While I was working at the customer site for BPC NW 10.0 for implementing BPC authority configuratin, I found the 'BPC Mass User Management Tool' do not support modifying member's attribute function!

In order to reduce the workload at the Business Planning system online, I decided to enhance the tool.

In addition. in the code because of our private project's design  the attribute of the filter for DAP definition was set default value 'DATAACCESS', Please change it

according to your own requirement. if any BPC consultants need to use this tool,please refer to the following attachment and leave a comment.

It will be well-known that the source code I have modified was used for a customer,and it worked well with out any critical issue, Even though it works,it should

be used carefully after testing in your development environment.

Disclaimer:

                  1. This is not a code/program that SAP supports.

                  2. SAP will not support this code as a product. so it should be used as a custom code.

                  3. I am not responsible anything about this code as well as the result from this code.

We are planning to upgrade our EPM 10 system to EPM 10.1.  This means we will first have to upgrade  NW BW 7.3  SP008  to NW BW 7.4.  Does anyone have experience with these upgrades and, if so, please reply on how difficult these upgrades were?  I am trying to estimate an upgrade schedule.  Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks

dpbredsox

Good day Experts,

I have a Project that requires me to build several Dashboards for a project that would:

1. Connect to SAP BPC 10.0 NW get the TIME and Entity Dimension members for the Cluster (for which the dashboard was created)
2. Allow them to Select the Time and Entity members with which they would like to work
3. populate a Dynamic EPM Report in the background which drives the Excel calculations that present them the data.
4. Allow them to save the changes to BPC 10

I can produce a dashboard which does 1,2, and 4; however; no matter which method I try, I am unable to get 3 right.

When I run the Dashboard, the EPM Reports always presents me with the data of the intersection used when I created the EPM Report.

My dashboards are created using a Local Connection to the applicable SAP BW datasource

The system I am using is :

I have been following some blog entries of Camille Pieume on http://planning andconsolidation.wordpress.com/author/biconsult/ .

Article: Enhance your Dashboard (based on BPC Data) by using selectors and the “writeback-function” of the EPM Connector had helped with the Insert data aspect.

Article:Enhance the visualization of your data on a dashboard (based on BPC Data) by using the Hichert’s Success Rules for data visualization item 3 Steps to build your dashboard does not quite seem to work as described.

I have tried these methods to create a Dynamic EPM Report

1. As described by Camille Pieume
   1. Create a report with all dimensions except those with which I want to use as variables
   2. Create combo-boxes for the user to select Time and Entity dimension members
   3. Post selected Time and Entity members to space provided in Page axis of the EPM Report
   4. Set up an EPM Connection to use user-selected Time and Entity Dimension members as Dynamic Filters
2. A twist on Camilles Pieume's suggestion
   1. Create a report with all dimensions except those with which I want to use as variables
   2. Create combo-boxes for the user to select Time and Entity dimension members
   3. Set up an EPM Connection to use user-selected Time and Entity Dimension members as Dynamic Filters
3. Based on Xcelcius 2008
   1. Create a report with all dimensions except those with which I want to use as variables
   2. Create combo-boxes for the user to select Time and Entity dimension members
   3. Post selected Time and Entity members to space provided in Page axis of the EPM Report
   4. Set up an EPM Connection to NOT use user-selected Time and Entity Dimension members as Dynamic Filters

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

regards,

Marthinus Viljoen

Hi everyone,

Recently, I've been working with a customer which was still using BPC 7.5 SP09 and wanted some reasons on why he should update to the latest version.

I then compiled a list with the most important fixes and improvements from his version to the latest, I thought it would be interesting to share the list with you:

BPC 7.5 SP10
BPC NW 7.5 client supports Internet Explorer 9.0 (32 bit) browser as of SP10
Note 1630829: Performance improvement in journal reporting.
Note 1627477: Performance improvement in EvDRE suppression.
Note 1633885: Performance improvement when refreshing input schedule with EvCOM

BPC 7.5 SP11
Note 1659196: Improve the performance of read dimension hierarchy 
Note 1657665: Logon performance issue

BPC 7.5 SP12
Note 1681173: Provides a tool that checks for journal inconsistencies.
Note 1679541: Functional improvement for loading master data from a flat file and keeping the sequence of the source data.
Note 1667784: Performance improvement in copying an application set with a large volume of transaction data.

