This blog post is the second part of the blog “How to Monetize Your Data and Address 400,000 SAP Customers on the Data Marketplace for Data Warehouse Cloud”.

Here is a step-by-step guide on how you can create a Data Product Listing on the data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud and start monetizing your data. The main purpose of this blog is a step-by-step instruction for Data Providers on how to create and publish their Data Product on the data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud (presented on the example of SAP.iO and startups that will monetize their data products on the data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud).

SAP.iO as part of SAP NVT (New Ventures and Technologies) is always looking for innovative data-driven use cases and supports them as a Content Aggregator on the data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.

The benefits that all data providers get on the data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud are:

• Direct exposure of data products to more than 400 000 SAP customers and thus visibility within a very clearly defined target group of potential data buyer
• Customers of the data provider, who receive the data through the data marketplace, can use it directly within their data warehousing environment and will not require any additional connectivity or transfer.
• No brokerage fee is associated with the data marketplace and the SAP Data Warehouse Cloud access which the data provider needs is provided for a fixed, monthly fee.
• Fast and simple onboarding. Every SAP Data Warehouse Cloud customer can become a data provider with a simple self-service registration process. Particular partner status is not required.
• Enterprise-grade data product setups – from public products that everybody can buy to individualized products with limited visibility to the relevant audience.
• Data product-specific license management that allows linking customer-specific scope (records, values, and attributes) to a license.

Table of contents

I. The difference between a Content Aggregator and a Data Provider

II. Steps for the Content Aggregator to create and manage own and Data Providers’ profiles

1. Switch to Your Data Aggregator Profile
2. Manage your Data Products and Data Providers
3. Create Managed Data Provider Profile and Distribute Activation Keys
4. Manage your Data Provider Profile

III. Steps for Data Providers to create Data Provider profile and Data Product Listing

1. Connect & Prepare Data for Listing
2. Create Data Provider Profile
3. Create Data Product Listing
4. Create Data Release
5. Create License

IV. Q&A and important notes

1. Is it possible to perform different roles from one Data Warehouse Cloud tenant? (Data Provider, Data Consumer or Content Aggregator)
2. Is the Landing Page with Data Products and Data Sharing Cockpit available for all profiles?
3. Is there an approval process for Data Products that Data Providers publish on the data marketplace?
4. Are activation keys generated by Content Aggregator supposed to be used many times?
5. Difference between User Activation Key and “Product Key” (License Key)

I. The difference between a Content Aggregator and a Data Provider

There are two types of data providers in the data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud: regular Data Providers and Content Aggregators. Content Aggregators are “managers” of conventional Data Providers who perform their onboarding on the data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud and can manage Data Providers’ products that are under their Content Aggregator’s profile. Current Content Aggregators on the data marketplace include Datarade and SAP.iO.

If you want to present your Data Product on the data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, you have two options – either cooperate with SAP yourself, get your SAP Data Warehouse Cloud tenant and create a listing by yourself; or communicate with Content Aggregator, which will make your onboarding on the data marketplace easy and seamless.

II. Steps for the Content Aggregator to create and manage own and Data Providers’ profiles

1. Switch to Your Data Aggregator Profile

From one DWC tenant, it is possible to manage different profiles. This makes it possible to act in different roles – Data Provider, Content Aggregator, and Data Consumer.

To manage data providers as Content Aggregator – you need to switch to the appropriate Content Aggregator profile.

Example of choosing between different profiles from the Data Warehouse Cloud tenant (SAP Data Plane profile – test Content Aggregator profile)

2. Manage your Data Products and Data Providers

When you are logged in as a Content Aggregator, there is a functionality in the Data Sharing Cockpit to manage Data Products (as well as profiles of Data Providers, their Data Products, and Activation keys, which belong to this particular Content Aggregator Profile).

• Preparation of Data Products for Listing
• Data Products’ Management
• Publishing Management
• License Management
• Editing Data Provider’s Profile

Data Sharing Cockpit view

Content Aggregator has the ability to manage data providers belonging to this profile, to view and edit both profiles of Data Providers and their Data Products.

3. Create Managed Data Provider Profile and Distribute Activation Keys

Activation keys are what you, as the Content Aggregator, must generate and provide for the specific Data Provider for which you create the profile. For a Data Provider to create a listing of its Data Products within your Content Aggregator profile, the data provider must initially activate its profile with these activation keys. After that, the procedure for a listing of data products is the same for all data providers.

Creating a Data Provider Profile to be managed by Content Aggregator

Creating a Data Provider profile (this process is done independently by individual Data Providers, or by Content Aggregator, which does onboarding of Data Providers on the data marketplace)

When a Data Provider profile is created, the Content Aggregator generates keys so that the Data Provider activates its profile in the Data Warehouse Cloud tenant and independently.

Activation keys generation 1

When you as a Content Aggregator have generated Activation Keys in your Content Aggregator profile, share these keys with Data Providers, so they can log in with their profile and create a listing of their Data Products under your Content Aggregator name.

Activation keys generation 2

4. Manage your Data Provider Profile

Choose from the left-side menu – “My Data Provider Profile”.

My Data Provider Profile view

III. Steps for Data Providers to create Data Provider profile and Data Product Listing

For a full, in-depth overview of the data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, see Oliver Huth’s blog – SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, Data Marketplace: An Overview.

You have two options – you are either an independent Data Provider or a Data Provider under the Content Aggregator management.

The sequence of operations is the same for both cases. The only difference is that independent Data Providers create their Data Provider Profiles by themselves when they get their SAP Data Warehouse Cloud tenant.

Data Provider Profile Creation

In the case of Data Providers under Content Aggregator management – you don’t create your profile but activate it with a key obtained from Content Aggregator.

