blog.

I know that I don't publish a lot of new posts the last few weeks. The reason is I am writing on my diploma thesis. The title is "S/4HANA versus BW/4HANA - Zukunft der Datenanalyse". My deadline is in the middle of September so I have to write a lot these days. At the moment, I have access to a BW/4HANA instance in the cloud and I want to share how you could export your development before you terminate the instance. First you have to log on with the SAP* user in the client 000. Go to the transaction stms and select the System Overview.

Last week the Analysis Office 2.4 SP3 was released. Here is a short overview of notes, which may solves some problems.

• 2460877 - Excel crashes when opening several workbooks with SAPListOfMessages
• 2461196 - Advanced calculation editor throws error when inserting a member
• 2468933 - Effective filter shows only # for compounded characteristic
• 2463167 - Non-SAP (built-in) formula cells of workbook are not refreshed
• 2467459 - Prompts dialog clears variable

I am still waiting for Analysis Office 2.5, which is still in ramp up. Here is a first look from Tammy.

If you use a BW/4HANA instance, you have to use the BW Modeling Tools (BWMT) to build your data model. You could only build Advanced DataStore-Objects (ADSO). If you create a new ADSO, you have to select a BW-Project and an InfoArea. After that you have to define a technical name and a description. You could also use a template to build your ADSO.

I described in a earlier post how to use BW/4HANA on Amazon AWS. But if you just need a developing system for some time and don't want to use BW/4HANA, you can use the BW 7.5 SP2 developer edition on a virtual machine.

There are a good post on the SCN. First you have to download Oracle VirtualBox. After that you have to download openSUSE. If you are a Linux Newbie you can read the following post how to install openSUSE on VirtualBox. The BW 7.5 SP2 developer edition can be found here.

After you have downloaded everything and your openSUSE is running you should read this post to get the installation of the BW done. I needed a BW 7.5 for the new edition of my book, so it was a nice variety for me. 

After I had time in my parental leave to read proof the second edition of my book, I can say it is now finished. The second edition is now available in the store. You can download the table of content here. This version is only available here and at the moment not on Amazon.

If you have any questions feel free to ask and send me either an email or a comment. I hope to publish regularly in the next weeks so stay tuned.

In this blogpost I want to know if there is an interesting about an Analysis Office Video Course. Thanks for your time and your answers. Open the survey.

In my current project, we have to deal with 30.000.000 records for the initialization run and about 10.000.000 records each day. The big problem is we have no SAP HANA system for BW. So, we have to build a perfect data model to load the data and push it through the BW to deliver it to another DWH system. First I want to describe how our first steps worked and then which parameter we changed to make it more efficient. I will also describe where we had our problems and how we have solved them. So let's go.

I want to document a BW data model and searched for a Microsoft Visio shape, but I found nothing. So I build my own Visio shapes. At the moment there are the following types available:

• DataSource
• Transformation
• DataStoreObject
• InfoCube
• SPO
• MultiProvider
• DTP
• InfoSource
• OpenHub
• Query

I used them in my last blogpost about Copy Queries to a new MultiProvider.

The elements have also shape-data which can be filled. For example DataSource has the following shape data:

• Name
• Source System
• Update Mode
• Loading Time

A DataTransferProcess has for example:

• Technical Name
• Extraction Mode
• Loading Time

In my current project, we want to separate the current MultiProvider with VirtualProvider underneath into one MultiProvider with VirtualProvider and one MultiProvider without VirtualProvider. This step is necessary, because we receive a lot of data and don't want to push all these data through the VirtualProvider. The VirtualProvider only add one field which we haven't got in our InfoCubes and it isn't necessary in all queries just a few.

At the moment I had to deal with a special problem. I have data in a SPO from two different sources and the goal was to find the corresponding two data lines and make one out of it. This line should marked with a special character. So I decided to build an Analysis Process (APD).

Sometimes it is necessary to check your data model if it still fit your needs. For this you can use the transaction rsrv. Select there under All Elementary Tests >> Database >> Database information about InfoProvider tables.

Now you can enter one InfoCube and choose Transfer. Now you can add more tests or click Execute to run the test.

