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Using SQL Server PowerPivot for Excel to Analyze SAP
Data
SQL Server Technical Article
Authors:Scott Cameron, Chunhui Zhu, Denny Lee
Technical Reviewers:John Hancock, Lindsey Allen, Hermann
Daeubler, Juergen Thomas,
Kasper de Jonge
Vendors: The authors wish to thank the vendors who assisted us
with this project: Simplement,
ERP-Link, Theobald, and Simba.
Published:January 2011
Applies to:SQL Server PowerPivot for Excel
Summary:This paper provides instructions and guidance on how to
implement six scenarios
where PowerPivot for Excel is used to extract data from SAP or
SAP BW.
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Copyright
The information contained in this document represents the
current view of Microsoft Corporation
on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because
Microsoft must respond to
changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a
commitment on the part of
Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any
information presented after thedate of publication.
This white paper is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT
MAKES NO WARRANTIES,
EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS
DOCUMENT.
Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the
responsibility of the user. Without limiting the
rights under copyright, no part of this document may be
reproduced, stored in, or introduced into
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means
(electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose,
without the express written
permission of Microsoft Corporation.
Microsoft may have patents, patent applications, trademarks,
copyrights, or other intellectual
property rights covering subject matter in this document. Except
as expressly provided in any
written license agreement from Microsoft, the furnishing of this
document does not give you any
license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other
intellectual property.
Unless otherwise noted, the example companies, organizations,
products, domain names, e-
mail addresses, logos, people, places, and events depicted
herein are fictitious, and no
association with any real company, organization, product, domain
name, e-mail address, logo,
person, place, or event is intended or should be inferred.
2010 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Microsoft, Active Directory, Excel, Internet Explorer,
PerformancePoint, PowerPivot, SharePoint,
SQL Server, Windows, and Windows Server are trademarks of the
Microsoft group of
companies.
All other trademarks are property of their respective
owners.
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Contents
Introduction
..................................................................................................................................................
4
Importing data into PowerPivot via an Excel PivotTable connected
to SAP BW............................. 5
Importing data into PowerPivot via SQL Server Reporting Services
connected to SAP BW....... 11
Importing data into PowerPivot from a text file generated using
SAP BW Open Hub Service.... 16
Importing data into PowerPivot from an Analysis Services cube
connected to SAP BW created
using ERP-Link iNet.BI
............................................................................................................................
19
Importing data into PowerPivot using Theobald Xtract PPV
connected to SAP BW..................... 24
Importing data into PowerPivot using Simplement Data Liberator
connected to SAP ERP......... 28
Conclusion
.................................................................................................................................................
30
Appendix
....................................................................................................................................................
32
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IntroductionSAP is one of the most widely deployed and capable
ERP systems. Because SAP is the central
nervous system for many organizations, accessing the data that
is captured and lives in SAP is
essential to effectively managing the business. As with many ERP
systems, it can sometimes
be challenging to get data out of SAP applications because those
are optimized for transacting
and capturing data. SAP has a number of BI tools, but very few
of the tools allow end users towork directly with the data in a
familiar environment like Microsoft Excel and easily integrate
other non-SAP data sources.
PowerPivot for Excel 2010 and PowerPivot for SharePoint enable
SAP business users to
engage in managed self-service business intelligence. This
includes empowering more
information workers to integrate and analyze SAP and non-SAP
data so that the cycle of
analysis can be accelerated. Managed self-service BI means that
business analysts can now,
independent of the IT departments help:
Integrate data from multiple sources.
Analyze large datasets and get fast query response. Perform data
transformations and complex calculations.
Create and share insightful and compelling reports and data
visualizations.
With PowerPivot, analysts can extract data from SAP or SAP BW
and integrate and enhance it
with data from text files, Excel files, Microsoft SQL Server
Reporting Services reports, ATOM
data feeds, or data from many other OLE DB and ODBC sources.
Because PowerPivot enables
analysis within Excel of large datasets (tens to hundreds of
millions of rows) by using an in-
memory BI engine that takes advantage of column-based
compression, analysts can extract
large amounts of data from SAP or other sources. Even with such
large datasets, analysts will
still get fast response times as they manipulate and query data.
PowerPivot includes Data
Analysis Expressions (DAX), which enables users to use Excel
formula-like expressions to
transform data and create complex calculations. The data
modeling capabilities of PowerPivot
enable users to join data from multiple sources. Because
PowerPivot is an Excel add-in,
information workers can use Excel PivotTables, PivotCharts, and
other data analysis and
visualization tools in Excel to perform even more sophisticated
analysis on very large datasets.
You can learn more about the capabilities of PowerPivot at
thePowerPivotwebsite
(www.powerpivot.com).
This paper reviews six scenarios where PowerPivot is used to
analyze SAP ERP or SAP BW
data:
Importing data into PowerPivot via an Excel PivotTable connected
to SAP BW
Importing data into PowerPivot via SQL Server Reporting Services
connected to SAP
BW
Importing data into PowerPivot from a text file generated using
SAP BW Open Hub
Service
Importing data into PowerPivot from a SQL Server Analysis
Services cube connected to
SAP BW created using ERP-Link iNet.BI
http://www.powerpivot.com/http://www.powerpivot.com/http://www.powerpivot.com/http://www.powerpivot.com/
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Importing data into PowerPivot using Xtract PPV connected to SAP
BW
Importing data into PowerPivot using Simplement Data Liberator
connected to SAP ERP
The goal of this paper is not to advocate for one scenario over
another, but rather to provide
guidance on how to implement the scenario and list some of the
possible pitfalls to help you
avoid them. The first two scenarios, importing data into
PowerPivot from a Reporting Servicesreport and from an Excel
PivotTable, are not the most efficient way to move data from
SAP
ERP/BW to PowerPivot. These scenarios are examples of
self-service BI where a business user
combines data from already existing reports. The other scenarios
represent a mix of IT-
supported BI and self-service BI. In these scenarios IT creates
infrastructure that provides
access to SAP ERP or SAP BW data and then business users load,
transform, integrate, and
analyze the data.