Data Provider Profile Activation

0.   Connect & Prepare Data for Listing

Select the appropriate option to prepare your data and upload (or connect) the data to the SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.

Connect and Prepare Data for Listing

1.   Create Data Provider Profile

Main points:

• Data Provider Profile is created in Data Sharing Cockpit → My Data Provider Profile.
• Mandatory attributes that each Data Provider provides when filling out the profile: Name, Logo, Homepage URL, Description, Data Category, Industry, Data Category, Email, Country, ZIP Code, City, First Address.

Creating and Filling out Data Provider Information

2.   Create Data Product Listing

Main points:

• Data Product Listing is created in Data Sharing Cockpit → My Data Products.
• By creating a Data Product Listing, you provide 3 types of information: Descriptive Information, Delivery Information, Commercial Information.
  • Descriptive Information:
    • Description (Content, Use Case, Original Data Source / Data Factory Setup, Links, etc.)
    • Images (Product Collateral, Sample Dashboards on top of data, Coverage Information, References)
    • Sample Data: JSON File with up to 1,000 records, ideally one sample file per artifact
    • Tags (Data Category, Industry, SAP Application, Regional Coverage)
    • Data Documentation (Metadata Catalog, KPI definitions, Data sources, Update Information)
    • Product ID (Data Providers Own Product ID)
    • Size (Number of Records
  • Delivery Information:
    • Data Shipment Type (Direct, OpenSQL, External Listing)
    • Delivery Mode: (Full, One Time)
    • Delivery Pattern & Pattern Description (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Annual, Other)
  • Commercial Information:
    • Contract Type (Free, License Key, On Request)
    • Terms & Conditions Description & Documents
• You have 4 options for the Data Product Delivery:
  • Full Direct Delivery (Initial & Ongoing Load Automatically Integrated by Data Marketplace)
    
  • One-Time Direct Delivery (Initial Load Automatically Integrated by Data Marketplace)
    
  • Open SQL Delivery (Direct Push Into OpenSQL Schema of dedicated Data Consumer Space)
    
  • External Delivery (Manual Initial and Ongoing Integration Effort)
    
• Important: To create a Data Product Listing, make sure to create Data Product Artifacts from the data that you want to provide to customers in the Data Builder inside your space.
• You have three options for delivering different Data Product Listings created from the same SAP Data Warehouse Cloud artifact to an individual customer who purchases your Data Product on the data marketplace:
  • Single or Multiple Artifact Listing – one view with the entire content.
  • Listings with Data Filter – definition – applying a certain filter to the data (e.g. data only on a specific country, time period, business customer, etc.)
  • Listings with Column Selection – select specific data attributes you want to deliver to the client.

3.   Create Data Release

With the Publishing Management, you entitle the Data Marketplace to ship new data to all subscribed Data Consumers. Currently, always a full load is triggered. In the product vision, you will also be able to define incremental data loads. You can lock a data product, in case you currently do not want a data consumer to access the data product, e.g. when you currently load data into the base view. Once you have created a Data Product and are ready to publish on the Data Marketplace – change the status of the Data Product. When the Data Product changes its status from Draft or Delisted to Listed – your Data Product appears in the Data Marketplace.

4.   Create License

Main points:

• License Management is responsible for access to the Data Products and is created in the Data Sharing Cockpit.

• Fill in the license information and generate the activation keys that will be provided to the Data Product Consumers for that particular license.

• You may create different types of licenses depending on your purpose:
  • Product or Product Group License
  • Contract License
  • Trial License

License Creation Options. Source: SAP SE

IV. Q&A and important notes

1. Is it possible to perform different roles from one Data Warehouse Cloud tenant? (Data Provider, Data Consumer or Content Aggregator)

Yes, within one SAP Data Warehouse Cloud tenant, you can switch profiles and perform different roles – Data Consumer, Data Provider, or Content Aggregator (which manages Data Providers profiles).In the current version of SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, you cannot be a Data Provider and Data Consumer from the same profile.

2. Is the Landing Page with Data Products and Data Sharing Cockpit available for all profiles?

Data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud as a new feature consists of two parts:

1. The first part is the data marketplace itself, available to everyone (both Data Consumers and Data Providers). Here you can find the Landing Page and search for all listed Data Products, see already purchased Data Products and licenses.

Landing Page of Data Marketplace

2. The second part is the Data Sharing Cockpit, available only for profiles of Data Providers. It contains all the functionality detailed in this blog post.

Data Sharing Cockpit of Data Marketplace

3. Is there an approval process for Data Products that Data Providers publish on the data marketplace?

There is no approval process, but in every data provider’s contract with SAP is stated, that the Data Provider is responsible for the content quality. If the Data Product doesn’t correspond to quality standards or SAP policy, SAP might block the data provider – but no preliminary approval process. In the case the startup isn’t policy-compliant – SAP.iO may delete activation keys and prohibit access to the data marketplace.

4. Are activation keys generated by Content Aggregator supposed to be used many times?

No, the Activation key is a one-time-key – one person can once log in to the system. For further log-ins – new keys. Once a startup starts to be under Content Aggregator management – the startup can generate keys for other peers.

5. Difference between User Activation Key and “Product Key” (License Key)

These are 2 different entities – activation keys and licenses.
Activation Keys – generated for users (not for products) to log in to the Data Provider’s profile and start working on data products. License Keys – licenses for consumers.

If you want to become a Data Provider on the data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, reach out to datamarketplace@sap.com or fill out the SAP.iO form to easily and with special conditions publish your data in the data marketplace to over 400,000 SAP customers.

List with links to useful resources

• SAP BTP Startup Program
• Form for startups to join SAP.iO
• The mission for startups at the Discovery Center