On 10.03.2017 a new service pack for Analysis Office was released. The main reason why you should update from SP0 or SP1 is that they fixed a lot of bugs in it (and maybe they build some new). Here is a short overview of the fixed problems:

• 2424808 - AO 2.x: Planning - Error occurs when saving a new line that contains fields of the type "Date"
• 2431548 - Exception after inserting Query
• 2431738 - Analysis Office: Swap Axis button active for grouped crosstabs when cursor is outside the grouped crosstabs
• 2431821 - Analysis Office: SAPContainer visible after ungrouping all crosstabs
• 2422924 - Paste values: Members containing "-" are handled like a intervals
• 2426904 - VBA callbacks of wrong workbook are executed
• 2422141 - Analysis Office: If saving to NetWeaver platform into 'My Documents' the 'Save' button is not active
• 2429271 - Analysis Office: Formula =SAPGetWorkbookInfo("LogonUser") does return an empty string when logging in to BIP with SSO
• 2438868 - AO 2.x: Formula SAPGetVariable shows wrong value for Hierarchy Node variable

In my current project I had to clean up the existing process chains. A lot of process chains were created via SPOs and not really used in the system. First I had to check, if one is used in a another process chain or in which one they are used.

In the transaction SE16 open table RSPCCHAIN and insert into VARIANTE the technical name of your process chain.

In my current project we have to transport from a maintenance system to our development system. The problem is when you now transport the objects into quality system, you have to check the option "Overwrite Originals" so that your transport is working. But you have to put this flag on every transport you make in the future from your development system to quality.

Nobody will remember this after a huge project, so every request has to be transported twice and this is annoying. So we have to find a solution for this. I found a thread on the SCN which describes a solution that worked for me. Yes I found a link which is still working after the redesign of the SCN. I was surprised. Here is the solution:

A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine, ask me how he can get the calendar week to use it in the Analysis Office API SAPSetFilter. I developed a short macro which defines the calendar week to use it in 0CALWEEK. Maybe someone has another solution for this.

First we need different variables:

Dim lresult As Long

Dim week As Integer

Dim today As Date

Dim yearCalWeek As String

In this thread on blogs.sap.com, Michael Hamm asked how to hide or deactivate the Customize User Interface button. At first, at the moment SAP doesn't offer any checkbox which you can check and uncheck in the settings.

But there is a solution how you can hide or deactivate the Customize User Interface button. It is called MinorVersion. The official admin guide define MinorVersion like this:

You use this setting to specify the minor version that should be used. The default value is the integer value of the installed version, for example value 3 for version 2.3. If you change the value to 1, version 2.1 will be used.

In the comments of this blogpost on blogs.sap.com, Stephen Hobbs showed his idea of insert a product Image besides the crosstab in combination with the new Customize User Interface function. So I make my own thoughts how I can realize a thing like this.

My first thought was, where can I store the pictures and how can I get a product number and the picture together. The solution is very easy, I created a folder on my hard drive and put the pictures in it. The name of the pictures are the same like the product numbers.

In Analysis Office 2.4 SAP improved the Table Design Editor. You can now create and edit formulas. In an earlier post, I described how to work with Excel formulas in a crosstab. You can add a new column with the table design functionality.

Since 13.01.2017 the SP1 of Analysis Office 2.4 is available. You can download it here. You need a S-User to download it. There are three new file system settings:

• UseDataSourceDeltaUpdate
• EnforceDatePickerForCalendarDayVariable
• SetEmptiedDoubleDataCellsToValue0

There are also some changes in the User Interface Customization.

You can now create, delete and reorganize groups and elements. A nice feature too is when you create a toggle button, you can get the button state. This I haven't tested yet, but it could be very useful. About the file system settings:

In my current project, we have a copy of the productive system as a maintenance system, because we made huge changes in

the development system in case of the project. So if there is an error in the production, we can easily repair it.

Some changes have also be transported into the development system, so we have the same state and our future request can be transported into production. For this we use the functionality Transport of Copies. All objects of the originally request are still locked. If you want to create a transport of copies, open the transaction SE01. Check the option “Transport of Copies” and click on Display.