Technical Articles
Finding the right CDS Extractor in SAP S/4HANA
Dear Data Warehouse enthusiasts,
SAP ABAP Core Data Services (CDS) is a core technology for data modeling in SAP S/4HANA. Due to the fact, that SAP S/4HANA cloud edition does not provide the classic ABAP extractors (aka DataSources) for consumption, the clear requirement to set up new extraction options based on this concept has emerged in the last years. As you can see in the numbers below, this area has received tremendous innovation recently.
Number of released CDS extractors in SAP S/4HANA on premise
(Note: the cloud edition reflects the similar evolution with probably even more objects)
– release 2019: ~500 extractors (about 10% delta capable)
– release 2020: ~1100 extractors (about 10% delta capable)
– release 2021: ~1800 extractors (about 15% delta capable)
Based on these numbers, one simple question arises from a BW or Data Warehouse Cloud perspective: Where can I find a list of available CDS Extractors delivered by SAP?
Well, this is why I authored this blog post: Simply because there is no simple answer to this question. If there would be a comprehensive offline documentation in help.sap.com or similar, this question could be answered easily. So in a nutshell, the purpose of this blog post is to provide possible solution approaches.
To start with, you need access to an SAP S/4HANA system to analyze the CDS objects; to be precise you require
- access to SAP S/4HANA via SAP GUI and authorizations for Tr. SE16 and SE11 (steps 1-3),
- access to SAP S/4HANA Fiori Launchpad and the app “View Browser” (e.g. via role SAP_BR_Analytics_Specialist) (step 4), and
- access to SAP S/4HANA via Eclipse/ABAP Development Tools (ADT) and the authorization to view ABAP development objects (step 5).
Step 1
There is a high-level list of all CDS extractors in each SAP S/4HANA system starting from releases in 2020. It is based on CDS View I_DataExtractionEnabledView and you can easily call it in the Data Browser (SE16) based on its ABAP DDIC name IXTRCTNENBLDVW. It lists all CDS extractors with two filter options:
- Is the object released or not? We recommend sticking to the released ones, they are stable and there is no risk they will behave differently after an upgrade. See also this blog post.
- Is the object CDC enabled or not? This means it is a delta enabled extractor based on the sophisticated Change Data Capturing concept. See also SAP note 2991278.
Note: As an alternative you can also use DHCDCVCDSEXTRE in SE16 which contains more or less the same information.
Step 5
A well-hidden feature – but providing a great value-added – is accessible in the ABAP Development Tools (ADT). As I said in the beginning, you need a local SAP HANA Studio or Eclipse installation to work these tools, so it is probably only available for developers. Here, where you maintain all CDS objects, you can easily search for one object and open it with the so-called Dependency Analyzer: This function disassembles the whole data model and provides an easy-to-understand overview of it, i.e. you see clearly from which source SAP S/4HANA tables the CDS extractor takes the data.
In my example, you see that the CMMPOITMDX reads through up to four layers of CDS views and finally reads from MM purchase order tables EKKO, EKPO, as well as general tables T001 and TKA02.
Summary
CDS-based SAP S/4HANA extraction keeps evolving as more and more SAP systems are migrated to SAP S/4HANA. I hope this blog post provides a useful guide how to evaluate SAP delivered CDS extractors which might be the proper interface for your SAP BW or SAP Data Warehouse Cloud applications now and in future.
Helpful Sources
- SAP documentation of CDS Annotations
https://help.sap.com/viewer/8308e6d301d54584a33cd04a9861bc52/2021.000/en-US/2e4edbede2f94fb7b7f6eac856c02b19.html - Blog Post: CDS Based Data Extraction
https://blogs.sap.com/2019/12/13/cds-based-data-extraction-part-i-overview/ - Blog Post: Discover CDS View Based Extractors from SAP S/4HANA Cloud
https://blogs.sap.com/2019/06/06/discover-cds-view-based-extractors-from-sap-s4hana-cloud/
Well documented.
Helpful! Thank you Frank!
Thanks for the insights Frank, Appreciate it.
Do we have a method to identify CDS based on the tables i.e. as per your example can we go from ekko/ekpo to CDS view CMMPOITMDX?
- Madhur
Hi Madhur,
I am not aware of any tool which supports the approach you describe.
It is rather the name of the object or the application component it relates to which indicate roughly the type of data the CDS extractor provides.
KR Frank
Hi , You can use DD26S table.
In the column, tab name: provide EKKO(or any other table) and execute. Result will contain SQL views of all the CDS views built on that table. Copy the sql view and go to DDLDEPENDENCY table and fetch CDS view name.
Thanks,
Koushik G
Very good blog ! Thanks Frank.
When moving from ERP to S4/HANA, what has to be considered regarding S-API extractors aka CDS extractors. In which S/4HANA is S-API not or no longer available ?
Regards
Stephan
Hi Stephan,
the difference lies in the deployment option/edition of SAP S/4HANA:
Regards - Frank
Hi Frank,
great blog post, that was very helpful for me! I still wonder wether the SAPI extractors are available in S/4HANA private cloud because we have a project case where this question came up. Is private cloud the same as on premise in the perspective of BW extraction? Are there any official SAP documents on this topic?
Thanks in advance for any answer, from other users as well!
Kind regards,
Simon
Hi Simon, glad that you found this publication helpful.
From a extraction perspective, there is no difference between S/4HANA on premise ad S/4HANA private cloud edition (PCE). SAPI extractors are available in both.
KR Frank
Great blog, thank you Frank!!
Hi Frank,
thanks for this great blog, awesome.
No marketing, pure facts, like a good espresso! 🙂
Best regards,
Dirk