We do not discuss aspects of licensing, certification or support
with or by SAP of the different
approaches shown in this paper. The paper focuses only on the
technical aspects of different
solutions that SAP, Microsoft and some third-party applications
offer.
Importing data into PowerPivot via an Excel PivotTable connected
to
SAP BWMany organizations that have SAP use Excel PivotTables to
analyze data stored in SAP BW. In
this scenario, PowerPivot is used to extract data from these
Excel PivotTables. This section
explains how to connect an Excel PivotTable to SAP BW and then
how to connect PowerPivot
to an Excel PivotTable as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1:Extracting SAP BW data into PowerPivot via Excel
PivotTable
Excel connects to SAP BW using the SAP BW OLE DB Provider that
can be installed when
SAP Business Explorer (a component of the SAP Front End GUI) is
installed. In order to
connect to SAP BW, the SAP BW OLE DB Provider uses information
that has been entered in
the SAP Logon GUI. Therefore, in order to connect an Excel
PivotTable to SAP BW, an entry for
the SAP BW system to which you want to connect must exist in the
SAP Logon GUI. For more
information about connecting Excel PivotTables to SAP BW,
including how to connect using
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Secure Network Communications (SNC), seeConnecting to SAP
NetWeaver BI with Microsoft
Excel 2007 PivotTables and ODBO.
After you have configured a system entry in the SAP Logon GUI,
you can follow these steps to
create an Excel PivotTable using SAP BW data:
1. In Excel, click the Datatab, and then in the Get External
Datagroup, click From Other
Sourcesand From Data Connection Wizard.
2. On the Welcome to the Data Connection Wizardpage, click
Other/Advancedand
then click Next.
3. In the Data Link Propertiesdialog box, on the Providertab,
click SAP BW OLE DB
Provider, and then click Next.
4. In the Data Link Propertiesdialog box, on the
Connectiontab:
a. In the Data Sourcebox enter the name of SAP BW system that
you want to
access. The name that you enter here must match one of the
values in the
Description column of the list on the Systems tab in the SAP
Logon application.
b. Ensure that the Use a Specific User Name and Passwordcheck
box isselected.
c. Clear the Blank Passwordcheck box, and ensure that the Allow
Saving
Passwordcheck box is selected.
d. Enter the user name and password that you use to connect to
SAP BW.
e. Click the Alltab. Click Extended Properties, and then click
Edit Value. In the
Property Valuebox enter SFC_CLIENT=, replacing
with the 3-digit SAP client number that you use to connect to
SAP BW as shown
in Figure 2. Click OK.
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/b0693319-2562-2b10-f9b9-c4bbafce7276?QuickLink=index&overridelayout=truehttp://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/b0693319-2562-2b10-f9b9-c4bbafce7276?QuickLink=index&overridelayout=truehttp://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/b0693319-2562-2b10-f9b9-c4bbafce7276?QuickLink=index&overridelayout=truehttp://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/b0693319-2562-2b10-f9b9-c4bbafce7276?QuickLink=index&overridelayout=truehttp://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/b0693319-2562-2b10-f9b9-c4bbafce7276?QuickLink=index&overridelayout=true
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Figure 2:Data Link extended properties
f. Click the Connectiontab and then from the Enter the Initial
Catalog to Uselist,
select $INFOCUBE. The Data Link Propertiesdialog box should look
similar to
Figure 3. Click OK.
Figure 3:Data Link Properties dialog box configured to connect
to SAP BW
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5. In the Data Connection Wizard, on the Select Database and
Tablepage, select an
InfoCube, and then click Next.
6. On the Save Data Connection File and Finishpage:
a. Enter values in the File Name and Friendly Nameboxes.
b. Click Save password in file. A warning will appear because
the password will
be stored unencrypted in an ODC (Office Data Connection) file.
ClickYes.Saving the password in the ODC file will prevent you from
having to repeatedly
enter the password as you manipulate a PivotTable. You can avoid
this issue by
connecting to SAP BW using Secure Network Communications
(SNC).
c. Click Always Attempt to Use this File to Refresh Data, and
then click Finish.
7. In the Import Datadialog box, click OK.
Note: These steps result in the creation of an ODC file that you
can now use to connect to
SAP BW. If you want to create another PivotTable, instead of
following the previous steps,
on the Datatab in the Get External Datagroup, click Existing
Connections. In the
Existing Connectionsdialog box, click the connection that you
just created, click Open,
and then in the Import Datadialog box click OK.
You now have an Excel PivotTable in which SAP BW key figures and
characteristics have
become PivotTable fields. Because you are going to extract data
from this PivotTable into
PowerPivot, it is best to add characteristics as row labels and
key figures as column values to
the PivotTable.
