WebI’s query stripping

Query stripping is feature in WebI that is available on XI 3.1 SP3 and BI 4.0. Basically it does optimize a set of data fetch from underlying WebI’s document source. If this feature is on; only data (in WebI terminology: measures and dimensions) that is used in WebI document output is fetched. This reduces traffic between presentation level (WebI) and source of your data.

How to switch it on: it is possible to be enables in two levels: 1. Query level – under Query Properties there is flag enable query stripping 2. Document level – flag query stripping on Document Properties tab. You need to enable both levels otherwise query won’t be stripped.

Notice that query stripping feature is only available for OLAP sources (e.g. BEx queries, Universes). 

However there are few constrains while using stripping: It may happed that you will get a tag #Refresh displayed instead of data. This bug is supposed to be solved in BOW Fix Pack 4.2 see note 1585615. If you running into this problem even you have patched your system you need to switch off this feature. Also it may happen that your WebI variables won’t work and the tag #Refresh will be displayed instead. In that case also switch it off.

Few SAP notes on this topic:

1544129 - Query Stripping is disabled in Web Intelligence Report

1585615 - Getting #Refresh output in Web Intelligence documents when 'Query Stripping' is enabled

1724499 - Query Stripping show more than one results set in WebI report in BI 4.0.

1733949 - Activating query stripping in a Web Intelligence report without refreshing the report itself corrupts it

SDN wiki - Optimize query with Query Stripping in Web Intelligence