BPC 7.5 SP13
Note 1716074: Introduces ABAP program UJF_FILE_SERVICE_CLEAN_LOGS to allow end users to delete unwanted BPC NW File Service logs.
Note 1713306: Input Schedule performance improvement to avoid sending transaction data receiving no response issue.
Note 1712425: Input Schedule performance improvement in copy range to DataRange.
Note 1705733: BPC Excel Client performance improvement in opening Offline Reports or Offline Input Schedules in online mode.
Note 1682774: Performance improvement in Account Transformation function
Note 1714419: Performance improvement when reading BPC member formulas
Note 1706720: Compression of HTTP Response in EvDREs

BPC 7.5 SP14
Note 1752937: Introduces report UJA_BPC_BUFFER_SIZER_75 to provide recommendations on buffer size settings.
Note 1738455: A performance improvement in Currency Conversation.
Note 1704065: A performance improvement in Write Back function.
Note 1625011: A performance improvement in Allocation.
Note 1746588: Performance improvement when running A/T with multiple periods

BPC 7.5 SP15
Support for Windows 8, Internet Explorer 10 and Office 2010 32-bit
Note 1717192: Performance improvement in reading comment in batches
Note 1787673: Performance improvement in BPC AppSet transport by skipping BPC template validation with status D
Note 1800975: Performance improvement to read master data during query 
Note 1794636: Performance improvement in switching sheets in a report

BPC 7.5 SP16
Note 1815481: Add feature for cleaning BPC inconsistent files
Note 1831812: Avoid reading dimension hierarchy from BW to increase Consolidation performance
Note 1830044: Improve performance at updating work status
Note 1827496: Improve the client performance for huge EvDRE template
Note 1826721: Improve work status performance with huge dimension members
Note 1817861: EvGET performance improvement
Note 1845423: Improve the performance for sending data in EvDRE report

BPC 7.5 SP17
Office 2013 32-bit Support
Note 1842749: Performance improvement in running BPC legal consolidation package
Note 1842824: Performance improvement in BPC File Service log clean up tool
Note 1874034: Performance improvement in UJFS program
Note 1923984: Performance improvement for BPF member items validation
Note 1933910: Performance improvement for the scenario of application parameter CONSO_DELETE_DIRTY_DATA is set to "Y"
Note 1929430: Functional improvement for UJBR tool to support multi-packages when dealing with very large files

BPC 7.5 SP18 (Not yet released, ETA Dec 5th, 2014)
Internet Explorer 11 Support
Note 1992640: Improve performance at checking work status

Notice that most of the updates I listed were performance related, since that was a big selling point for this specific customer.

Regards,

Rodrigo Kayser de Castro

SAP Active Global Support

Column5 recently announced our new benchmarking service. Through this new service we will be conducting a series of research studies focused on Enterprise Performance Management.  Why conduct this research? One thing is clear when talking to customers about Enterprise Performance Management; everyone wants to know the same things. For example, how are others leveraging EPM solutions? What are the best practices? Is our performance on par with your other customers?  What is the appropriate ROI to be expected? The answer you get to any one of these questions depends on who you ask. And that is the challenge. There are no right answers to these questions, but there are insights to be gained from asking them. Today, there is no such forum for EPM practitioners to share information and learn from each other. Our goal with this new offering is to help companies do just that; gain a better understanding of how other companies are using and getting value out of their investments in Enterprise Performance Management so that they can make educated decisions on what EPM improvements will have the biggest impact. It is not about making blanket statements about what constitutes an ideal EPM process, but rather it is about providing the data points so that a company can decide what is best for them. Our research begins with to studies focused on BPC: • BPC Benchmarking Survey – Usage will concentrate on how companies are using BPC, what business processes is it used for, what functionality are they using, how BPC integrates with other solutions that can enhance the overall EPM process, how the application is maintained, how much it costs to maintain on a yearly basis, and more. This survey will also look to establish Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) benchmarks for BPC. • BPC Benchmarking Survey – Performance will focus on the performance of BPC, with an attention to reporting and data submission performance. Column5 will look to identify what the key contributors to good and bad performance are across the customer base, as well as to establish benchmarks for performance based on these factors. We will publish the results of these studies in a whitepaper made available to participating companies. We will also share insights from the research at the EPM Leadership Summit in Las Vegas.  To participate in the research study copy this link into your browser.  http://info.column5.com/bpc-benchmarking-survey

In SAP NetWeaver, like in any system, there are steps to follow for installation and configuration. To make it easier, SAP NetWeaver portal, has divided these steps into 3 main sections: Preparation prior installation, installation and post-installation.

These sections mentioned above apply to any version that is about to be installed. The specific folders, directories, command, ports, etc. may vary according to the version that needs to be installed and configured.  This approach makes total sense and guaranties not only a successful and smooth process but also the safety of the information.