After you have added the characteristics and key figures, you
will need to further modify your
PivotTable prior to extracting the data into PowerPivot. By
default, the PivotTable displays totals
and subtotals, indents nested row labels in a single column, and
doesnt repeat row labels , as
shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4:Default PivotTable
PowerPivot extracts the data from the PivotTable exactly as it
appears. Before you extract the
data from the PivotTable into PowerPivot, you will need to
flatten the data , so it can be
imported by PowerPivot like any other tabular data form, by
following these steps:
1. In Excel, on the PivotTable Tools Designtab in the
Layoutgroup from the Subtotals
list, click Do Not Show Subtotals.
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2. In the Layoutgroup, from the Grand Totalslist, click Off for
Rows and Columns.
3. In the Layoutgroup, from the Report Layoutlist, click Show in
Tabular Formand then
click Repeat All Item Labels. You will now have a flattened
PivotTable asshown in
Figure 5.
Figure 5:Flattened PivotTable
You can now use these steps to extract data from an Excel
PivotTable into PowerPivot:
1. Save and close the Excel file that contains the PivotTable
using SAP BW data.
2. Open a new Excel file and on the PowerPivottab click
PowerPivot Window.3. In the PowerPivot window, on the Hometab, in
the Get External Datagroup, click From
Other Sources.
4. In the Table Import Wizard, click Excel File(see Figure 6)
and then click Next.
Figure 6:Importing data from an Excel file
5. On the Connect to a Microsoft Excel Filepage, click Browse,
navigate to and select
the Excel file with a PivotTable containing SAP BW data, and
then click Open.
6. Click Use first row as column headers, and then click
Next.
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7. On the Select Tables and Viewspage, select the worksheet that
contains the
PivotTable, and then click Finish.
The SAP BW data contained in the PivotTable is extracted into a
PowerPivot table.
CommentsIn this scenario you should be aware of the
following:
It is important to understand that getting SAP BW data into
PowerPivot is a two-step
process. First, data from SAP BW is read into an Excel
PivotTable. Second, data is
extracted from the Excel PivotTable into PowerPivot. In order to
refresh the SAP BW
data in PowerPivot, you must refresh both the Excel PivotTable
and PowerPivot.
At the time of this white papers publication, the SAP BW OLE DB
Provider is a 32-bit
data provider. When you install the SAP Front End GUI on a
computer with a 64-bit
version of Windows, the option to install the SAP BW OLE DB
Provider will not be
available. So you can only create and refresh an Excel
PivotTable based on SAP BWdata on a computer that is running a
32-bit version of Windows and a 32-bit version of
Excel 2010. This means that you will not be able to use
Microsoft SharePoint 2010,
which only comes in a 64-bit version, to schedule data refreshes
of the PivotTable that
contains SAP BW data.
There is a limit on the number of records that you can load into
PowerPivot in this
scenario because an Excel worksheet cannot contain more than
1,048,576 rows.
You cannot extract data from SAP BW directly into PowerPivot.
PowerPivot expects data
to be presented as rows and columns and the SAP BW OLE DB
Provider is an OLE DB
for OLAP provider that doesnt present data in this format.
PowerPivot provides two methods for reading data from Excel:
o In the PowerPivot Window you can use the Table Import Wizard
to import data
from an Excel file.
o In Excel, on the PowerPivottab in the Excel Datagroup, you can
use the
Create Linked Tablebutton to link Excel data directly to a
PowerPivot table.
However, this method will not work in this scenario because you
cannot link a
PowerPivot table to an Excel PivotTable.
Unless you install the Desktop Experience feature in Windows
Server 2008 or WindowsServer 2008 R2, PowerPivot for SharePoint is
unable to refresh its data from an Excel
file (or a text file) stored in a SharePoint library because
there is a dependency on the
WebClient service, which is installed as part of the Desktop
Experience feature. Many
server administrators may be reluctant to install the Desktop
Experience because it
increases the attack surface of the server and increases the
number of software updates
that will have to be applied to the server.
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Importing data into PowerPivot via SQL Server Reporting
Services
connected to SAP BWMany organizations have taken advantage of
the ability of SQL Server Reporting Services to
connect to SAP BW to create a Reporting Services enterprise
reporting solution that includes
reports based on SAP BW data. Business analysts who wanted to
enhance or further analyze
the SAP BW data contained in a report have had to export the
Reporting Services report to
Excel or manually copy the data. Now, users are able to extract
data from SQL Server 2008 R2
Reporting Services reports directly into PowerPivot. This
section shows how to create a
Reporting Services report that consumes SAP BW data and then how
to extract data from a
Reporting Services report into PowerPivot as shown in Figure
7.
Figure 7:Extracting SAP BW data into PowerPivot via Reporting
Services report
SQL Server Reporting Services connects to SAP BW using the
Microsoft .NET Data Provider
1.1 for SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence, which is installed
when you install SQL Server
2008 R2 server or SQL Server 2008 R2 client tools. The Microsoft
.NET Data Provider 1.1 for
SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence is certified with SAP. By
default you will be able to
access data contained in SAP BW InfoCubes, but if you want to
build a report using data from a
QueryCube, you will first need to use the SAP Business Explorer
Query Designer to allow
external access. For more information about how to enable
external access to QueryCubes and
additional information about how to build Reporting Services
reports using SAP BW data, see
the MSDN articleUsing SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services with
SAP NetWeaver Business
Intelligence.
After you have created a Reporting Services report containing
SAP BW data, you can extractthe data from that report into
PowerPivot. A new feature of SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting
Services is that reports are ATOM data feed providers. Because
PowerPivot can consume data
feeds, it can extract data from a Reporting Services report.
