Working with SAP BW/4HANA Tools

The following three main tools are used to work with SAP BW/4HANA:

• BW Modeling Tools (BWMT): used for data modeling, data acquisition and query definition

• SAP BW/4HANA Cockpit: used for administrative and operational tasks

• SAP GUI: used for administrative and operational tasks (which are not yet integrated into the SAP BW/4HANA Cockpit)

Modeling and data acquisition design is performed in BW Modeling Tools (BWMT). Eclipse is a very well known, open-source, integrated development environment (IDE). SAP developed the special SAP BW/4HANA plug-ins so that the tool includes a perspective, multiple views, menus, and icons that support the SAP BW/4HANA developer. Although the tool is called Eclipse, you may find it being referred to as SAP HANA Studio. This is because the same tool is used to work with the SAP HANA database for XS Classic Calculation Views. SAP HDI Calculation Views using XSA can be found in the SAP Web IDE for SAP HANA.

When you open the SAP HANA Studio, you must select a perspective. For SAP BW/4HANA modeling, choose the BW Modeling perspective.

Like all SAP HANA Studio perspectives, the BW Modeling perspective defines the initial set and layout of tools (views and editors) in the SAP HANA Studio window. In this way, it provides a set of functions aimed at accomplishing BW modeling tasks.

In particular, it enables working with SAP BW/4HANA meta data objects that are managed by an SAP BW/4HANA back end system. When using the BW Modeling perspective, you always have to establish a system connection to the SAP BW/4HANA system (technically managed by a corresponding BW project).

Before you start working with BW modeling in the SAP HANA Studio, you first need to create a BW project. The BW project is used to manage the connection to the SAP BW/4HANA back end system you want to work with. The project acts as a container (on the front end) for the SAP BW/4HANA meta data objects located in the SAP BW/4HANA system.

You work with BW projects in the Project Explorer view. Here, the projects display in alphabetical order (ascending). To work in a BW project and see the sub-trees of the BW project, you have to log on to the SAP BW/4HANA back end system. There are several ways to open the Logon screen. You can double-click the BW project, or expand the first level of the BW project.

When you double-click or expand a BW project with SSO enabled for the connected SAP BW/4HANA system, you will not need to enter a user and password as the connection is immediately established. Once you are logged on to the SAP BW/4HANA system for a certain project, you remain logged on for this project unless you exit the SAP HANA Studio.

For some SAP BW/4HANA tasks, using the SAP GUI is still needed, for example when source systems need to be defined or when a program needs to be executed. You launch SAP GUI using SAP Logon and enter the credentials for the selected SAP BW/4HANA system. After this, you can launch several transaction codes, for example RSMON (Data Warehousing Workbench: Administration).

You can also open the SAP GUI directly from within SAP HANA Studio. However, before you do so, you first need to log on in a separate step to SAP BW/4HANA using SAP Logon.

The SAP BW/4HANA Cockpit is an intuitive, web-based SAP Fiori user interface. It contains various SAP Fiori apps, organized in groups, for process chain modeling and monitoring, and administration tasks. Many of the provided apps display useful information on their surface, such as number of data loads.

There are several ways to open the SAP BW/4HANA Cockpit:

• SAP BW Modeling Tools (BWMT): Choose Open BW/4HANA Cockpit in the context menu of the SAP BW project or the corresponding icon in the header toolbar. Depending on the function you call from the context menu of BW objects, the SAP BW/4HANA Cockpit opens automatically and the user is directed to the corresponding app and object. Example: Select Manage DataStore object (advanced) from the context menu of a DataStore Object (advanced) will open the app Manage Requests.

• SAP GUI: Call transaction BW4WEB.

• Browser URL: <protocol>://<host name>:<port>/sap/bc/ui2/flp?sap-client=<client>&sap-language=<language>

  For example:

  https://wdflbmt7211.wdf.sap.corp:54081/sap/bc/ui2/flp?sap-language=EN&sap-client=003

Watch the following video to learn how to launch the SAP HANA Studio and select the BW Modeling Tools perspective, how to define a BW project and how to use the search function.