If you are responsible to perform the installation/configuration process of SAP NetWeaver Portal, continue reading because you may find the following information helpful .

For preparation prior installation:

1. Check the windows firewall. Usually the firewall is turned ON by default and only allows specific inbound IP connections, on the contrary for the outbound connections that have no limits or restricted to specific rules. Disable the firewall on all windows host before installation.
2. Check basic windows configuration, such as: the windows file system using NTFS, the domain structure when performing domain installation, and ensure the windows server performance is set to high performance.
3. Verify that you have User Authorization for running SAPinst. The system administrator can grant the account all the necessary authorizations before begin. The authorization needed varies depending on if the installation is local or domain.
4. Prepare the Transport Host. First, define if you will use the default transport host directory or will create your own. Second, share the directory and set permission to FULL CONTROL for everyone to share the transport directory.
5. Prepare the installation media. There are 2 versions, a physical or a digital that can be download form the SAP services market place. Once you decide which version adjust better to your needs make sure to have a directory for the files.

For the Installation:

1. Make sure to have free space of 300MB for the installation and addition memory of 60 – 200 MBfor executable files.
2. SAPinst tool includes GUI for client and for server and both use JAVA. The system automatically designate ports of communication between SApinst, GUI Server, SAPinst GUI and HTTP servers, but if the default port are already in use the system will automatically look for other available ports, or you can set up specific ports.

After the installation:

1. Update database statistics.
2. Log on the application server. Make sure you can log on into the system after installation
3. Log on the SAP NetWeaver portal using admin ID and password.
4. Install the SAP license. Remember that the license key is bonded to the hardware key of the host where the message server is running.
5. Secure sockets layer protocol for database server communications (SSL) to guarantee encrypted data transfer between the database and its clients.
6. Ensure user security. A master password is assigned to all users during installation process unless you decide something different.

Hello all

This blog is to share my observations regarding EPM Excel Addin for SAP BPC NW BW. I will share my observations under several categories. I am not saying that they are valid in every scenario or project and it could be different in your case.  I also understand that all or most of the features can be achieved by some customization or work around. The intent is to have these features available out-of-the-box. I do not undermine the people involved in development of this product in any manner but respect them a lot.

EPM Ribbon(s) Layout:

• There are two different tabs provided. The EPM tab and the Data Manager tab. I may be lazy and find it annoying at times to switch between tabs when performing various activities. A single tab would have been better.
• Under EPM tab, Option --> User Options --> Display tab, following options should be sheet and user specific rather than being only user specific:
  • Navigation
    • Enable Double Click
    • Automatic Refresh on Context Changes
    • Refresh Charts Automatically
  • Context Bar and Pane
    • Display EPM Context Bar
    • Display EPM Pane
  • Display
    • Display Context inside EPM Pane : Some teams do not want to see context at all
    • Display Warning when Saving Data or Comment: Sometimes, we allow customization to allow user enter value at a member not at the base level. Let us say base level is month and we allow user to input at year level  and distribute at month level for faster data input. At the time of saving data, it throws error message which is logically correct but it would be great if it could be suppressed for a given template as users get worried on a failure message. The data gets saved at month level and only throws error for year bucket which is alright as on refresh the year value will be recalculated.
    • Display Warning when Process takes Time

EPM Report and Report Editor:

• Option to get headers(title) for the dimensions in the output
• Ability to allow variable as selection - say display current month -12 to current month + 12. I understand it can be managed using a property but then that property has to be updated every month. The variable capability should be out of the box.
• Ability to display data
  • as combinations of the members selected(which is the only way it performs today)
  • for the data available in the model only (only data loaded and/or saved - no extra combinations) - We can use "Remove Empty" and "Remove Zero and Empty" to achieve this currently however a better description would be good.
• When a value is derived using EPM formula, it should stay when the template is taken offline. If a user performs an action like filtering data, those cells change to "#Error, No connection found". Once in the output, it should stay even when offline
• Option to display hierarchy levels into separate columns rather than in the hierarchical format only. This will take less number of rows in the output
• SAP BPC’s comment functionality is great but if that is used, user will only see the comment after it has been refreshed. Plus, user has to click on button in the EPM tab if he wants to enter priority and keywords. These features should have been incorporated somehow in standard excel comment functionality. I understand that normal excel comment functionality can be used but it will be without priority.