There are three basic procedures you must follow to create a
Reporting Services report using
SAP BW data. The first procedure is to create a report and
configure a data source. The second
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc974473.aspxhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc974473.aspxhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc974473.aspxhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc974473.aspxhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc974473.aspxhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc974473.aspx
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procedure is to create a dataset. The third procedure is to
design and publish the report. You
can create and configure a data source by following these
steps:
1. In Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS), create a
Report Server project.
2. In BIDS Solution Explorer, right-click the Reports folder,
click Add, click New Item, and
then add a new report to the project.3. In the Report Data pane,
right-click the Data Sources folder and then click Add Data
Sourceas shown in Figure 8.
a. If you do not see the Report Data pane, click the report
design pane, and then on
the Viewmenu, click Report Data.
Figure 8:Adding a data source to a report
4. In the Data Source Propertiesdialog box, click Embedded
Connection, and then from
the Typelist, click SAP Netweaver BI as shown in Figure 9. Next,
click Edit.
Figure 9:Selecting the Microsoft .NET Data Provider 1.1 for SAP
NetWeaver BusinessIntelligence data provider
5. In the Connection Propertiesdialog box:
a. Enter an XMLA Service URL of the
formhttp://[domain:port]/sap/bw/xml/soap/xmla.
b. Use Windows integrated authentication or click Use Basic
Authentication, enter
a user name and password, and then click Save My Password.
c. Enter a SAP Client number and language.
d. From the Select or Enter a Catalog Namelist, select a
specific QueryCube or
select $INFOCUBE, and then in the query designer, select a
specific InfoCube.
Figure 10 shows an example of the Reporting Services connection
string editor,
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which has been configured to connect to SAP BW. It also shows an
example of
how to add SAP property values to the XMLA Service URL.
Figure 10:SSRS Connection string editor configured to connect to
SAP BW in the ConnectionPropertiesdialog box
6. Click OK.
Now that you have created a Reporting Services data source that
connects to SAP BW, you can
create a data set, design the report, and publish the report.
Whether you are creating a report
using SAP BW data, Analysis Services data, or another source
that uses XMLA, the procedure
will be identical. This is an outline of the steps you need to
follow:
1. Create a dataset using the data source you just created. In
the query designer select a
QueryCube or InfoCube and then drag key figures and
characteristics onto the data
pane as shown in Figure 11. Click OKtwice to close the dataset
designer.
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Figure 11:Adding key figures and characteristics to a dataset
query
2. Design the report by dragging a table (or other report item)
from the toolbox to the
design pane and then drag fields from the dataset onto the
table.3. Publish your report to Report Manager or SharePoint.
To publish a report to Report Manager, follow the steps inHow
to: Set Deployment Properties
(Reporting Services)and. To publish a report to SharePoint,
follow the steps inHow to: Publish
a Report to a SharePoint Library.
After your report has been published, you are ready to extract
the SAP BW data from the
Reporting Services report into PowerPivot. In PowerPivot you can
do this by entering the URL
of the report or by specifying the path to a service document
(.atomsvc) that references the
reportsATOM data feed. These options are explained inImport Data
from a Reporting Services
Report.You can also start in Reporting Services and export data
to PowerPivot as explained in
these steps:
1. In Microsoft Internet Explorer, browse to the Report Manager
or SharePoint folder that
contains your Reporting Services report and select the
report.
2. On the report toolbar, click the Export to data feedbutton,
shown in Figure 12.
Figure 12:Export to Data Feed button
3. In the File Downloaddialog box, click Open. Excel starts and
the PowerPivot Table
Import Wizard opens. As shown in Figure 13, the Data Feed
Urlproperty is populated
with a reference to the Reporting Services report data feed.
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Figure 13:PowerPivot Table Import Wizard referencing a Reporting
Services data feed
4. Click Nextto preview the data and apply filters. Click
Finish.
PowerPivot will import the SAP BW data that was contained in the
Reporting Services report.
CommentsIn this scenario you should be aware of the
following:
PowerPivot extracts the dataset used to create each report item,
not the rendering of the
data. For example, if you choose to export a bar chart, the
dataset used to create the bar
chart is exported, not the image of the bar chart. Each dataset
is extracted into a
separate PowerPivot table.
If a report has multiple report items, you will be able to
choose to extract the data from
all items or a subset of the report items. The data from each
item is extracted into aseparate table in PowerPivot.
When you extract data from a parameterized Reporting Services
report, you can select
parameter values as part of the export process. By creating a
report with multiple
parameters, you can enable a very flexible way to export data
from SAP BW.
The ability to export data from a report as an ATOM data feed
was introduced in SQL
Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services. You can export data from
reports created using
Business Intelligence Development Studio or Report Builder 2.0
or 3.0, but you cannot
export data from a report model directly into PowerPivot.
Preliminary performance testing indicates this method does not
scale well. Because
Reporting Services and ATOM feeds are not meant for unloading
large amounts of data,
we do not recommend using this method to extract more than
500,000 transactional
records, which may take more than 1 hour to complete.
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Importing data into PowerPivot from a text file generated using
SAP
BW Open Hub ServiceSAP BW OLAP service has a built-in limit and
will not return a dataset that contains more than
one million rows. You can overcome this limitation by using SAP
BW Open Hub Service, which
enables the export of large data volumes from SAP BW into text
files, relational databases, and
third-party ETL tools. For example, in our testing we exported a
file containing over 1.2 million
rows and 59 fields containing over 43.7 million data values
using SAP Open Hub. This section
assumes that an SAP administrator has already exported data from
SAP BW into a text file
using SAP BW Open Hub Service. It shows how to import that text
file into PowerPivot.
