SAP BW Workspaces

[Former Member]

A BW Workspace is a dedicated area in a BW system where new models can be created based on central BW and local data (e.g. flat files). Workspaces can be maintained and controlled by IT and used by local departments to react quickly to new and changing requirements. Workspaces can bridge the gap between central governance requirements and local flexibility needs.

SAP BW Workspaces are available with SAP BW 7.3 SP 5 and higher:

• With SAP HANA 1.0 running as a database for SAP BW 7.3 SP 5 (and higher)

• With SAP BW Accelerator 7.2

SAP BW Workspaces are available with BW Accelerator as well, however they should only be used with BW Accelerator in limited scenarios where the scope has been tested thoroughly and where functional and performance expectations are met.

Since the BW Accelerator is in maintenance mode, no significant improvements concerning functions, performance and scalability can be expected.

With SAP powered by SAP HANA the BW Workspace functionality has been significantly improved to support further and more complex scenarios.

Therefore it is clearly recommended to consider the migration to SAP HANA to make full use of the flexibility and agility offered by the BW Workspaces.

The following article series appeals to different user types. This will be mentioned in the summary of each article.

As a first introduction please watch the video BW Workspaces Demo Video (approx.11 minutes).

For real life customer scenarios please read the article BW Workspaces - Use Cases.

1. Introduction and Standard Practices

• What is a BW Workspace?
• What is a CompositeProvider?
• How can Central Providers and Local Providers be easily combined in a new data model?
• How can I quickly familiarize the BW Workspaces?

2. Tips and Tricks for the Advanced Scenario

• How can a Reference Query be used?
• What are specifics concerning the upload of a file to a Local Provider?
• Why does the new data model not deliver any results?
• What are Specifics Concerning the Creation of New Master Data?
• What are Specifics Concerning the Authorizations of a CompositeProvider?
• How can restricted and calculated key figures, defined on a Central Provider, be reused for the Comp...

3. Best Practices and Recommendations

• How can data be cleansed during flat file upload?
• Is there any help in finding the correct field links/join conditions during modeling?
• How could a Query-EndToEnd scenario look alike?
• How can BW Workspaces be monitored and administered?

Online Documentation

• BW Workspaces
• BW Workspaces Configuration
• BW Workspaces Authorizations