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Author's profile photo Tim Chang

Cloud Data Source: Creation and Manual Upload

The Cloud Data Source is a great new feature in Cloud for Customer since 1405 version.

It allows the SAP customer to create a custom data source (aka table or persistent storage) to hold custom data for reporting, that is outside of the normal SAP data source.  You no longer need the Cloud Studio to do this.

I will describe a step-by-step approach to create a custom data source, and upload manually.  In our example, we want a database table to hold the forecasted sales for an account.   So we want fields Account ID, Forecasted Sales Quantity.  The system then add

1. In the C4C system, select the work center Business Analystics->Design Data Source.

2. Select New->Cloud Data Source.

CDS blog 8-25 Shot 1.png

3.  It will show a screen to define the Custom Data Source.  We will start simple.

     – For the DataSource ID, the name has to start with a “Z”

     – For Manual Data Upload, we will check this box to allow manual upload by CSV files

     – In the Data Source Fields, you can add the fields you want.

     – For fields of type Quantity, it will automatically add a related field (re=uses our field name, but adds “_UNIT” to specify the Unit of Measure

CDS blog 8-25 Shot 2.png

     Then click Save.

Congratulations – You have a custom Cloud Data Source  (CDS) !

So now, how do we get data in this CDS ?   There are 2 ways.  This blog will cover the first method – doing manual data upload from a CSV file.   The 2nd method is using web services which I will save for another time.

Most likely you will have an Excel file of data ready.

1. Make sure the Excel is edited to match the columns, and change the column name to match the CDS field names

2. In Excel, save the file as .CSV file.  If you can save the file using the SAP standard delimiter of semi-colon “;”, that would be best.   IMPORTANT.

    You CAN still use comma as a delimiter – that can be specified during import.

3. This is an example of what the input file would look like:

CDS blog 8-25 Shot 3.png

All text values should have quotes.

Units of measure and currency should be specified using the ISO standards as defined in C4C.

4.  To load the data file, click on Data->Upload

CDS upload 08-25.png

5.  It will prompt you for import settings.

     Notes:

     a.  Delete and Insert Data is a destructive import.  It will clean out your BO before inserting.  BE CAREFUL.

     b.  The CSV button is activated when you select Delete and Insert Data or Merge Data option.    Select your input file to import.

     c.  When you pick standard delimiter, C4C expects a semi-colon (;) as the delimiter.  You can specify a comma as an alternative.

          Be careful when you use comma and fields with amounts formatted with commas.  That’s why SAP used the default of semi-colon.

 

     Click OK when settings are selected and you want to start Import.

CDS blog 8-25 Shot 4.png

6.  Once imported, you can click on Preview to see the data import.

CDS blog 8-25 Shot 5.png

     If it’s the first time doing Preview, all the columns will be in “Not Currenly Shown”.  Simply take some of those columns, and move to Rows.

     Once you are finished designing that report to validate your import, I recommend you save it as a permanent report to be used for future.

CDS blog 8-25 Shot 6.png

Well, there it is.  You have imported data into your custom data source now.  Enjoy!

If you found this blog to be helpful, please be sure to click 5 stars, share or leave comments below.  

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      23 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Ginger Gatling
      Ginger Gatling

      Great blog, Thanks, Tim!!

      Author's profile photo SVEN FEURER
      SVEN FEURER

      Well illustrative walk-through, thanks!

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Tim,

      Very nice Blog.

      I have a requirement where I need to take data from BO via webservice and fill in my cloud data source.

      But our BO team is facing challenges in providing data in the required format. They can provide daily csv files but the client would not want to manually upload them on a daily basis.

      I would like to ask you, if there is any way by which we can upload csv files automatically instead of manually?

      Many Thanks,

      Manasi

      Author's profile photo Tim Chang
      Tim Chang
      Blog Post Author

      M,

      The upload is a manual process.  As for now, I do not know of any automatic CSV upload feature into CDS.

      The 2nd method is webservice API, which is a passive API - which means a external program needs to call it.  So a program in the middleware could own this responsibility.

