Case Study – SAP FIM Components & Testing Approach

Case Study – SAP FIM Components & Testing Approach

This paper covers:

·          Use and Testing of SAP FIM in the Project

·          Use of FIM as mapping and transmission tool to get data from the SAP GL special ledgers, via BW, to BFC

·          Project  Architecture Diagram

·          FIM Components and Advantages of using FIM as an ETL

·          Testing Approach followed

·          Business Benefits and Customized Reconciliation Process as a value add to Customer for System Integration Testing

OVERVIEW

This paper deals with the Testing Approach and different components of SAP Business Objects Financial Information Management, a web based ETL tool used in the Project, in which data from SAP BW is extracted by FIM, transformed in FIM and loaded to SAP BFC for consolidation.

This document also covers Advantages of FIM over other ETL tools and components that can be tested in FIM.

INTRODUCTION

Client is a British financial Institution which is organized into four business divisions: Retail Banking, Wholesale, Insurance, Wealth and International. Client’s extensive operations span the globe including the US, Europe, Middle East and Asia.

Client was looking to Integrate single-sourced solution to replace high number of legacy systems that provide consolidated and group reporting capabilities. This was required for easy Management and Statutory reconciliation which was earlier very time consuming task.

In addition, FIM provides extensive connectivity to SAP and non-SAP systems by incorporating SAP Business Objects Data Services (BODS), a powerful data integration application.

FIM can extract data from Source Systems like- Flat file, Database, SAP ECC and load into targets like- SAP BOFC, SAP BO Intercompany (ICS), SAP BPC.

FIM COMPONENTS & ADVANTAGES

FIM is being used as one of the mapping and transmission tools to get data from the SAP GL special ledgers, via BW, to BFC.

FIM has the following 3-tier Architecture:

·          FIM Jobs

·          Underlying Business Objects Data Services Jobs

·          Tables in Database (like Oracle) that are linked to FIM Jobs and are used for Data Staging

Advantages of FIM as an ETL Tool:

• Allows package status updates – Data entered by FIM will correctly be shown in the status flags within package manager with updated date/ time.
• Allows validations to be triggered – FIM has the ability to trigger BFC validations and publications.  This allows the data load process to leverage the financial logic and data quality features within BFC. 
• Respects BFC application security and locking mechanisms – FIM adheres to security settings applied to the BFC data model. This means ETL routine will not write erroneous data to the application.
• Provides transparent application audit – Data entered via FIM is correctly identified in BFC as having being sourced from the GL. 
• Maintains data lineage – FIM ‘Drill-to-Origin’ is a feature which allows the source of data to be ascertained directly from BFC reports. 
• Business user interface – FIM provides a simple user interface to the business end user.  Depending on the level of access granted, business users are able to run FIM jobs, interrogate job run results and audits without needing access to complex backend solutions. 
• Simplified mapping maintenance – Where possible all data mapping is handled by FIM and allows business users to modify mapping tables. FIM’s audit/ rejection logic allows business users to interrogate where mapping failures may have occurred to facilitate the maintenance of mapping tables.

ARCHITECTURE DIAGRAM

Following Architecture diagram provides the overview of data flow within different systems of the Project:

Following are the Components that can be tested in FIM:

Ø Availability of FIM application

Ø Login Validation

Ø List of Jobs

     Ø Job Properties

     Ø Source Properties

     Ø Target Properties

     Ø Mapping Definition

     Ø Mapping Tables

     Ø Mapping Table History

     Ø Job Run History

Ø List of Connections

     Ø Connection Name

     Ø Connection Value

Ø Availability of Oracle Tables for FIM

Ø Validate Table Names and Fields

Ø Control Handshake Mechanism (Between BW and FIM)   

Ø Validate Audit Table

Ø Reconciliation of Data between BW and FIM

Ø Reconciliation of Data between FIM Source and Transaction Tables

Ø Reconciliation of Data between FIM and BFC

Testing Approach followed:

FIM Test Execution Flow Chart:

Following flow chart displays the systematic test execution flow with processes involved in each step of FIM testing.

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Improved overall testing efficiency that received customer appreciation
• Effective and completeness of testing through Test Cases Design
• Major defects were detected and resolved before Go-Live

Customized Reconciliation processes as a value add to the Customer:

Reconciliation of data between different SAP Systems like BW-FIM, FIM-BFC was done by creating WEBI Reports using SAP BO Universe Designer. This was a real challenge to complete System Integration Testing.

Following are the 3 phases:

Ø       BW – FIM Reconciliation.(After Extraction Phase)

Ø       FIM Source – Transaction Table Reconciliation. (After Transformation Phase)

Ø       FIM – BFC Reconciliation (After Loading Phase)

For example- BW-FIM Reconciliation was done to ensure that data moved to FIM is correct and is as per the Filter options selected while executing the FIM Job.

Following WEBI Report displays the results of BW-FIM Reconciliation: