SAP BW 7.3 is almost here

Well, at least it is here according documentation available on help.sap.com.

As it was announced during SAP TEchEd 2010 in Berlin NetWeaver 7.3 and along with that BW 7.3 is coming. Two weeks ago I noticed that BW 7.3 documentation appeared on hep.sap.com as well.

 

SDN BW 7.3 page is still quite about general availability but NW 7.3 it should be released soon I believe.

Fresh news out of SAP Note: 1407532 - Release Restrictions for SAP NetWeaver 7.3. Yesterday on November 29th 2010 SAP NetWeaver 7.3 entered Ramp-Up program. This means clients of SAP who participated in ramp-up can use it productively and they receive development support from SAP. Hope it gets into the unrestricted phase soon.

See collection of materials related to SAP BW 7.3 here.

Overview of BW 3.x to 7.x migration possibilities per BW objects

I was curious how migration of BW features and objects from version 3.x to 7.x is supported by SAP functionalities. Especially what are the tools available (if there are any) and basically what does it takes to perform such an upgrade? 

I went through a lot of documents available on SDN and here’s the short summary of possibilities that we have in case of migrating particular BW objects within upgrade or migration projects.

Further follow-up with these materials:

Steps for Migrating 3.x Dataflow into 7.x Data Flow

SAP NetWeaver 7.0 Migration of Business Explorer and BI Integrated Planning

Migration of 3.x objects to BI 7.0

Upgrade to NetWeaver BI 7.0 - SAP Notes

Upgrade from BW 3.X to BI 7.0 SP13

Changes in BW 7.0 and BW 3.5

Migration of 3.x BEx Queries to BI7.0 - Useful Tips

Queries or Workbooks Migration - Errors and Fixes

- 06-03-2013 update –

There is a new migration cookbook available prepared by SAP aiming ot make 3.x to 7.x BW objects migration easier. Have a look into SAP Note: 1807522 - BEx 3.5 Objects Migration to BEx 7.0

How to look for DSO’s tables?

There is a nice and useful functionality available in TA RSA1 to access data in DSO across its all 3 tables (in case of normal DSO): New, Active and Change Log. If you navigate into InfoProviders section in Modeling area and you choose right mouse click on particular DSO you select Manage menu. There is a tab strip called Content. 
Here you can specify particular data you are interested in:

New data - contents of the activation queue

Active data – contents of A table = active data

Change log – contents of change log table

So this is easy part. But what to do in case you need to determine DSO table via runtime in your custom ABAP? In this case we can use information stored in field ODSNAME_TECH in table RSTSODS. Or there is a nice tiny standard ABAP method provided called get_tablnm from class cl_rsd_odso.

And what about I just want to quickly see DSO data in data dictionary transactions like SE11 or SE16? Here’s hint: put a prefix /BIC/A or /BI0 in front of DSO and you get active table. Here you need to recognize either you looking for table of Business Content DSO or custom created one:

 


for Business Content DSO replace /BIC/ with /BI0/.

Prerequisites for BW 7.3

BW 7.3 is almost here, should be released this month. To see all of its new features read this post. Therefore customers are asking how about to upgrade to this version. Unfortunately there are some limitations.

First of all platform version matter: You cannot upgrade to version 7.3 from version below 7.x. Sequence is to first upgrade to 7.x and afterwards you can go for 7.3. No 7.3 upgrade for systems based on 3.x. Version 7.x meant here is pure technical upgrade. So you do not need to have all the functionalities of 7.x in place but platform as in overall must be based on 7.

Secondly data flows: They do not need to be migrated into the 7.x fashion specifically but it is advisable. So this is not real prerequisite :-) Usually customers are performing just technical upgrade; just align with SAP’s maintenance matrix and do not loose support from SAP. After that they stop and to not deploy new features of 7.x like new authorization concept or new data flows. Framework of data flows in 7.3 seems to be much more powerful (copying of data flows, DTPs, process chains, repetition/reversing of migration etc.) comparing it to 7.0. However SAP advice to migrate to 7.x fashion right after you did technical upgrade to 7.x.

Thirdly new authorization concept: Old concept of the BW 3.5 reporting authorizations will technically no longer be available. Therefore again it is essential that before 7.3 upgrade you have migrated to new 7.x authorization concept.

I’m very excited about this new version of BW. Looking forward to hearing from you in blog comments as soon you touch this version :-)

See SDN’s official news and update page regarding SAP BW 7.3.
See Features of SAP BW 7.3
See collection of materials related to SAP BW 7.3 

SAP Business Technology Factory

Within some BW SAP Notes (e.g. 1125108) I noticed a term SAP Business Technology Factory. Mostly it was mentioned in case of advanced services provided by SAP in following areas:

• BI Authorization Migration Service, consists from:
• Migration planning (system analysis, concept adjustment, project planning)·          
• Migration of the old BW reporting authorizations to the new BW 7.0 analysis authorizations 
• Test and GoLive support of BW projects

This sounds quite interesting for customers. Usually I would assume that SAP has a reach of experience in these areas. Therefore could deliver such a services with high expertise.  I tried to find something more about SAP Business Technology Factory. It seems that it is organization within SAP aiming to help other arms of SAP like SAP Consulting. Apart of BW they have huge portfolio of services in other areas of business technology like:

•  Analysis of current systems and interfaces
•  Identification of system requirements
•  Presentation of results, including recommendations on new updates/upgrades
•  Quotation/project planning
•  User workshops

Furthermore there are following particular factories:

• Upgrade Factory
• Unicode Factory
• Testing Factory
• Output Factory
• Minimum Downtime Factory
• Enhancement Package Factory
• Modification Clearing Factory
• BW Authorization Migration Factory

What is for me the most interesting is that under the SAP Business Technology Factory brand they offers standardized update/upgrade services at a fixed price. However I’m not sure if this is not valid predominantly for Germany customers. Anyway seems to me great initiative rather focusing on delivering real results than time and material consulting. 

For more information see following:

www.sap.de/factory

www.sap.com/germany/services/consulting/factory/index.epx

www.sap.com/m1/erpupgrade/erp_index.htm

service.sap.com/factory

mailto:Factory@sap.com