      Regards,

      Tim.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Thanks Tim,

      That answers my query 🙂

      Warm regards,

      Manasi

      Author's profile photo Maheshkumar gattu
      Maheshkumar gattu

      Could you please let us know how can we upload by scheduling a job.

      Author's profile photo Maheshkumar gattu
      Maheshkumar gattu

      Tim,

      Please let me know the steps how can load data into custom data source by scheduling a job.

      if it is not ready yet to post please send to my email: gattumahesh@gmail.com

      Author's profile photo Vivek Ranjan
      Vivek Ranjan

      Mansi,

      I did a POC of automating the CSV upload to a Cloud Data Source using a SFTP server and HANA Cloud Integration middleware. So its very much possible, I will post a how-to article here soon. If you need it urgently send me an email and I will reply you a with draft version of the how-to document.

      Best,

      Vivek Ranjan

      Author's profile photo Pushkar Ranjan
      Pushkar Ranjan

      Thanks Vivek Ranjan

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Vivek,

      Thanks a lot for helping out.

      Could you please mail me the draft version at maaooo@gmail.com?

      Warm Regards,

      Manasi

      Author's profile photo Maheshkumar gattu
      Maheshkumar gattu

      Vivek,

      Please send me the steps how can load data into custom data source by scheduling job. my customer wants load with automatic schedule job not manual.

      please send to my email: gattumahesh@gmail.com

      Author's profile photo Ginger Gatling
      Ginger Gatling

      Hi Vivek

      Did you ever post your blog on csv to CDS via HCI?   If so, I want to ensure we feature it.

      Regards

      Ginger

      Author's profile photo Srinivasan S
      Srinivasan S

      Hi Vivek,

                     Please mail me the draft version to srinivas129221@gmail.com , it would be very useful for us.

      Regards,

      Srinivasan.S

      Author's profile photo Harish Choudhary
      Harish Choudhary

      Nice Blog Tim... Very informative and helpful. 🙂

      Thanks.

      Regards

      Harish

      Author's profile photo Jasmin Gagne
      Jasmin Gagne

      Helped a lot, thanks!

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Tim,

      nice blog...very helpfull.

      I've followed your suggestions for my project and all work fine.

      I'd like to ask you if I can assign the Report to a particular Work Center, in my case should be "Customers" (without using SDK).

      In the official document "Business Analytica Guide" released by sap in August, it seems that it should work but I've tried to follow the instructions (in particular point 4,5 Assign a Report) but I can publish the report only into the WorkCenter "Analytics" and not also into "Customers".

      Thanks in advanced for your help.

      Best Regards

      Carlo

      Author's profile photo Maheshkumar gattu
      Maheshkumar gattu

      I just followed the steps.

      Did the upload and got the message uploaded successfully.

      But when i see the preview and selected the columns into rows.

      I can't see the the data,  it shows the values like '#'.

      Author's profile photo Maheshkumar gattu
      Maheshkumar gattu

      I got it. there was some authorization issue with my user. one provided the developer authorization i could see the data now in data source.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi  very nice tutorial,  many thanks, but when I left join data using this upload function it failed to load the report do you have any idea?

      Author's profile photo Natasa Milojevic
      Natasa Milojevic

      Hi experts,

      how does referencing data source key field work?

      I want to upload actual number as a CDS and then use it for a report where I want to compare actuals with sales target plan and opptys.

       

      Can anyone help please?

       

      Thanks,

      Natasa

       

      Author's profile photo Savita Arora
      Savita Arora

      Hi Vivek,

      Please mail the draft version to er.savita@gmail.com , it would be very useful for us.

      Regards,

      Savita

      Author's profile photo Elena Gabriela Troanca
      Elena Gabriela Troanca

      Hello Tim,

       

      Great post! Is it possible to expose custom Cloud Datasource to BW system?

       

      Thank you and Best Regards,

      Elena

      Author's profile photo Shady Sallam
      Shady Sallam

      Thank you very much