Using Text View and Association to enable Multi Language support for Master Data in SAP Data Warehouse Cloud

[san_tran]

With the release 2021.12 we introduced in SAP Data Warehouse Cloud the new Text View and Association with which you can enable multi language support for master data. Users can now display the analytical reports and stories in their preferred language of choice.

In this little blog I want to describe the required steps for modeling to utilize this feature.

 

SAP's Language dependent Text Tables

The Multi Language concept in SAP Data Warehouse Cloud is very similar to the S/4HANA and BW/4HANA, where we have dedicated models, which carry the texts of the master data in various languages.

The typical structure of such a model looks like:

Name	Primary Key	Description
ID	X	Identifier of the master data model
LANGUAGE	X	Language in ISO-639-1 , e.g. en, de, fr, etc.
TEXT		Text and content in the language

 

Note: S/4HANA and BW/4HANA tables uses one digit language codes (e.g. E, D, F) which will be converted implicitly in SAP Data Warehouse Cloud into ISO-639-1 for processing.

 

Text Views and Associations in SAP Data Warehouse Cloud

In SAP Data Warehouse Cloud we have to model a so called Text View for that, which has to be associated later by a Dimension View. Here is a typical Entity Relationship diagram to depict the associations between the various views:

 

Here are the detailed steps, that you need to apply:

1. Go to the Repository Explorer or Data Builder and create a new Graphical View with semantic usage Text:

1. Set the primary keys:
   
   
   • ID
   
   
   • LANGUAGE
     • Note: please make sure that the data type is matching the type supported in the source system, e.g. 
       
       • STRING(1) : 1digit, typical for ABAP source system, e.g. E, D, F
       • STRING(2) : 2digits, e.g. en, de, fr
       • STRING(5):  5digits, e.g. en_US, en_GB 
     • 

1. Adjust the semantic types
   
   
   • Annotate the Language column
   
   
   • Annotate the Text column
   
   
   • Bind the Text column to the ID column
   
   
   

1. Associate the Text View from the Dimension View (in my example it's V_PRODUCTS):

1. Map the Dimension View and Text View by the identifiers, e.g. PRODUCTID

1. To view the results, you have to create an SAP Analytics Cloud Story (SAC Story), which can utilize this new Text semantics.

1. In the user profile settings, you can set the Data Access Language to the your preference 

8. When refreshing the SAC Story you should be able to see the text of your master data in your preferred language:

 

 

 

With this little guide, you have learned the required modeling steps to support multi languages for master data in SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.

 

Links

I have started a comprehensive tutorial on Modeling in SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, which describes in a practical manner different modeling aspects by guiding users through different exercises.

The Text Association is part of Exercise 2 of the tutorial:

https://github.com/SAP-samples/data-warehouse-cloud-modeling