1. In Excel, on the PowerPivot tab, click PowerPivot Window.
2. In the PowerPivot Window, on the Hometab in the Get External
Datagroup, click From
Text.
3. In the Table Import Wizard:
a. In the Column separatorlist select the character in your file
that is used to
delimit columns.b. Select Advanced, select the appropriate
values in Encoding andLocaleas
shown in Figure 14, and then click OK.
i. Setting the column separator and encoding before setting the
file path
improves the likelihood that the data in your file will appear
correctly in the
preview pane.
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Figure 14:Connect to Flat File Advanced Settings
c. Click Browse, navigate to the location where you saved the
text file you exported
using SAP Open Hub, select the text file, and then click
Open.
i. If your file does not appear in the Open filedialog box,
select the files
extension from the list in the lower right corner.
d. If your file contains columns that you do not want to extract
into PowerPivot, clear
the check box in the column header.
e. Click Finish. After the data has been successfully imported,
click Close.
4. The data now appears in the PowerPivot window. You can rename
columns by right-
clicking a column header and selecting Rename. On the Hometab,
in the Formatting
group you can set values in Data Typeand Format.
CommentsBecause SAP BW data is staged in atext file in this
scenario, all of the limitations common to
importing data from a text file apply:
When the SAP Open Hub exports SAP BW data into a CSV file, the
metadata (or
schema) is saved in a separate file (with file name starting
with S_) instead of being the
header in the CSV. After you import the data into PowerPivot,
you will need to manually
rename the columns, or extract the field name information from
the metadata file to form
a header line and then merge it into the main CSV file.
PowerPivot assigns data types
based on the values in the first several rows of the file, but
it might not always assign the
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correct data type. For example, dates with the format YYYYMMDD
or text fields that
contain only digits are imported as integers. You can modify
column data types in the
PowerPivot window.
You can provide metadata for a text file by placing a schema.ini
file in the same folder. In
a schema.ini file you can specify the column delimiter (by
default PowerPivot onlyrecognizes tab stops, semicolons, spaces,
colons, and vertical bars [|] as column
delimiters), datetime format, each columns name and data type,
and other metadata.
The appendix contains an example of a schema.ini file. For more
information about the
use of these files, see the MSDN articleSchema.ini File (Text
File Driver).
Text fields in a text file may contain characters that make it
difficult to import the file. In
our testing there were fields in the text file that contained
the null character, irregular
characters, carriage return/line feeds, the character specified
as the column delimiter,
and quotation marks (").
A single record that contained a carriage return/line feed is
imported as two records
each with fewer than the correct number of columns. A record
with text fields that
contained the character specified as the column delimiter, in
our case the vertical bar (|),
is imported with more than the correct number of columns. In our
test data, every
recognized column delimiter (tab, semicolon, space, colon, and
vertical bar) appeared
somewhere in a text field. In this case we could not switch to a
different column
delimiter. Instead, we had to enclose text fields in quotation
marks ("). However, we also
had text fields that contained quotation marks, so we first had
to replace single instances
of a quotation mark (") with two quotation marks ("") and then
enclose each text field in
quote marks. We also found that enclosing text fields in
quotation marks enabled
PowerPivot to more successfully import irregular characters.
PowerPivot only imports files with .txt, .csv, or .tab
extensions. If your file has a different
extension, you will have to rename it.
If you do not use a schema.ini file to specify a date field that
only contains digits of the
form YYYYMMDD, you cannot change the data type to datein
PowerPivot. Instead, you
can use a Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) expression similar to
this to create a column
with a datedata type:
=Date(Left('TableName'[ColumnName],4),Mid('TableName'[ColumnNa
me],5,2),Right('TableName'[ColumnName],2))
Depending on each individual IT departments SAP BW Open Hub
table access policy,
you may be able to consider using Open Hub to extract data into
Open Hub tables; then
you can use PowerPivot to access SAP BWs underlying DB layer and
import the data
from Open Hub tables.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms709353(VS.85).aspxhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms709353(VS.85).aspxhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms709353(VS.85).aspxhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms709353(VS.85).aspx
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Importing data into PowerPivot from an Analysis Services
cube
connected to SAP BW created using ERP-Link
iNet.BIERP-Link(www.erp-link.com) is a third-party provider of
SAP-Microsoft interoperability
solutions. One component of their iNet Business Optimization
Platform is iNet.BI, which
provides a .NET data provider, three SQL Server Integration
Services (SSIS) data flow sources,
and an application that creates SQL Server Analysis Services
(SSAS) cubes. Figure 15
illustrates this architecture. In this scenario we used the
iNet.BI iNet Data Source View Creator
to create an Analysis Services relational OLAP (ROLAP) cube and
then connected PowerPivot
to this cube. Note that in this scenario you must have access to
an Analysis Services server and
sufficient permissions to deploy or modify objects on that
server.
Figure 15:ERP-Link iNet.BI architecture (MOSS/WSS is Microsoft
SharePoint Server/WindowsSharePoint Server and BAPI is SAP Business
Application Programming Interface.)
After you install the iNet.BI software, you will need to
configure a connection pool that will
contain the information the iNet.BI data provider will use to
connect to SAP or SAP BW. You will
only need to go through these steps once for each SAP or SAP BW
data source.
1. On your Windows desktop, click Start, point to All Programs,
point to the iNetServerprogram group, and then click
Administration.
2. From the Connection Poollist select an unconfigured
connection pool.
3. In Description, type a short description to help you identify
this connection pool.
