since the Open Hub uses a mandatory separator (the comma, or in most cases a semicolon) to separate the fields and it does not have any options to determine the exact position of each field in a record in the file, a workaround is needed to make this work.

Update: Thomas Brandt mentioned in the comments below this post that with SAP BW 7.3 it now is possible to export to CSV, ASCII and XML. Check SAP Help for more info. If your BW hasn’t been upgraded to 7.3 you can still use the workaround.

In this example I will create an Open Hub called ZFIXED on top of the 0PERSON InfoObject which generates a fixed length file. The file will contain 4 fields according to the specs below:

1. Person, position 1 to 10;
2. City, position 11 to 20;
3. Country, position 21 to 30;
4. Date of birth, position 31 to 38.

Let’s see how this works: (more…)

New Book: Integrating SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.x with SAP NetWeaver

SAP Press recently released Integrating SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.x with SAP NetWeaver by Ingo Hilgefort. This book is the successor to the 2009 Integrating SAP Business Objects XI 3.1 BI Tools with SAP NetWeaver and is now updated with content on the latest SAP BusinessObjects 4 (BI4) release.

In this book Hilgefort explains how we can setup the (new) BI4 platform on top of a SAP BW or SAP ECC environment. He does this by covering the complete implementation cycle: First he goes through the installation steps for the SAP BusinessObjects server and client tools (Crystal Reports, Dashboards, Live Office, Analysis and the BI Platform Client tools like the Universe Designer and the Information Design Tool). This is done in a very detailed step-by-step manner, discussing every installer screen that will appear in the process. This really is very helpful the first time you have to do this! This extremely detailed approach is followed throughout the whole book.

Each front-end tool has a chapter dedicated to it in which the several data connectivity scenarios are discussed for the specific tool. These chapters all have the following approach: First all possible connectivity options are discussed. As you can see the overview figure for SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards (Xcelsius) now really has become art.

Next the supported and unsupported SAP BW elements are shown in a table for each connectivity option. Also a metadata mapping is given for the BEx Query elements, showing for example how a navigational attribute or variable is treated by the front-end tool. I also like the translations of the terms used in SAP BusinessObjects, like Key figure becomes Measure and Variable is called Prompt. All these overviews make things very clear.

To get you started these chapters all have a Create your first report section, that shows you step-by-step how you can create a simple report with each tool and how to set up the several connections. Again, a lot of screenshots are used here so even if you haven’t worked with some of the tools yet, you will learn fast on how to configure the data connection. Good stuff!

Live Office and BI Web Services (QaaWS) haven’t been forgotten. There roles have become less important with the new connectivity options in BI4 but they can still be used. Hilgefort discusses this situation and shows how to use them in combination with Dashboards. The book finishes with chapters on report publications and SAP Portal integration, which makes this book very very complete.

Just like all the other books written by Ingo Hilgefort you really should pick up this one! Not only as a reference guide but also to go through the step-by-step sections to get a good understanding of the several connectivity options when integration BI4 with SAP. Also make sure you check his site/blog which is totally dedicated to the SAP BI integration subject.

More HTG from SAP: Setting up authorization for Xcelsius in SAP BW

SAP really is on a roll this month, publishing just another how-to guide on Xcelsius and SAP BW. This time the HTG covers the creation of authorization objects/roles that are required to view/create/change/deploy Xcelsius dashboards. This is now possible with the new authorization object for Xcelsius dashboards: “S_RS_XCLS”.

You can get this HTG here.

More HTG from SAP: Xcelsius transports in SAP BW

As mentioned in the previous post, with the new SAP BW integration in Xcelsius (Xcelsius 2008 sp2 or higher) we now have the possibility to use some features of SAP BW directly. We can now publish a Xcelsius dashboard back to the BW system and store it as an object (of type XCLS) in the BW system. These XCLS-objects could be transported to different system in the landscape, in the same way as any other standard BW objects (InfoCube, DataStore Objects etc).

SAP published a how-to guide on this subject. Get it here.

Xcelsius/SAP BW direct connection HTG

With the Xcelsius 2008 sp2 release last year SAP now offers a direct data connection between Xcelsius and SAP BW queries. This is a huge improvement knowing that until this release we needed the BusinessObjects Enterprise, the Universe and QAAWS or Live Office to get our data from SAP BW into Xcelsius dashboards.

SAP published a nice how-to guide, including all pre-requisites needed to setup a connection, a list of BEx query features that do or do not work in Xcelsius and lots of tips and best practices. A must read!

Get it here.