EPM Formatting:

• The Changed Member formatting via EPM formatting works only when the template is online. In offline mode, when user changes a value, the cell color does not change I could not fathom a reason to not to provide this functionality in offline mode
• When locking is performed and password is to be provided, this locking locks the entire sheet. It should only lock the cells that qualify for that EPM formatting. I understand that the default nature of excel is to protect entire sheet and EPM is leveraging excel functionality for it features. At this point, this is a far-fetched wish and depends if Microsoft or SAP do something about it.
• The column auto-fit works only at the time of refresh if EPM sheet options are used. It should allow to activate it on cell input
• EPM formatting sheet should allow to edit the existing entries. If you have to make a change, you have to remove it and then enter a new one.

Connection Names:

• When using Single Sign-on, if you launch the EPM Excel Addin from BPC Web Client, the default connection names show up which is a string having Environment ID and Model ID concatenated. The Web Client or back end configuration must allow a feature to provide a custom connection name instead of system generated names. This will allow a central control of the connection names.

Data Manager:

• Ability to load data using selection options - Include/Exclude single value/ranges, wild card input etc.
• The only key-figure is a big challenge. The absolute account modeling for BPC is very rigid. The primary purpose of the tool is financial planning and reporting and account modeling disrespects some financial aspects. In many scenarios, we need price and cost. The single key-figure does not allow to control decimal places for different key-figure types - Quantity, Volume, Amount (though via EPM formatting, you can display as desired) plus the load behavior. The Data Manager Package (DMP) will aggregate the price if the number of characteristics in the source are more than in BPC model which is incorrect and there is no way to handle it in BPC. The second issue is when a BPC report or template displays months and years and the price aggregation happens again at year level which is incorrect.
• Conversion file and Transformation file should allow excel formula for mapping rather than java script. BPC system can convert it back as desired on validation. This will make them much powerful.
• Ability to perform selective deletion via DMP. Currently only Clear Package is available which only zeroes out the values and Lite Optimization/Zero Suppression cannot be performed selectively. This will be a welcome feature for BPC Admins.
  

Work Status:

• Equivalent of Data Slice in BW Integrated planning but not that flexible or effective. It should allow based on variables rather than member values which makes everything so hard coded.

EPM Addin does allow us to make up for most of these shortcomings using customization in BW and in excel using EPM formulae and VBA via provided APIs.

Purpose:

As BPC Admin, we need to switch a lot between Excel EPM Addin and Web Client for various administration tasks. To enhance the productivity and save some moments, I have worked out a BPC Admin Consol using some ABAP, VBA and BPC and developed an Excel based BPC Admin Consol.

Features:

You will get the BPC configuration and BPC tasks in the same workbook. No need to switch to Web client for Model details, secured dimension, dimension structure etc.

System Requirements:

BPC10.x on SAP NW

EPM Addin Version 10.0 SP15 or later

Excel 2007 or later

Configuration:

The workbook contains two sheets:

• BPC_ADMIN_CONSOL - For common BPC Tasks
• CONFIGURATION_DETAILS - For details regarding models and dimensions

There are three parts to the development.

1. ABAP - Function Modules to extract BPC configuration
2. VBA - Connecting and Extracting data from ABAP FMs and Formatting it
3. Excel - For Name ranges to use in drop-downs

The BPC ADMIN CONSOL looks like the following:Let us check out the CONFIGURATION_DETAILS sheet first. This is how it looks like:As you see, there will be four FMs for each of the table based on Environment ID:

• FM for Model List
• FM for Package List
• FM for Model Structure
• FM for Dimension Structure

You can definitely utilize your ABAP and VBA expertise to get more information but this is just the starting point to explain. All these FMs will be Remote-Enabled Modules. I would advise to create a separate package for these ABAP developments just to keep the work area separate.

Ensure that all FMs you create are Remote-Enabled as shown below:

Refer to FM Documentation.txt for the source code and import parameters along with output table structure.

Once these FMs are created, we will connect to EPM Excel Addin. Open up a new excel file and ensure that following references are maintained:

Some references might be extra but I added them to be on the safer side.

Create two sheets in the excel file and name them as "BPC ADMIN CONSOL" and "CONFIGURATION_DETAILS".

Press Alt+F11 and go to VBA editor. Insert the module and copy the code in the file "Module Code.txt" and copy the code in "Sheet Code.txt" in worksheet "BPC ADMIN CONSOL".

In your module code, replace "Your ID" with your BPC ID and "Your Password" with your BPC Password.

You have to do the following:

- Maintain system details in sheet "CONFIGURATION_DETAILS"

- Maintain BPC URL in sheet "BPC ADMIN CONSOL"

- Remove "Convert to formula" in cell B5 of the sheet "BPC ADMIN CONSOL"

- Use the cell references as show in the screenshots so that attached code works perfectly for you.