4. In the Destination Stringbox enter ASHOST=
SYSNR=where is replaced by the SAP
application server name or IP address and is replaced by the
SAP
system number.
http://www.erp-link.com/http://www.erp-link.com/http://www.erp-link.com/
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5. Under Connection mode, click the mode you want the data
provider to use to connect
to SAP or SAP BW. In our testing we used Shared &
anonymous.
6. Under SAP Credentials, enter the 3-digit SAP client number,
user name, password, and
two-character language code.
7. Click Access Ctrl. In the Access Controldialog box, add any
users or groups that will
access this connection pool. Click OK.8. Click Validate. If you
are able to successfully connect to SAP, you will see a
Validation
succeeded message at the bottom of the window. Otherwise,
correct any errors and
then click Validateagain.
9. In the upper left of the window, click Activate. The
Connection Server Console should
look similar to Figure 16.
Figure 16:Connection Server Console
10. Click Save.
11. Under Remote connection service management, click Restart.
After the connection
service restarts, click Exit.
Now that you have configured a connection string to your SAP BW
server, you can create an
Analysis Services ROLAP cube using the iNet Data Source View
Creator. First, connect to SAP
BW:
1. On the Windows desktop, double-click the iNet Data Source
View Creator shortcut.
2. In iNet Data Source View Creator, click the Connection Pool
String ellipsis button ().
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3. In the Establish iNet Connector Session to SAP Systemdialog
box connector list,
click Use Local Connectorif the iNet.Connector service is
running on the local
computer, or click Use Remote Connectorif the iNet.Connector
service is running on a
different computer. If you selected a remote computer, enter the
remote machine name
(or IP address). Click Connect.
4. From the Select Poollist, select the connection pool that you
created. Click OK.5. Click the Connectbutton, which appears just to
the right of the connection pool string as
shown in Figure 17.
Figure 17:Connect Data Source View Creator to SAP BW
iNet Data Source View Creator connects to SAP BW, retrieves the
metadata, and then displays
a list of SAP BW objects in the Reports, Queries, and Cubesbox.
If you have a large number
of objects in SAP BW, it may take a few moments for the list of
objects to appear.
The next step is to specify the Analysis Services server where
the ROLAP cube will be
deployed:
1. In the DB Server Namebox, enter the name or IP address of
your Analysis Services
server, and then click Connect.
2. In the DB Database, DB Data Source, and DB Data Source
Viewlists enter the names
of a new database, data source, and data source view.
a. iNet Data Source View Creator creates a new Analysis Services
database
containing a data source configured to connect to SAP BW using
the values
specified in Connection Pool Stringand a data source view that
contains notables.
3. In the Reports, Queries, and Cubesbox, select the SAP BW
object that contains the
data you want to import into PowerPivot, and then click
Apply.
4. Under the Reports, Queries, and Cubes to Importbox, click
Import.
a. iNet Data Source View Creator creates tables and
relationships in the data
source view and, and then it creates a ROLAP cube and
dimensions. Figure 18
shows the list of tables that are added to a data source view
when the
$0FIAP_C03 InfoCube is imported into Analysis Services.
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Figure 18:Importing an InfoCube into Analysis Services
Before you query the cube you will need to process it:
1. Start SQL Server Management Studio, connect to the Analysis
Services server, expandthe Databases folder, right-click the new
database, and then click Process.
2. In the Process Database dialog box, click OK. When processing
is complete, click
Close.
You can now query the cube. Because the dimensions and cube use
ROLAP storage, all
queries are passed through to SAP BW where a result set is
generated and passed back
through Analysis Services to the application that submitted the
query to Analysis Services.
Now that you have used iNet Data Source View Creator to create
an Analysis Services cube
that connects to SAP BW, you can use the standard procedure for
extracting data from an
Analysis Services cube into PowerPivot:
1. In Excel, on the PowerPivottab, click PowerPivot Window.
2. In the PowerPivot window, on the Hometab, in the Get External
Datagroup, click From
Database, and then click FromAnalysis Services or
PowerPivot.
3. In the Table Import Wizard, enter the name of your Analysis
Services server and select
the name of the database you created using iNet Data Source View
Creator. Click Next.
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4. On the Specify a MDX Querypage, click Design. In the Query
Designer add attributes
and measures to the design pane and then click OK.
a. In the Query Designer you may want to clear the
Auto-Executecheck box so
that a query is not executed every time you add a measure or
attribute to the
design pane.
5. Click Finish.
PowerPivot submits an MDX query to Analysis Services. Analysis
Services then queries SAP
BW and returns the data to PowerPivot, where it is loaded into a
PowerPivot table.
CommentsIn this scenario you should be aware of the
following:
You must have sufficient permissions to deploy objects to an
Analysis Services server.
In the iNet Data Source View Creator you can specify a new or
existing database. If you
specify a new database, iNet Data Source View Creator deploys a
new database to the
server and so you must be a member of the Analysis Services
Server Administrator role.If you specify an existing database, iNet
Data Source View Creator deploys a new
Analysis Services data source, data source view, and cube
objects, so you must be a
member of a database role that has Full control (Administrator)
permission.
Installing iNet.BI involves some manual steps, including:
o Creating a folder in the file system and copying files into
the folder.
o Creating a desktop shortcut to the iNet Data Source View
Creator executable.
o Running a utility to install files into the Global Assembly
Cache (GAC).
o Manually adding configuration information about the ERP-Link
SAP data provider
to the DbProviderFactories section of the .NET framework
machine.config file.
o Modifying the iNet Data Source View Creator and Administrator
Console
shortcuts or executables so that they execute with administrator
privileges.
