Data Transfer Options from BFC to BW

[Former Member]

The purpose of the blog is to share different options available for building data interface from SAP FC to SAP BW or other external system.

There exists multiple options available to transfer data from BFC to external systems. The most standardized final options are listed below

1a) Cube Designer (CD) Star Schema Deployment and BODS - This solution leverages CD native functionality to create Star Schema extract out of BFC and then use  BODS features to move data to external system.

1b) Cube Designer ( CD) with BW Cube Deployment - This solution leverages CD native functionality to create BW cube directly. This functionality requires BFC and CD to be deployed in same data base as BW database.

2) SAP FIM  - This solution leverages native FIM  functionality that uses BFC web service to get data from BFC and then transfers data to external system.

The key considerations while selection the appropriate method for your data transfer are as follows

Evaluation Criteria	Cube Designer Star Schema with BODS	SAP FIM
Maintenance Custom Vs. Standard	Need BODS development	No Development required
Maintenance Complexity of Design	Complex design, need to manage CD and BODS jobs	Simple FIM jobs
Maintenance Proven Solution	Proven solution	Proven solution
Flexibility for future enhancement/changes	Very flexible, used BFC native filters, master data for restriction. Data selections can be very flexibly controlled	Less flexible. Only manual filters available in FIM. Not able to restrict data selection by master data or attributes.
Reconciliation Process	2 Step process, first to deploy cube and then used BODS for data transfer	One step process
Speed of Loads	Scales much better for high volume loads. Really impressive for high volume loads.	Performs only well in low volume loads as web service based