In CONFIGURATION_DETAILS sheets, add five button as show in the screenshot above and assign macros to them as follows:

Enter Environment ID and then click "Connect to BW" button. This will connect you to the backend BW system. Now click on each button and get the various lists.

Once these lists are populated, we will create name ranges to be used in the BPC ADMIN CONSOL sheet for dynamic dropdowns.

Here are the name ranges you should be creating:

Now we are ready for sheet "BPC ADMIN CONSOL"

You need to put "Data Validation" for following cells as follows:

Allow: List and Under Source copy the following for the cells defined:

You can now take drop down of the models and packages extracted in the sheet CONFIGURATION_DETAILS and it will dynamically select the team and allow you to run the package, open reports and input schedules corresponding to a given model.

Remember to save your file as .xlsm.

This can further be enhanced depending on your ABAP and VBA expertise. I understand it will be some work for you guys before you get it working but I hope it will be a useful tool for you in your BPC projects.

Enjoy!

In some cases, you may need to run some additional logics(e.g. Account Calcuation) after running consolidation from conolidation monitor. However, you find the monitor status is reset.

Luckily, there is a new enhancement delivered. That is the keyword *TIMESTAMPin script logic. With this keyword, system will not write time info to table UJP_STAMP_ENT if you set it off. As a result, the monitor status will not be bothered.

Example code:

*TIMESTAMP OFF

*RUN_PROGRAM CALC_ACCOUNT

CATEGORY = %CATEGORY_SET%

GROUP = %SCOPE_SET%

TID_RA = %TIME_SET%

CALC = CALC_POSTACQ

// OTHER = {ENTITY = %ENTITY_SET%}

*ENDRUN_PROGRAM

To have this enhancement, you need to apply these two note. The note would be already contained in your system if your BPC version is higher than the valid info I listed below.

2041662 - New keyword Timestamp takes no effect for account transformation

Valid for

CPMBPC 800 SP11- 800 SP14,

CPMBPC 801 SP04- 800 SP07,

CPMBPC 810 SP00 - 810 SP03

2018102 - New keyword Timestamp is introduced in logic script

Valid for

CPMBPC 800 SP11- 800 SP13,

CPMBPC 801 SP04- 801 SP06,

CPMBPC 810 SP00 - 810 SP02

Best regards,

Charlie

SAP Business Planning and Consolidation functional and admin personnel generally have some issues while communicating with Basis support problems related to the BPC-NW transports operation. Missing configuration and incorrect assumptions play a major role on common errors experienced.

Here are some critical checkpoints based on years of experience fixing BPC-NW transport issues.
Just one heads-up, this is related to versions 10 and 10.1 architecture only. In case you need information on BPC7.5 transports, we can review that on a different thread.

1. Regarding system setup, the important things are:

a) RFC connection:

• The BPC RFC is not used– the RFC used by BPC Service operations.
• The BW RFC (for after import) is the only one used in the transport operation: you can check the connection name used under table RSADMINA, field TPBWMANDTRFC.
• The value for TPBWMANDTRFC must be an existing RFC/ABAP connection under t-code SM59. The connection must point to the BW client and the target host should be the server itself.
• One can test the authorization and connection by using the menu "Utilities", "Test", "Authorization Test" in the RFC configuration screen.

b) Authorizations:

• The BW RFC needs three different authorizations: profiles S_BI-WHM_RFC and S_BI-WX_RFC; and the role SAP_BPC_SERVICE. (Refer to SAP Note 1727052).
• Remember: users in Netweaver are client specific. If RFC points to client 001, the user assigned must exist and have the authorizations assigned under client 001.

2. System changes and Transports:

• Client configuration (T-code SCC4): the change options/settings over there DO NOT affect the IMPORT of transport request.
• System Change - Namespaces/Components (T-code SE06): these settings DO NOT affect the IMPORT of transport requests.
• Those settings may affect the COLLECTION and EXPORT of transport requests. Why? Because it won't involve the same type of remote function calls during the import process in SAP NW. Different methods, different results.

3. Reading the logs:

The rule of thumb for a first assessment at transport logs

1. Expand/Ask for ALL the transport request log contents.

2. Look for these clues in the logs:

Does it have only a UJT_TLOGO_AFTER_IMPORT call and an error? Nothing else.

• CAUSE: Probably configuration.
• ACTIONS: Check in the log the RFC name used and the client where the import is taking place. Check the configuration of the RFC, such as client, target host. Check authorizations for the user assigned to the RFC. Look for the status of profiles assigned under t-code PFCG.

Does it have information such as "Begin Import...", "Created (something)...", "Imported Entity/File...", BUT at some point it failed and you DON'T see data checker calls?

• CAUSE: configuration is fine; importing is working partially. Probably something related to authorization or data activation (the log should say which one).
• ACTIONS: you can check/run further traces on authorization (SU53 or ST01) against the BW RFC user. Gather more details on the SLG1 logs to know if it is not something related to object inconsistency during activation. *Remember some imports, such as Model Parameters, will trigger a lot of ‘extra’ checks for its activation in the target system. If you plan it bad, a lot can go wrong.

Does it have a DATA CHECKER entry/information near the end of the log?

• CAUSE: configuration is fine; import is working; HOWEVER mandatory data checker in the environment is throwing warnings or errors. The transport is actually running fine. It is just data checker.
• ACTION: after the transport, verify the environment contents you have tried to import and then run another Data Checker report. The clues to fix this will be in the output of the report. Remember transport is ‘granular’ in BPC 10.X, which means that something expected in the target system during validation might be missing. Classic example: script logic fails to validate due to missing dimension/members information.

4. The ‘Good to Know’ stuff:

• Tables involved in the export process:

  • Collecting objects - UJT_GUID, E070, and E071 (the last two are standard Netweaver tables. To be precise, several E07* tables are involved, but these are the more important ones).
  • Releasing 'Task Request' - UJT_GUID, E070.
  • Releasing 'Customizing Request' - UJT_TRANS_OBJECT, UJT_TRANS_FILE.

• Relevant tables for the import process: UJT_TRANS_OBJECT and UJT_TRANS_FILE.

• If an import fails, one can revert the shadow table (UJT_TRANS*) object status for a specific request through report ‘UJT_AFTER_FAIL_PROCESS’ – but handle it with care.

• If you don’t have a test system in a transport ready landscape, you can create a Virtual Target System to test exports.

• Want to test imports but don’t have a transport landscape? You can create a transport of copies to manually simulate transports imports by copying the COFILE (header) and DATA file to another system (with the same component and SP levels).

• If you are looking for a quick checklist for BPC transport configuration: SAP Note 2081345 has all details.

• If you are looking for a checklist of common configuration and installation issues in BPC-NW: SAP Note 2069510 has more details.

• Transaction codes:

  • SE01: check transports using a request number.

  • SE09/SE10: check a transport based on request status or user information.

  • STMS: overview of a transport system. Check routes, transport queue, add systems, imports, etc.

  • SOBJ: system objects. Find the matching function modules for export and import of any specific TLOGO.

  • SM59: ABAP connections (a.k.a. RFCs).ST01: trace authorization (and other stuff).

  • SU53: authorization checks buffer.

  • PFCG: Profiles maintenance in Netweaver. Find if an authorization profile is generated, active, has authorization objects assigned.

5. Last but not least:

Remember: any solution applied to fix a failed transport import/export procedure must be feasible in a Productive system. Manually cleaning objects in the target system before an import start is not an optimal solution – not at all.  You can’t delete data from Production in order to properly transport objects and you cannot compromise or put in risk transaction or master data.

Today many clients require process chains to load data to BPC rather than go and manually run Data Manager Packages every time. BPC provides us the functionality to load data to BPC through BW Process Chains as well. Please follow the below steps to achieve it.

BPC Package Link Creation steps -

1. Go to the Data Manager tab and click on Organize->Organize Package Link List.
2. Right click and choose “Add Package Link” and enter Name and Description of your Package Link.
3. Click on “Add task” and select BPC Packages you want to run. You want select multiple packages, for example- load master data and then load master data hierarchies. Click OK.
4. Click on packages you selected and then set the prompt of each package by clicking on “Set Prompt”.
5. After setting Prompt of each package, Click on Save. It will generate a DMS ID. You can also refer the correct DMS ID by your name or get it in BW tables UJD_LINK.

BW Process Chain Steps –

1. Create a BW Process Chan and insert an ABAP Program in the process chain.
2. Create a Variant for the ABAP Program you have inserted.
3. Give “Program Name” as UJD_TEST_PACKAGE_LINK and create click on Edit for “Program Variant”.
4. Create a new Variant and provide the correct DMS ID which you got while creating Package Link.
5. Save your ABAP Program.
6. Complete your Process Chain, activate and schedule it according to your requirement.

Enjoy!! Hope this will be helpful.

Regards,

Meenu Bansal

While I was working at the customer site for BPC NW 10.0 for implementing BPC authority configuratin, I found the 'BPC Mass User Management Tool' do not support modifying member's attribute function!