In the PowerPivot window, you may want to rename the columns.
When PowerPivot
imports data from Analysis Services it names each column by
concatenating the
dimension, hierarchy, and level name for dimension data, and it
adds Measures to the
beginning of each measure name. All of this can result in long,
unwieldy column names.
PowerPivot imports Analysis Services measures as text. You will
need to change each
column containing measure data to a numeric data type.
iNet Data Source View Creator creates a cube and dimensions that
use ROLAP storage
mode. In this mode, data is not loaded into the Analysis
Services database and all
queries to the Analysis Services cube are passed through to SAP
ERP or SAP BW. You
should be aware that when users refresh PowerPivot data their
queries may impact SAP
performance. You can modify the Analysis Services database so
that the cube and
dimensions use multidimensional OLAP (MOLAP) storage mode. In
this mode you will
need to process the database, at which time data is extracted
from SAP ERP or SAP
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BW and stored in the Analysis Services database. Then when users
refresh PowerPivot,
Analysis Services responds to the query using data in its own
storage and does not pass
the query through to SAP ERP or SAP BW.
The cube that you create with iNet Data Source View Creator can
be queried by any
application capable of querying an Analysis Services cube, such
as Reporting Services,PerformancePoint Services, and Excel
PivotTables.
In this scenario we used iNet.BI to connect to a SAP BW
InfoCube. This scenario also
supports connections to SAP ECC query and report objects, BAPIs
and RFCs, table
views, and SAP BW ODS queries and QueryCubes. We did not test
any of these other
extraction methods.
You can increase the scalability of your solution by using
revolving connection pools and
interval loading of dimensions. After you configure revolving
connection pools, the ERP-
Link SAP data provider will be able to leverage multiple SAP
sessions. Intervaldimension loading enables Analysis Services to
execute a sequence of queries in which
each query retrieves a range of data from SAP. You can learn how
to implement
revolving connection poolshereand interval loadinghere.Please
note that we did not
have an opportunity to test either of these scalability methods
recommended by ERP-
Link.
Importing data into PowerPivot using Theobald Xtract PPV
connected
to SAP BWTheobald Software(www.theobald-software.com) is a
third-party vendor of SAP integration
software. Their products include Xtract PPV, software that
extracts data from SAP ERP and
SAP BW into PowerPivot. Xtract PPV has two components: Xtract
PPV Server, which extracts
data from SAP ERP and SAP BW and provides it as a data feed to
PowerPivot, and Xtract PPV
Designer, which is used to configure connections to SAP ERP and
SAP BW and to design data
extracts. Figure 19 shows the Xtract PPV architecture. In this
scenario we used Xtract PPV to
extract data from a SAP BW InfoCube and load it into
PowerPivot.
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Figure 19:Xtract PPV architecture
After you have installed Xtract PPV you can create a Shared
Connection that contains the
information Xtract PPV needs to connect to SAP BW.
1. Start Xtract PPV Designer, and then on the Maintab click
Connect.
2. On the Servertab in the Administrationgroup, click Shared
Connections.
3. In the Shared Connectionsdialog box, click Add.
4. In the Connections Detailsdialog box enter:
a. A name for the connection.
b. A 3-digit SAP client number.
c. A username and password.
d. A host name or IP address for your SAP BW server.
e. An SAP system number. The Connection Detailsdialog box
appears, displaying
values similar to Figure 20:
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Figure 20: Connection Details dialog box
5. Click OK.
Now that you have created a shared connection, you can create a
SAP BW cube extraction that
defines the data feed that is consumed when you load
PowerPivot.
1. In Xtract PPV Designer, on the Maintab, in the Designgroup,
click Newand then click
BW Cube / Query.
2. In the Add Extractiondialog box, enter a name and then click
OK.
3. In the Xtract Connection Managerdialog box, make sure that
the shared connection
you just created appears in the Shared Connectionlist, and then
click OK.
4. In the Xtract BW Cubedialog box, click the binocular button
(it has an icon that lookslike a pair of binoculars). In the Look
Up Cubedialog box, click the binocular button.
Xtract PPV retrieves a list of all the InfoCubes from SAP
BW.
5. Select an InfoCube, and then click OK.
6. In the Xtract BW Cubedialog box, right-click the key figures
and characteristics that you
want to add to the data extract, and then click Select For
Output. The Xtract BW Cube
dialog box should look similar to Figure 21. Click OK.
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Figure 21:Xtract BW Cube dialog box
You are now ready to extract data from SAP BW into
PowerPivot:
1. In Xtract PPV designer select the extract that you just
created, and then on the Maintab
in the Executegroup, click Run.
2. In the Run Extractiondialog box, click Run in PowerPivot.
Excel starts, the
PowerPivot Window opens, and the Table Import Wizard starts,
automatically displaying
the location of an ATOM service document in the Data Feed
Urlbox, as shown in Figure
22.
Figure 22: Table Import Wizard with Data feed URL
3. Click Next, and then click Finish.
4. After the import operation succeeds, click Close.
CommentsIn this scenario you should be aware of the
following:
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If you install Xtract for PowerPivot on a 64-bit version of
Windows, you will need to
download a 64-bit version of librfc32.dll and copy it to the
Windows\System32 folder.
The 64-bit version of librfc32.dll is available from the SAP
Service Marketplace.
Xtract for PowerPivot can also extract data from SAP queries,
BAPIs and RFCs, SAP
BW hierarchies, Open Hub Service, DeltaQ, and ABAP reports.
