Inserting data into InfoProviders manually

Usually in case of need for manual input of data we speak about planning applications in BW area. There are technologies like BW-SEM (Strategic Enterprise Management), BPS (Business Planning and Simulation) BW-IP (Integrated Planning) where those applications are being developed for specific needs of business users. Of course there are more planning offering from SAP I just mentioned here a few.

Although it is quite rare situation BW developers sometimes face situation where customers are demanding function to enter the data into InfoProviders manually even application is completely not related to planning. In this case it means to have a possibility to insert the data into BW’s InfoProvider w/o any InfoPackage/DTP any transformation/update rule. The requirement like this may sound strange. To name few situations where this can be applicable can be: lack of data in development/test/QA environment and no time to develop regular BW flow to populate the data. Also one could create planning function to the manual entry but again we do not want anything from planning be involved in here.

So given this there are following options available in BW to insert the data manually:

1. TA RSINPUT (Manual Data Entry) – supports cube and DSO objects but cube must be type of real-time and DSO must be type of direct update. There are 2 steps that need to be carried out. First you can configure which fields will be marked as for selection, maintenance, no entry, mandatory and as default value.  This is done on CONFIGURE screen. On next screen which is CHANGE/CREATE screen we can actually enter the data. ALV type layout is displayed for convenient entering of the data.

2. ABAP report CUBE_SAMPLE_CREATE – works with the cube regardless of its type. It can be “Standard InfoCube” or “Real-Time InfoCube” However the report works only for cubes no other infoproviderrs (e.g. DSOs are supported).

Values can be populated into the cube in following modes:

A) Generated Values – all values are randomly generated just to fit the type of infoobjects used.

B) Vales from Master Data Table – values from corresponding Master Data tables are used to fill up the data.

C) Ready-For-Input ALV – Only values that are entered by user are saved in the cube. User gets ALV input screen and can freely add the data as he/she wishes.

3. Custom ABAP report – One can create custom report similar to option no 2. This can be tailored only for specific cube and can be designed to run in background. You can use FM CUBE_SAMPLE_CREATE_NEW to see how data should be processed and FM RSDRI_CUBE_WRITE_PACKAGE to insert the data.

Additional info:

Step by Step Procedure: Creating Sample Data for InfoCube