BI in a change management environment has its challenges in terms of dependency to other source system such as ERP and APO. Generally changes in ERP and APO or any feed system has impact to BI as BI depend on the source system for data. The changes in feed system can be driven by new business requirement(functional) or technical. Example of these are:
New CO-PA analysis object
This impact CO-PA extraction as the generic extractor for CO-PA cost based is value field specific thus any new one will require a new datasource to be generated and new initialization.
Realignment of CO-PA
CO-PA realignment is done in ERP side when there is a need to move SD related data in CO-PA from profit center A to profit center B. Any configuration that is done at operating concern level and create additional entries in table CE4XXXX will require reinitialization of COPA datasource at BI side. The date of reinit has to get business user's approval as when the new change in r/3 has to be reflected in BI.
Any ERP realignment from Project or enhancement CR or any activity on transaction KEND in Production system via firefighter ID will impact the COPA delta extraction in BI.
Scenario:
Finance
1) COPA datasource is used in F17 reports for data above gross margin and sales volume.
2) Realignment occured twice in Production server region A on 05.01.2011 and 09.12.11 to move SD related data in COPA from BAHEXP to MEBIXP profit center and ZAFIXP to BSAIXP profit center.
3) This resulted in the delta extraction from COPA datasource (1_CO_PA500AM01_1) in S+ to fail on 06.01.2011 and 24.12.2010 because the delta updates is no longer possible due to the data is inconsistent between the OLTP and BI. This is a known SAP scenario as stated in OSS Note 400576.
4) Realignment in ERP will require reinitialization and reload of BI COPA datasource. The date of reinitialization is also dependent on whether the changes done also affect the historical data.
* Please refer to attachment for evidence of delta update in BI fail due to realignment
Note 400576
KEB2 printscreen
Marketing
1) Marketing extracts billing data from ERP system region A on a daily basis and there is no data retrieved for end-market specific business rules since beginning of November 2010.
2) The interim solution from BI is to ask the end markets to enter the data via manual entry until the sales volume flow is switched to COPA from SD Billing.
COPA additional value field
Example would be VAT is calculated in COPA report in ERP system region A but not in BI report.To get the VAT amount, it needs to be captured separately into another value field for VAT.
Hence a new extractor for that particular controlling area need to be generated to capture the two new VAT value fields :-
VVU88 VAT on Bulk Discount
VVK89 VAT Amount
Material Classification characteristics
The attribute of material classification such as length and unit of measure has to be consistent across the r/3 instances so that the structure generated in development can be used in test,regression and production when it got imported to the other landscape during cutover. If not, the extraction from those material classification will fail.Eg: Material A UOM maintained in Regression server as GM but nothing in Development box.
APO datasources
APO datasources such as MALO and MALORE which had been modified at APO end needs to be replicated to BI and coordinated within Business Release calendar so that it won't impact the daily data load.
Market migration
Market migration to other regional ERP box has impact to the data BI is extracting as new business rules has to be defined in BI to pull data for the migrated markets from the other system.
Changes or standardization of master data
Decommission of any material characteristic or its value which is used in BI has impact to the master data in BI. Depending on the type of attribute it was modeled in the cube , either navigational or display, the effort can involve the reload of data and missing historical value.
Logical system name conversion
Changes to logical system name has to be straightly coordinated with the dependent system such as BI and EBI APO so that the datasource will point to the correct logical system and has the correct technical name. This is very important to be reflected in the rsyslogmap as well so that the mapping of logical system is done correctly for the DTP and DTP in the process chain when transports are imported over to Test, Regression and Production system.
Master data
Example is changes of area and zone for a business unit. This is triggered from the business and channeled to the MDM team. There is a need to bridge the MDM to BI Support as a downstream impact on the master data change will require alignment in the hierarchy and infoprovider master data.