Dates are imported as text, so you will want to change them to
datedata type in the
PowerPivot window. In the PowerPivot window you may also want to
modify the columns
so that they have friendly names.
You can load data into PowerPivot from multiple extracts in a
single step. Create
multiple extracts and then enter the Xtract PPV repository URL
(for example,
http://localhost:8088) in your Internet browser. After
PowerPivot starts, each extract
appears as a separate table on the Select Tables and Viewspage
of the Table Import
Wizard. You can find the port for the Xtract PPV repository in
the ListenerPortbox inthe Server Settingsdialog box, which is
accessible from the Servertab in Xtract PPV
Designer.
When a shared connection is used in the data feed, all users
importing the feed connect
to SAP using the SAP credentials defined in the connection. You
can define a different
connection for each feed. Feed security can also be configured
to pass the credentials of
the user to SAP instead of using a central connection; in this
case, SAP treats the data
the same way as it treats data that the user works with through
the SAP GUI. If you
choose this option, you have to supply the SAP credentials to
the feed URL.
Feeds can be protected by assigning Active Directory or built in
Xtract for PowerPivot
users or groups to a specific feed.
Importing data into PowerPivot using Simplement Data
Liberator
connected to SAP ERPSimplement(www.simplement.us) is a
third-party provider of a near real-time business
intelligence solution that makes SAP ERP data available in SQL
Server 2008. Their solution
enables replication of a subset of the tables in the SAP ERP
database and then replicates that
data into a datamart where the data is transformed and exposed
in a set of views that provide auser-friendly format. After the
data is in SQL Server 2008, it can be easily extracted into
PowerPivot or accessed by other Microsoft BI components. Figure
23 shows the Simplement
Data Liberator architecture.
http://www.simplement.us/http://www.simplement.us/http://www.simplement.us/
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Figure 23:Simplement Data Liberator architecture
Simplement implements their solution by providing a virtual
machine or appliance that has all of
the Data Liberator components preinstalled. Then they execute
scripts to enable replication on
the SAP ERP database. After the software is installed and
enabled, SAP ERP data is replicatedinto a SQL Server database. So
in this scenario we just needed to extract data from SQL Server
into PowerPivot by following these steps:
1. In Excel, in the PowerPivot window, in the Get External
Datagroup, click From
Databaseand then click from SQL Server.
2. In the Table Import Wizard, enter the server name or IP
address and the database name
of the SQL Server database that contains the replicated and
transformed SAP data, and
then click Next.
3. Select the option to import data from a list of table and
views and then click Next.
4. Select the views that you want to extract data from, preview
and apply row or column
filters, and then click Finishto begin extracting data into
PowerPivot. When the data has
been successfully imported, click Close.
Now that your SAP BW data has been extracted from SQL Server and
loaded into PowerPivot,
you can join it to data in other PowerPivot tables and analyze
it in PivotTables and PivotCharts.
CommentsIn this scenario you should be aware of the
following:
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Simplement can enable replication of SAP ERP data stored in
Oracle, IBM DB2, and
SQL Server.
Simplement replicates both SAP ERP data and security. Any
changes made to SAP
security will be automatically applied to the SQL Server
datamart.
Simplement replicates data from the SAP ERP database. It does
not provide (nor does it
require) access to data stored in SAP BW ODS tables or
InfoCubes.
The Simplement solution does not access SAP ERP data using the
standard SAP APIs.
It requires that replication be enabled on the SAP transaction
database. Consult your
SAP administrators in advance for approval.
The Simplement solution is a pure BI solution. They do not offer
document management
or business process components.
ConclusionPowerPivot enables SAP business users to engage in
managed self-service business
intelligence. This includes empowering more information workers
to integrate and analyze SAP
and non-SAP data so that the cycle of analysis can be
accelerated. By leveraging a familiar
Excel environment, nonspecialists can now, independent of the IT
departments help:
Integrate data from multiple sources.
Analyze large datasets and get fast query response.
Perform data transformations and complex calculations.
Create and share insightful and compelling reports and data
visualizations.
This paper demonstrates six technical scenarios where SAP data
is extracted into PowerPivot
for Excel. Using tools provided by Microsoft and SAP, analysts
can load SAP data from Excel
PivotTables, Reporting Services reports, or from text files
exported from SAP BW Open Hub
Services into PowerPivot. They can also take advantage of
solutions provided by third-party
vendors like Theobald Software, Simplement, and ERP-Link to
connect PowerPivot to SAP
data. Using these methods, business analysts finally have the
power at their fingertips to quickly
find the answers to the unique questions that can provide
critical differentiation and competitive
advantage.
For more information:
http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/:SQL Server Web site
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/:SQL Server
TechCenter
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/:SQL Server
DevCenter
http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/
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Appendix
Schema.ini FileYou can provide meta-data for a text file by
placing a Schema.ini file in the same folder. An
example of two text files and the Schema.ini file that contains
their metadata follows:
TestData.txt
1~2.50~20101130~Test 1
3~4.25~20101231~Test 2
TestData2.txt
1~20101130~TestData2 A
3~20101231~TestData2 B
Schema.ini
[TestData.txt]
Format=Delimited(~)
ColNameHeader=False
DateTimeFormat=yyyymmdd
Col1="Integer 1" Integer
Col2="Currency 2" Currency
Col3="Date 3" Date
Col4="Text 4" Text
[TestData2.txt]
Format=Delimited(~)
ColNameHeader=False
DateTimeFormat=yyyymmdd
Col1="Integer 1" Integer
Col2="Date 2" Date
Col3="Text 3" Text