Earlier in this chapter, you learned about ODBO and its SAP BW implementation limitations. To overcome such limitations, SAP has enhanced its ODBO interface in BW 2.0. One such enhancement is the ability to call ABAP routines and to have access to query variables. The exact details are still sketchy on how the ODBO interface could be used to access ODS in SAP BW 2.0. The ODS tables in SAP BW are not multidimensional. They are simple, flat tables. How ODBO MDX implementation can be used to interact with tabular data is still being worked out.
The SAP ODBO BAPI is similar to the MDX Query language. Each set of BAPIs represents ODBO specifications with one exception: the schema, as shown in Figure 15-11.
Figure 15-11: SAP BW ODBO BAPIs.
One can develop OLAP applications using BAPI programming in RFC SDK. These BAPIs prefixed with the OLAP_API_ name have several function calls. The following lists some of the function modules in SAP BW 2.0A:
OLAP_API_BROWSE_CATALOGS
OLAP_API_BROWSE_CUBES
OLAP_API_BROWSE_DIMENSIONS
OLAP_API_BROWSE_HIERARCHIES
OLAP_API_BROWSE_LEVELS
OLAP_API_BROWSE_MEASURES
OLAP_API_BROWSE_MEMBERS
OLAP_API_BROWSE_PROPERTIES
OLAP_API_BROWSE_VARIABLES
OLAP_API_CREATE_COMMAND
OLAP_API_DELETE_COMMAND
OLAP_API_EXECUTE_COMMAND
OLAP_API_FS_GET_DATA
OLAP_API_GET_AXIS_DATA
OLAP_API_GET_AXIS_INFO
OLAP_API_GET_BAPIRETURN
OLAP_API_GET_CELL_DATA
OLAP_API_GET_DATASOURCEINFO
OLAP_API_GET_ERROR_MESSAGES
OLAP_API_GET_MESSAGE_HELP
OLAP_API_GET_NAMETAB
OLAP_API_GET_SELECT
OLAP_API_RESOLVE_NAMES
OLAP_API_SET_COMMAND_TEXT
A few vendors have implemented their OLAP applications using this OLAP API instead of using BAPIs. inSight from arcplan is implemented by using OLAP API to build powerful analytical solutions.
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