Transformations can only be edited in the BW Modeling Tools in Eclipse

While working with a newer versions of SAP BW like e.g. BW4/HANA 1.0 SP08 on HANA you may encounter following information message popping up:

Transformations can only be edited in the BW Modeling Tools in Eclipse

Message no. RSTRAN898

Diagnosis

The SAP GUI Editor for a transformation is used to display/change a transformation.

System Response

Change mode can't be enabled.

Procedure

Use the Editor in the BW Modeling Tools in Eclipse to edit the transformation. Using the SAP GUI Editor is not allowed, as it could cause inconsistencies in the transformation.

If you get this message, it means that you are still glued to SAP GUI. As BW development/modelling moved to Eclipse and similarly BW administration moved to web it is a high time to abandon good old SAP GUI and start to use those tools too. The Eclipse tools for developing BW objects are called BW Modeling Tools (aka BWMT). It is a plugin into the Eclipse IDE that can be downloaded from tools.hana.ondemand.com/#bw

 

On other hand, you may also get below message that is slightly similar to above one. 

The transformation has to be adjusted to make it editable in Eclipse

Message no. RSTRAN899  

Diagnosis

The transformation cannot be edited in Eclipse because it contains incompatible rules

System Response

The transformation is opened in the SAP GUI Editor instead

Procedure

Please check if the transformation contains any rules or settings that are described here. Change the transformation as suggested below to make it compatible for the Eclipse Editor:

•In an ABAP routine, the second global part is used

◦Please move the code of the second global part to the first global part, so that the second global part does not contain any coding

•The ABAP Routines contain coding that is not compatible for ABAP Objects (for example internal table definitions with header lines)

◦Please change the coding and substitute the code to make it compatible with ABAP objects

•Rule type 'Routine with Unit' is used.

◦This rule type is not supported in the BW Modeling Tools. Use rule type 'Routine' instead and fill the currency/unit via a constant (this new feature is only available in Eclipse). If that is not possible because the field has to be filled dependent on other fields, use an end routine to fill the field.

•For more details, see SAP Note 2639435

 

In most of the cases, this message is appearing during migration projects to BW4/HANA. While classic BW objects are being converted to BW/4 objects. This means that the transformation in question contains some parts (e.g. rules) that are not editable in in the Eclipse yet. Such rules are not compatible with the BW/4 (mostly ABAP code not compliant with ABAP OO) and need to be adjusted before the transformation can be maintained in the Eclipse.

In short, the t-code RSTRANGUI can still be used to in display mode to see the transformation. While editing it can only take place in the Eclipse BWMT.

 

More information:

2766760 - Transformations can be edited only in the BW modeling tools (no editing in SAP GUI)

2639435 - Transformations are opened in SAP GUI instead of in Eclipse

2654109 - Conversion of ABAP/AMDP routines/exits in SAP BW/4HANA to the processing in Eclipse