SAP BW Consistency Check Guideline

BUSINESS INFORMATION WAREHOUSE

Document Version 1.2

SAP AG assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in these materials. These materials are provided as is without a warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. SAP shall not be liable for damages of any kind including without limitation direct, special, indirect, or consequential damages that may result from the use of these materials. SAP does not warrant the accuracy or completeness of the information, text, graphics, links or other items contained within these materials. SAP has no control over the information that you may access through the use of hot links contained in these materials and does not endorse your use of third party web pages nor provide any warranty whatsoever relating to third party web pages.

SAP BW DATA CONSISTENCY CHECK GUIDELINE

Table of Contents
1 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 1.2 2 TARGET GROUP ....................................................................................................................... 1 PREPARATION .......................................................................................................................... 1

PERFORM THE SYSTEM CHECKS ............................................................................................ 1 2.1 CHECK WHETHER RELEVANT NOTES ARE APPLIED .................................................................... 1 2.2 CHECK CONSISTENCY OF BW OBJECTS .................................................................................... 2 2.2.1 Analysis and Repair of BW Objects................................................................................ 2 2.2.2 Aggregates...................................................................................................................... 4

2003 SAP AG, BUSINESS INFORMATION WAREHOUSE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SAP BW DATA CONSISTENCY CHECK GUIDELINE

1 Introduction
SAP BW has grown to be the most important information system in many companies. SAP BW provides key information for all core business areas. That is why our customers confidence in the correctness of data is very important. This guideline gives suggestions on how to analyze an SAP BW system for data consistency using the information and tools provided by SAP. This document was written specifically for SAP BW versions 3.x and 2.0B/2.1C. However, some parts only apply to BW 3.x as are highlighted in the text.

1.1

Target Group

The functionality described in this document is for use by skilled consultants and advanced technical team members. Please do not attempt to work with features that could impact the efficiency of the system in areas where you have little or no training or experience. Further information on BW can be found in SAP Service Marketplace under the alias BW.

1.2

Preparation
For the checks described in 2.2.1 transaction RSRV Analysis and Repair of BW Objects is used. This transaction has been enhanced with Support Package 11, BW 3.0B / Support Package 5, BW 3.1Content. It is recommended that those checks are run after applying these Support Packages. In addition to the current Support Package level, check the database version / release and operating system (menu bar System Status). Get a list of the important InfoCubes (the ones that should be checked for consistency) in the SAP BW System or check all InfoCubes in the system. For the SAP System applied notes should be documented. If available, get the list of advance corrections applied to the SAP BW System.

2 How To Perform the System Checks

2.1 Check Whether Relevant Notes Are Applied

There is a document in SAP Service Marketplace, Alias /BW, Data Consistency with release dependent lists of notes that are relevant for data consistency in SAP BW. Please read the introduction to this document for instructions on how to use the information. If the SAP EarlyWatch Alert is scheduled for the SAP BW system you can view the list of consistency-relevant notes automatically filtered for your release, the Support Package level, operating system and database version in the EarlyWatch Alert report. Different types of notes can be found: Advance corrections Some of the notes contain an advance correction. You should check whether the notes are relevant for this system and whether they are applied. There are

2003 SAP AG, BUSINESS INFORMATION WAREHOUSE

SAP BW DATA CONSISTENCY CHECK GUIDELINE different ways to check it: 1. Check in the documentation of advance corrections for the system whether the notes are applied. 2. If the notes have been applied with the Note Assistant you can check the status in transaction SNOTE by navigating from the menu bar Goto SAP Note Browser. Under selection enter the implementation status completely implemented. 3. You can compare the correction code attached to the note with the code in the system. This is a supplementary way of double-checking if you have chosen option 1. Database or operating system corrections Consulting notes If the releases implemented contain these corrections then the problem is fixed. If there are bug fixes for the current release there is usually no way to check whether they are implemented within the SAP system. You have to ask the basis team. Those notes do not contain or describe corrections but Contain guidelines for error analysis Answer frequently asked questions Explain functionality that may be misinterpreted as delivering wrong results Are collective notes for a specific topic Make the appropriate people aware of those notes (basis team, project team member, end users). Source system relevant notes Some notes are relevant for the source systems of your SAP BW system. Those notes have to be checked in the source systems themselves in the way described above.

