If you've got SAP NetWeaver 2004s, and you use ccBPM in SAP NetWeaver Exchange Infrastructure or SAP Business Workflow, then it's time to get to know your BI colleagues! Beginning with SAP NetWeaver 2004s, BI includes content for workflow data.
If you are a workflow person, you'll need to get with your BI person. This blog has just enough information to get you interested! If you give this a try, please reply to this blog, or write about your experiences so we can share with each other. We need a detailed how-to guide on this, but that probably won't come until next year.
You need to know that I am not a BI person. I've taken a couple of classes, I even wrote a class a few years ago for BW security, but I don't know many details about extraction and loading of data, and I'm certainly not a query expert. However, if you know just a few basics, you can see the value of workflow log data in BI.
First, let's take a look look at the content provided by SAP. You can see the content by going to transaction code RSA1 and selecting Business Content. Then drill into the content as the following graphic depicts.
If you're not familiar with the icons in BI, this icon represents an ODS object. ODS objects are used to store data with lots of detail, transaction type data. So it makes sense that we have ODS objects for work item data.
The cube icon represents an InfoCube. InfoCubes are used for more aggregated
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data.
The other icon you see is an InfoSet. The InfoSet is AWESOME because it combines the workflow data with the org management data. To use this InfoSet you must first load 0EMPLOYEE, which has all the basic HR data you need. So, out of the box, SAP provides BI objects for you to store your workflow data, including HR data for the workflow.
However, you need more than just the data storage area for the workflow data. In the following graphic you see a good overview of everything SAP provides.
The DataSource enables you to easily link to your XI or ERP system. The PSA, transfer rules, InfoSource and Update Rules provide the mechanisms to import the data, and apply correct rules to update the actual data storage locations. You can see there's even a basic query provided.
What does this mean? This means you need to become best friends with your BI person! They can help you get the content activated, and walk you through loading the data. Actually, if you play your cards right, perhaps they will do all this for you!
Once the data is loaded, you can start to use SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer and create some cool queries. At Sapphire this year we showed these queries from the workflow BI data. They both just have the number of processes.
Hopefully you can see that you can start to create some really cool queries on your workflow processes. Workflow log data in SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence provides a critical tool on monitoring the performance of your processes -- seeing how the processes compare with your KPI's and monitoring your process performance!
Ginger Gatling is a SAP NetWeaver Product Manager
This content is reposted from the SAP Developer Network.
Copyright 2006, SAP Developer Network
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This was first published in November 2006