In order to reduce the workload at the Business Planning system online, I decided to enhance the tool.

In addition. in the code because of our private project's design  the attribute of the filter for DAP definition was set default value 'DATAACCESS', Please change it

according to your own requirement. if any BPC consultants need to use this tool,please refer to the following attachment and leave a comment.

It will be well-known that the source code I have modified was used for a customer,and it worked well with out any critical issue, Even though it works,it should

be used carefully after testing in your development environment.

Disclaimer:

                  1. This is not a code/program that SAP supports.

                  2. SAP will not support this code as a product. so it should be used as a custom code.

                  3. I am not responsible anything about this code as well as the result from this code.

As you know, BPC Service User is very important because some tasks are done by BPC Service User instead of BPC User you logged on. For example, when you process dimension, there will be a job created by BPC Service User. If SAP_BPC_SERVICE role is not assigned to BPC service, you may encounter errors.

You want to know which user is your BPC Service User. Normally, people often use BPC_SERVICE as the BPC Service User. However, the BPC user name may be different depends on what user you created.

Now, let's see how to find our which user is your BPC Service User.

1. Execute transaction code SPRO.
2. Click SAP Reference IMG->Expand Planning and Consolidation.
3. Click Execute button next to Set Global Parameters.
4. Find field name RFC_DESTINATION and remember the value of this parameter. (If this parameter is not maintained, you need to maintain it by following the BPC installation guide.)
5. Execute transaction code SM59.
6. Expand ABAP Connections folder.
7. Double-click the connection with the same name in step 4.
8. Open tab Logon&Security.
9. The user maintained here is the BPC service user.

By the way, to trouble shoot the BPC issue, after step 7, I suggest you perform Connection Test and Automation Test by going menu Utilities->Test.

We had an issue with BPC NW 740 SP09 and CPMBPC 810 (SP03,SP04),CPMBPC 801SP05 recently, runtime errors CALL_FUNCTION_REMOTE_ERROR& DYNPRO_SEND_IN_BACKGROUND occurs when creating BPC model through BPC web client. This was confirmed as a bug and a pilot BW note 2122634 was released.

You can contact BW-WHM-DBA-ICUB and ask for a pilot release of note 2122634.

Keyword: UJN_API_CREATE_CUBE, SAPLUJN_API_BI_IOBJ
                                                

Business Scenario

Management may have to do Audit on the data coming from / loaded into different applications. In this blog post i will share some of my experience how we did that.

Here we are pushing  the FI/CO Actual data from BW Info cubes (Finance, Controlling, Internal Orders,ECCS - Consolidation & Cost Center Accounting) into BPC relevant models which are defined by the Business.

This is to confirm the data we are pushing from BW to BPC is right and so that we can explain to the Internal Audit team if something goes wrong at the data perspective any point of time.AsActual data plays an important role in the BPC side (Budgeting, Forecasting &Planning)  and to do various EPM reports in comparing against Actual vs forecast vs plan vs budgeting its a good practice to have a control report to make sure the input data from BW is always right when entering into BPC.

Environment

BW - 7.31 SP 09

CPMBPC - 801 SP 08

BOBJ - 4.0

Assumptions

• BW Info Cubes are  identified which relates to the respective BPC Models
• Data strategy has been defined how to handle the actual data i.e Data Transformations,Logic & Conversions.
• Data Manager packages are created based on the Data Strategy and been loaded into BPC models.
• Business Objects - Crystal Report is required
• BW Process chain is running per the schedule
• BPC Data Manager Packages are scheduled to run adhoc.
• Crystal reports to be scheduled after the DM packages successful completion of their load into the BPC Models.

Below is the design and functional flow of the BW - BPC Control report.

The example below is taken for One Finance Cube from BW and relevant BPC Model .

Tasks

• BEx query  should be created with  rows/columns and Key figures on top of the BW Info Cube.
• Bex Query on BW Info Cube should have the global filter , filtered to "Actual"
• BEx query on top of the  BPC - Model which is /CPMB/*** Cube at the BW backend level should be created with the similar query structure of the BW InfoCube Bex query with the difference of Signed data and KF respectively.
• Bex Query on BPC should have the global filter , filtered to "Actual"
• The Dimensions and Info objects in both queries should be the same ie the info objects which feeds the actual data to the Dimensions in BPC.
• Create a Crystal report out of these two Bex to show only the difference ,when there is a mismatch between the signed data and KF with respective to the Dimensions and Info objects in both the queries. This is the reason we should have exactly the same structure in both the queries so that each dimension from BPC Model query will be linked to the Info objects in the  BW infocube query.
• Create a Alert in the Crystal report and include the email id's and schedule it .
• Crystal report should be scheduled after the DM packages schedule. May be there should be a specific schedule window when the DM's will run on the BPC side.
• When there is a difference the Crystal report will send email to the list included in your Alert setup

These kind of reports can be developed to compare and reconcile for Dollars amounts , Tons, SKF's which is pushed from BW to BPC Environment....

