SAP Business Objects Data Integrator connectivity with SAP BW

Today I would like to take BODS connectivity with SAP BW services. The idea is to extract cube data from SAP BW and put it in a relational OLAP database (SQL Server 2008) and later on the course would take SFDC connectivity and at the end try to combine the data between the two source systems. We would also try to investigate Master Data Management without using much third party tools (Combining SAP BW master data with SFDC) though in next set of blogs

Software used

SAP Data Services XI 3.2

SAP BW

SAP Business Objects Enterprise Edition XI 3.1

SAP Data Services XI 3.2 comes with additional features including compatibility with SQL Server 2008 and also if you have data quality added to your package more of the data cleansing components. In order to start the connectivity you have to first of all configure the SAP BW system.

Prerequisites

1. User with privileges.

2. Data Services transports in SAP system for functions and rights

3. SAP Front end to be installed in the server where data services would be running(P.S IF you have BO Administrators with extended knowledge in Logon.ini, SAPRFCJCO.jar files you may not need to install the frontend , all you have to do is to deploy the requisite jar files in Business Objects WIN32 folder or windows x32 system folder).

It all starts with installing SAP data services XI 3.2 You may first would like to go through the prerequisites and also compatibility especially if you are using a newer version of database i.e. in this case SQL Server 2008.While the installation there is a step to install Tomcat 5.5 or use a already installed on. Though I am sure most of you would choose to click on using the existing Tomcat if you are doing an upgrade I would still insist to use the latest Tomcat which is with Data Services as this installation would include some jar files required for SQL Server 2008 driver which else to be downloaded from the Microsoft site and most of the time it would not work (Personal experience)

After installing or configuring the SAP data services the next step is to configure the BW system. In order to do that as I mentioned you need to the transports in BW system. You may find these transports in [Install Folder]\ BusinessObjects Data Services\Admin\R3_Functions\transport\ folder

The instructions are also added to the same folder.

After running the transports in SAP system, the next step is to create a user (system user) and Role in order to load and extract from/to BW system.

Create a service account user name BODI_CONN (You can give any name)

Create a role name DS_ROLE

In Authorization add the following

Add this role to the user BODI_CONN

Now Login to Data Services for further configuration

Add a new datastore

Choose Datastore as SAP BW Source. Add the username and password, click on advance

In the SAP menu add the following

ABAP Execution Option - Generate and Execute

Client Number - SAP BW client number

System Number - SAP BW system number

Data Transfer Method - Shared Directory

Now go back to the SAP BW system. Create a new folder. Name it “bodi”. Create a sub folder and name it “ds_development”. Share the folder “bodi” to the SAP DS system admin user. Log in back to the SAP Data Service machine and created a new Map Network Drive to the folder \\[SAP BW system]\bodi and name it “Z”. Create another new folder in Data Service Machine and “DS_SAPBW” and create a sub folder name it “ABAP_PROGRAM”.

Now come back to the Datastore configuration

Working Directory in SAP Server - \\[SAP System]\bodi\ds_development

Application Path to the shared directory - z:\ds_development

Generated ABAP Directory - [Root Folder]\DS_SAPBW\ABAP_PROGRAM.

Hit save and close

Now double click on the datastore and it would show you all the Nodes

Hope this would help you with your DS connectivity.

Next part we would talk about SFDC connectivity. Also we would talk about extracting SAP BPC data directly and connecting to BO universe. This way we could work on the dimensions and metrics created in SAP BPC and also it would allow us to create easy adhoc reports and even better Dashboards using Xcelsius.

Till then take care

-Arpan Baruah