Enhanced Remodeling in SAP BW/4HANA 2023

[FrankRiesner]

Hello BW enthusiasts!

It has become a bit quiet around SAP BW in general - although the fourth major version, SAP BW/4HANA 2023, has just been released recently. Here an overview of the BW/4HANA releases and their maintenance periods:

• SAP BW/4HANA 1.0: 11/2016 – 12/2021
• SAP BW/4HANA 2.0: 02/2019 – 12/2024
• SAP BW/4HANA 2021: 10/2021 – 12/2027
• SAP BW/4HANA 2023: 10/2023 – 12/2030
• The next major release is planned for 2026

SAP clearly communicates that SAP BW/4HANA will be supported until 2040 through a sequence of releases, but at the same time general recommendation for our SAP BW customers is to move to SAP Datasphere, see also the latest statement of direction.

But back to the new 2023 release of SAP BW/4HANA:
In this blog I would like to put a quick spotlight on a new remodeling feature which provides more flexibility in adapting ADSOs. In the past, there were following remodeling options:
Options 1 and 2 keep the ADSO data while changing the element type (InfoObject or field) or replacing an InfoObject/field with another InfoObject/field. E.g you could have started field-based with MATNR and later would like to change that ADSO column to Characteristic 0MATERIAL – then use option 1 would be a good choice.

Options 3 to 5 provide features for filling a new InfoObject or field. "New" means that the ADSO has not been activated after the element was added which ensures that the new column is really empty.  Based on these options it can be filled with
1) values from another InfoObject of the ADSO, or
2) values from another field of the ADSO, or
3) a constant value.

The latest enhancement is providing much more flexibility now:
You can now code a customer logic to fill the new ADSO InfoObjects or fields!

Based on the highlighted new option, a developer can define a rule in JSON to define how newly added elements are to be filled. In the example above, the prefix ‘SAP’ is added to the first three characters of InfoObject 0LOGSYS as constant value for a new ADSO element.

There is a list of permitted SQL functions, which represent a subset of the SQL functions available in SAP HANA. Handy functions are available for checking, formatting, and data preview of the customer defined coding. Nevertheless is makes sense to check new coding in a JSON formatter (e.g. this one), to make sure the syntax is really flawless. The final JSON logic is stored in table RSOADSODELEMINIT with INIT_MODE = ‘J’ and the JSON column containing the complete JSON logic as a string.

There are two major use cases to populate data into new ADSO elements:

1. Fill with a JSON logic based on constants or fields/InfoObjects of the ADSO
2. Fill with a JSON logic based on fields/InfoObjects from at least one other table of another ADSO or InfoObject Characteristic. (Remark: Other lookup tables are not available to ensure the standard authorization framework is applied)

For both approaches, there are some great sample codes and a little example provided in the SAP BW/4HANA help which provides an easy start to get acquainted to this new new feature set.


Summary
The purpose of this blog post is to follow-up on my earlier blogs from November 2020 and January 2021 which covered the Role of Remodeling in the ADSO Change Management Process. While the focus in the past was on how the remodeling framework is used to activate various flavors of ADSO changes, here I focus on a new option to define customer logic to fill newly added elements to the ADSO.

Appendix

By the way, SAP BW/4HANA 2023 provides additional exciting enhancements, for example:

1. Date Acquisition: HANA Runtime for customer Navigation Attributes as a source
2. Analysis: Query Definition Structure Overview
3. Operation: Monitor for CPU and Memory Usage
4. Administration: InfoProvider Data Preview app in the SAP BW/4HANA Cockpit

For more details refer to following sources

• SAP BW/4HANA 2023 Release Notes
• SAP Blog Post: SAP BW/4HANA 2023 – Release Update
• SAP note 3365187 - Information/Restriction Note for Release SAP BW/4HANA 2023

Special thanks go to Markus for providing essential details.