Hope this gave a brief overview of how to do Control reports/Audit reports between BW and BPC.

In a similar approach we did and automated the control reports for ECC vs BW for all of the SAP ECC/BW business areas which are playing an important role in Enterprise Analytics part of an Organization.

P.S : This option may not be useful if the full optimize is done quite frequently as the base cube will get restructured and the query redo would be needed.

I believe most of you encountered error Failed to upload file from source when trying to restore a backup file with Foreground mode in UJBR, and note 1660238 has made this very clear.

In addition, I want to share another workaround that may make the restore work with Foreground mode.

1. Shut Down SAP Logon.
2. Open SAP GUI again and then run UJBR only.
3. Restore with Foreground mode.

This workaround may works if the backup file is not very large(e.g. 200~300 MB), otherwise you need to use Background mode.

Actually, We had an issue when uploading MSP file of EPM add-in in backend and the root cause was same (Note 2120974). The point is both the program use SAP Gui_Upload method, which is not intended for transferring large volumes of data (Note 872457).

I hope it helps.

Best regards,
Chuan

Before note 2116991, program UJA_REFRESH_DIM_CACHE can only refresh cache tables, not rebuilding. If cache tables is corrupted or missing, you may need to delete and rebuild them through ABAP backend.(See internal note 2008285)

Now, UJA_REFRESH_DIM_CACHE can rebuild the cache tables by implementing 2116991.(BPC 10.X)

Best regards,
Chuan

In BPC 10.0, if you are using a proxy server, you may probably encounter error HTTP 417 Expectation Failed. For example, when opening an excel link from BPF through BPC web client.

An workaround that add the BPC URL into the exceptions of proxy server has been introduced in note 1507053. However, the workaround is not applicable if the customer must use proxy server for BPC URL. Here I want to introduce another way to work around the error.

Simply, HTTP 417 Expectation Failed occurs because the proxy server does not accept the Expect: 100-continue request in the header and return HTTP 417 code. We can disable Expect: 100-continue in the request by the following way:

Add the following code to FPMXLClient.dll.config.(Path: AppData\Local\Programs\SAP BusinessObjects\EPM Add-In)
<system.net>
   <settings>
      <servicePointManager expect100Continue="false" />
   </settings>
</system.net>

Of course, you can also make the proxy server accept Expect: 100-continue request, but this topic is out of BPC scope.

Best regards,
Chuan

Hi All,

In BPC NW10.1, a new functionality "Unified Model"(From SP03, name changes to "Embedded Model") is introduced. I did a lot of research but find limitied documents about the usage/best practice of this functionality.

I have created a Unified Model and display the data in EPM Add-in by accessing a query successfully.  This blog is to share my example with you.

It includes following instructions:

1. Change BPC10.1 system in PACK mode.

2. Create Unified Model in PACK mode BPC environment.

3. Create a query in Bex query designer.

4. Display the data of the query in EPM add-in.

https://video.support.sap.com/OnPremise/EPM/EPM PLANNING AND CONSOLIDATION NW/2133199.mp4

Other questions you may have:

What is "Unified Model"? Why we need to use it?

--> Please refer to EPM blog:

http://scn.sap.com/community/epm/blog/2014/03/20/sap-business-planning-and-consolidation-101-nw-faqs

The detail functionality introduction.

--> Please refer to the EPM blog:

http://scn.sap.com/community/data-warehousing/business-planning/blog/2013/12/23/unifying-bpc-nw-and-bw-ip

The name space change for "Unified Model" to "Embedded Model" from BPC NW10.1 SP03.

-->KBA:2117885.

Any question or advice/correction about my video is warmly welcomed.

Best Regards,

Arjen

Hi All,

I have created simple video to show you how to use SAP Dashboard and EPM add-in to display BPC transaction data in flash file.

The video includes following:

1. How to create local connection in EPM add-in.
2. How to create EPM add-in report in SAP Dashboard.
3. How to create flash file in SAP Dashboard and use it to show BPC transaction data.

https://service.sap.com/sap/bc/bsp/spn/esa_redirect/index.htm?gotocourse=X&courseid=70277337

Best regards,

Peter