About SAP BW Data Sources
Requirements
| • | You need an SAP BW account with API-level access enabled for your organization to work with this data source type. |
| • | For installation requirements, see the TDV Installation and Upgrade Guide. |
| • | See the TDV User Guide Chapter “Configuring Advanced Adapters” section “Installing the SAP Java Connector Library” for more details on where to download SAP JCo connection library and how to install it. |
Large data sources with complex schemas and big tables with lots of columns have a correspondingly large amount of metadata that can pose special challenges for TDV. For TDV, it is not the amount of data stored, but rather the complexity and amount of metadata that defines the data source that is the most important factor for performance, particularly during introspection. For additional information on how to use TDV when introspecting large data source, see the TDV User Guide.
Considerations for introspection:
| • | Selecting a parent node selects all of the children resources in that node. |
| • | Resources are organized by InfoArea as in BEx Query Analyzer. InfoProviders are further organized into three subfolders: Hierarchies, InfoProviders, and Queries. |
| • | Introspecting resources is time-intensive, so it is best to select only the resources necessary for your project. If you find you need additional resources later, you can always add them through the Add/Remove Resources in Studio. |
| • | Avoid using the Find field during introspection of SAP BW data sources. TDV cannot load all of the SAPBW metadata before introspection. Attempts to use the introspection Find feature can result in SAP BW database service interruptions. |
Application Views for SAP
The organization of the views and folders mirrors that of SAP’s Business Object Repository (BOR). Field names are aliased to provide human-readable names. In some cases several objects in BOR are synthesized in a single query to produce a more detailed, unified view of the data.
A common pattern employed in application views is that of List and Details. Views with names ending in “List” return a minimal set of columns that serve to uniquely identify an object. The identifiers are passed as arguments into a corresponding view, its name ending in “Details,” to produce a more extensive set of columns.
Filter Data from Application Views
There are two ways to filter data from SAP using application views: using a filter provided by SAP itself, or by filtering within TDV. Both methods are used by application views depending on the view and the capabilities of SAP.