"Field-based" modeling in BW

When it comes to effort for building of BW models, flows, objects or reports common perception is that developing in the BW takes long time due to many objects that need to be created in order to ensemble them into something which is working like report or flow. On top of this an transport management overhead comes as the objects developed in one system need to be transported into other system. SAP wants to address this and there are possibilities to “shorten” development time of the BW objects.

One of these attempts is so called "field-based" modeling. This type of processing is part of Layered Scalable Architecture ++ (LSA++) architecture.  What the field-based modeling means? By leveraging it; it is possible to integrate data into the BW with considerably lower effort comparing to classic BW development. The data for the models of the BW can resides outside of BW. Also the BW model can operate with the data on field level data without the need of defining InfoObjects. Moreover there is no need for having mapping of the fields to the InfoObjects. All this is possible by using new type of BW object – InfoProvider called Open ODS View. Starting with SAP BW 7.40 SP5 while creating new DSO there is a possibility to choose either the new DSO is based on the InfoObjects or on Fields. Also the Open ODS View can be defined of type “Database Table or View” and once it is employed in HAVA view it is fed by HANA table. Similarly we can use Advanced DSOs type of the DSO objects in BW 7.40 for the field-based modeling.

In closing words I would like to say that is nice to see that there are possibilities how to enable rapid modeling for BW. The field-based modeling together with BW Workspaces exactly supports this.

More information:

SAP First Guidance – SAP Netweaver BW 7.40 SP5 powered by HANA - OpenODSView

Creating an Open ODS View (field based modeling), for source of type “database table or view”