Using SAP BW bridge for Data Warehouse Cloud (Part 1: Creating Simple Objects – Demo)

November 17, 2022
Sara Sampaio
Technical Articles

This blog post is part of a series where we will be looking at a few simple use cases and basics when using SAP BW bridge for Data Warehouse Cloud. The purpose of this series is for you to have a walkthrough of how SAP BW bridge, SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, and SAP Analytics Cloud can work together.

In Part 1, we will be looking at creating simple objects from scratch in SAP BW bridge. These would be the same steps you would use if you were going for a greenfield implementation and building new models directly in SAP BW bridge.

When would I use this?

If I was rolling out a greenfield implementation with SAP BW bridge for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud

If I was using the Shell Conversion for SAP BW Bridge for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud but still needed to manually build objects that could not be transferred

If I had already used the Shell Conversion for SAP BW Bridge for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud and now have future enhancements or requirements to be built

Introduction to SAP BW bridge for Data Warehouse Cloud

SAP BW bridge is the latest feature to be released for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud. The main benefit is being able to leverage existing on-premise designs in SAP BW, while also having access to the latest cloud-based functionality in SAP Data Warehouse Cloud. For a detailed breakdown, please head over to the Overview and Technical Deep Dive blog post.

Pre-requisites

In the following section, we will be using SAP HANA Studio or Eclipse, with the SAP BW Bridge Project.

For a detailed walkthrough do check out our Getting Started with BW bridge video where we walk you through this setup.

As a brief reminder, you add a new project by:

Right-clicking on a blank space in your Project Explorer

Select New and Project

Select BW Bridge Project

SAP HANA Studio: New Project

SAP HANA Studio: BW Bridge Project

Once you have added your BW Bridge Project, let’s move on to creating objects.

Part 1: Creating Simple Objects in SAP BW bridge

We will run through how to create an InfoArea and an InfoObject.

Those of you who are familiar with modeling in SAP BW/4HANA using either Eclipse or SAP HANA Studio will feel quite at home since there is little to no change as we see below:

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SAP HANA Studio

A) Creating an InfoArea

Step 1: Creating a New InfoArea

First, you Right-click on your BW Repository and select “New” and “InfoArea“

SAP HANA Studio: New InfoArea

Step 2: Naming the InfoArea

You then need to name your InfoArea. There are the usual pre-requisites like the BW Project and Package that need to be selected as well.

SAP HANA Studio: Naming InfoArea

Step 3: Assigning a Transport Request

Next, you need to either select an existing transport request or create a new transport request for your object.

SAP HANA Studio: Transport Request

Step 4: Saving and Activating

And finally, you select “Finish” for the object the be created in the background.

SAP HANA Studio: Saving & Activating

And here you see your activated InfoArea

SAP HANA Studio: Active InfoArea

InfoArea created! These are the same steps you would follow when modeling in SAP BW/4HANA as well.

B) Creating an InfoObject

Step 1: Creating a New InfoObject

First, you Right-click on your BW Repository and select “New” and “InfoObject“

SAP HANA Studio: New InfoObject

Step 2: Naming the InfoObject

You then need to name your InfoObject. There are the usual pre-requisites like the BW Project, Package, and InfoArea that need to be selected as well before you select “Finish“

SAP HANA Studio: Naming InfoObject

Step 3: Changing Properties

Next, you have the option of changing the properties of your InfoObject. As an example, you could still change the length, add Master Data and attributes, or even add Texts to load or maintain. This is because the object is still in an “Inactive” state as you can see below.

In this example, we will simply leave the standard selections.