I have been working on SAP BOBJ Rapid Marts implementation projects since 2 years, and seeing different types of requirements that customers are expecting out of standard content. The last project which i worked includes more than 50 % of customization, involved customizing the standard data flows and work flows (ETL) to enable the customization on top of the standard content. Nearly 35 to 45 places we customized the standard content as per customers requirement
Here i would like to share one of the complex customization which we did on top of the standard Rapid Mart content, which helped the customer in tracing the master data change on regular basis.
Let me start with explaining the requirement what customer was expected from SAP BOBJ Rapid Mart package. Customer wants to track the master data change and wants to compare Current Vs Previous change of master data and wants to see the latest one at report level. The solution for this is not available in standard Rapid Mart content, as the data model tables which comes along with standard content contains natural keys which not support history capturing.
For example, Cost Center is one master data in SAP BOBJ CC Rapid Mart, it has both master data table and hierarchy table. In SAP ECC, CSKS is the table which holds Cost Center master data, has functionality of storing history of cost center based on validity (i.e. a cost center may available more than once in a table based on their validity - Valid From & Valid To). Similarly in SAP ECC, one standard Cost Center Hierarchy is available and also there is possible to see how the Cost Center or Cost Center Group in that hierarchy was changed and who changed it.
As per customer's requirement, they want to see the same master data change in EDW side, along with that they want to see the Cost Centers history even other than validity changes. For example, for a Cost Center, if City or Profit Center assigned is changed, then in EDW they want to see the changed Cost Center with two records one with current one and other with old City or Profit Center.
This is not available in standard content, as it always pulls only the current Cost Centers from Cost Center master data and always reloads the Cost Center Hierarchy. No possibility to see the change history of master data in EDW.
We enabled this solution without disturbing the standard content by implementing the Surrogate Key on required master data tables (in simple we converted the normal master data tables to Slowly Changing Dimensions (SCD-Type2). With this, the customer has got the functionality of tracking of master data change in EDW.
The technical details of enabling surrogate key in standard Rapid Mart data model, risk, time and effort took will be explained in separate article.
If the above solution is available or comes with standard content, it will be more helpful or advanced functionality for the customers to track the master data change in EDW and aslo minimizes the implementation time.
I am working on the solution or add-on which enables the customers to switch on or off of implementing Surrogate Key concept while installing the Rapid Mart package for most common master data dimensions and hierarchies like Cost Center, Profit Center, Cost Element, General Ledger, etc.
In next blog i am coming up with the solution of the above said and how it works on top on standard content.