2.2

How To Check the Consistency of BW Objects

In the document in SAP Service Marketplace mentioned above, one section of notes describes check tools. Have a look at these and perform the checks if applicable. In what follows some additional hints are given as to how to use some of those tools.

2.2.1

Analysis and Repair of BW Objects

This section describes analysis and repair methods in transaction RSRV Analysis and Repair of BW Objects for BW release 3.x. Use this transaction to analyze the important BW Objects in your system. This transaction also provides repair functionality for some tests. These tests only check the intrinsic technical consistency of BW Objects such as foreign key relations of the underlying tables. They do not analyze any business logic or semantic correctness of data.

There is plenty of documentation about transaction RSRV, both in general terms and for each test: When you start transaction RSRV, there is a help button displaying a detailed description of the transaction. For each test you can get a description from the context menu t i i 2003 SAP AG, BUSINESS INFORMATION WAREHOUSE 2

SAP BW DATA CONSISTENCY CHECK GUIDELINE containing o o A detailed description of the test Information as to whether repair functionality is available

When the results are displayed in the application log, you can double click on the message. You will then see the message again on the right hand side with additional buttons for long texts and details (scroll to the right side) if applicable. Please read note 619760 for latest news about RSRV. There may be new relevant tests not described in this document or enhancements of the framework.

2.2.1.1

Run RSRV Tests

The following tests should be chosen from the tree. For each object (e.g. InfoCube) you have to run the tests one after the other or simultaneously by choosing the same test several times with different parameters. All combined tests Master Data Check Master Data for a Characteristic The following parameters can be specified alternatively A single characteristic The characteristics of an InfoCube. Perform this test for all important InfoCubes identified during preparation. All (Basis-) Characteristics. This test can be run as an alternative to the InfoCube test. (If you run this option remove the technical InfoObjects 0TCT* from the test. After choosing this parameter scroll down to the InfoObjects 0TCT* highlight them all and drag and drop them from the right hand side back to the left hand side). o Advantage of this option All characteristics are only checked once. o Disadvantages Characteristics that are not used or that are no longer used are also checked. The run time may be extensive (run in background). All combined tests Transaction Data Consistency of the Time Dimension for All InfoCubes All combined tests Transaction Data Dimension(s) and SID Tables for the Associated InfoObjects There are no parameters because it runs for all InfoCubes.

Run this test for all InfoCubes identified during the preparation stage. Leave the dimension parameter initial so it will be performed for all dimensions. 3

2003 SAP AG, BUSINESS INFORMATION WAREHOUSE

SAP BW DATA CONSISTENCY CHECK GUIDELINE All combined tests Transaction Data Fact and Dimension Tables of an InfoCube All combined tests Hierarchies Characteristic Hierarchy Run this test for all InfoCubes identified during the preparation stage. As parameters you can specify A single characteristic The characteristics of an InfoCube. Perform this test for all InfoCubes identified during preparation. All (Basis-) Characteristics. This test can be run as an alternative to the InfoCube test. Ignore the warning that some parameters are not specified. For this test the warning refers to the fact that many characteristics do not have any hierarchies.

2.2.1.2

Repair Be careful with the repair function. As repairing changes data, there must not be any concurrent processes changing the same data (data loading, change run, compression, etc.). Please come to an agreement with the system / project leader as to whether and when the repair function should be used.

If any errors are detected and the test provides repair functionality, you can press the Correct Error key. A repair will be attempted for all tests on the right hand side so make sure you remove all tests from the right hand side for which you do not want to run a repair. If there is no repair functionality you should look at the problem in more detail. It may be the case that some data has to be reloaded to fix the inconsistency. 2.2.1.3 Schedule RSRV Tests

You can schedule the tests in RSRV to run regularly in the background. Weekly checking should be adequate. Another option is to start after an event (e.g. tests are triggered after data loading). If you do so, make sure that the application log is checked regularly for the results.

2.2.2

Aggregates

Aggregates contain the summarized data of an InfoCube. It is important that the aggregate data is correct, i.e. that it matches the InfoCube data exactly otherwise incorrect query results may be displayed. There are different ways of comparing the aggregate data (described in the notes): o o You can perform manual checks for the aggregates. As of BW 3.0B, Support Package 9 you can schedule the aggregates to be checked automatically after each change.

The information on how to check the aggregates is available in the notes describing check tools. Read those notes and discuss / implement the best options for your system with the project team.

2003 SAP AG, BUSINESS INFORMATION WAREHOUSE