How to Enable Comments section in SAP BPC Embedded?

Comment section is significant in planning scenario as it allows the planner or reviewer to enter the text to explain why he/she is entering a value or changing a specific value, which would help the readers to interpret the data efficiently. It also helps during auditing as it can say from where the data came from and why it is there.

In BPC Standard, the comment section can be enabled using EPM functions save/retrieve comment and we can have comments up to 4000 characters either on base level or parent level. But that is not going to be the case for BPC Embedded. The front end is also going to be different as SAP is recommending Analysis Office (AO) for BPC Embedded.

The comment section in SAP BPC Embedded can be enabled by creating a separate DSO (Direct Input) for it. Then this DSO is connected to the Multiprovider along with the other cubes (Actual and Planning) and an aggregation level on top of it. The main disadvantage with this comment section is that it allows only up to 250 characters and also as the planning is happening on the base level, the comments also can be entered only in the base level. However, performance wise this option is better than EPM, as the DSO is the part of the OLAP engine where as in EPM, comments can be enabled only by having the EPM comment function in each and every cell where the comment is required.

The following section details how to enable comment section in BPC embedded step by step.

Step 1: Create an Infoobject

An Infoobject ZCOMMENT is created with datatype CHAR and of length 250(Maximum allowed).

Step 2: Create a DSO

Drag and place the key fields as per your requirements. In the data field drag and place the ZCOMMENT infoobject. Then go to the settings section and enable the planning mode.

Once all the above steps are done, activate the DSO and now you could see a new section called characteristics as key figure. Enable it so that we can use it as a key figure.

Step 3: Connect it to the Multiprovider along with Actual and Planning cube.

Create a Multiprovider with the actual cube, planning cube and the comment DSO. Select/Identify the characteristics for the dimensions and the key figures.

Step 4: Create an aggregation level on top of the Multiprovider.

Step 5: Create BEx query

Restrict the Amount (Differs as per your requirement) key figure with the dimensions that are not part of comment DSO.

Restrict the Comment (Characteristic Keyfigure) with our DSO as the Infoprovider.

That’s it with the query, you can proceed with creating the model

Step 6: Create the model in BPC web client

Step 7: Analysis Office

You would able to enter the comments and save it as shown below.

Tested in my side and it is working fine. Try it and let me know if you face any issues with the above steps. You can modify the query to include the actual’s data also in the cube to compare it with the planning data and enter comments as required.

Thanks