We are developing a Business Objects Universe that resides on a real-time Oracle database that corresponds with SAP ERP.
Provided there is not a BW, has anyone designed universes directly using straight feeds from SAP? If so, would you be able to share some of the logic that had been applied and any challenges/feedback?
I have designed many universes over the course of my career, so I think I have a good idea on how to go about developing the universes, but any input would be appreciated in order to avoid hurdles. My initial universe will be for Finance so finance tables and purchasing tables (e.g. EKPO) - any feedback with regards to these subject areas would be helpful.
This is not exactly what I was looking for. The link provides a way to pull SAP tables into the BO Universe. We wanted to know about the design structure among SAP tables within the BO Universe.
I imagine the structure would like very similar across environments as the join logic should be identical unless customizations have been made to the SAP tables.
There are 100’s of relationships between EKPO and other cryptically named structures. SAP used to sell something called Rapid Marts which were pre-built universes directed at a variety of business processes; there were some ERP ones. Don’t know if they still market them (or if there is one for your requirement), but unless you know exactly which tables you need, RM could be a good alternative. Or consider a consultant.
I have heard of Rapid Marts, but was unaware that they were actually Business Objects Universes. The hundreds of joins to the EKPO table would be nice to know and then selectively determine which one is most commonly needed. Any idea on how to get a hold off these joins/relationships between EKPO and other SAP tables?
Rapid Marts were a full data mart, so that was database schema, ETL jobs, Universe and Reports. They were also a pain to implement as SAP ERP is so customisable.
Good luck putting a Universe on ERP though, that database structure is ultra cryptic. I had to do a bunch of Crystal Reporting directly from SAP in the 1990`s and there were like 25k tables in it back then!
Did a fair amount of reporting against Siebel back when I was contracting at Reuters.
Two memories spring to mind
One, you would always ETL the data somewhere else to report on it.
Two, Siebel projects can prove very expensive to implement especially when you have a contractor bill of allegedly £1 Million per day
(BOB member since 2002-08-20)
(BOB member since 2005-01-06)
(BOB member since 2006-02-08)