Summary

This chapter examined Business Content, demonstrating how to activate and use it to load R/3 data. Business Content includes extensive objects, and its functionality continues to expand in every new BW release.

Key Terms

Term	Description
Logical system	A logical system is the name of a client in an SAP system.
Client	A client is a subset of data in an SAP system. Data shared by all clients are called client-independent data, as compared with client-dependent data. When logging on to an SAP system, a user needs to specify which client to use. Once in the system, the user has access to both client-dependent data and client-independent data.
DataSource	A DataSource is a structure in the source system that specifies the method for transferring data out of the source system. If the source system is R/3, replicating DataSources from a source system will create identical DataSource structures in the BW system.
IDoc	IDoc (Intermediate Document) is used in SAP to transfer data between two different systems. IDoc itself is a specific instance of a data structure called the IDoc Type. The IDoc Interface defines the IDoc Type processing logic.
Business Content	Business Content is a complete set of BW objects developed by SAP to support OLAP tasks. It contains roles, workbooks, queries, InfoCubes, key figures, characteristics, update rules, InfoSources, extractors for SAP R/3, and other mySAP solutions.

For Further Information

• Book: ALE, EDI & IDoc Technologies for SAP, by Arvind Nagpal, Robert Lyfareff(ed.), and Gareth M. de Bruyn (ed.). Prima Publishing, 1999. ISBN: 0761519033.

Next…

Besides the standard R/3 DataSources, Business Content provides a function called Generic Data Extraction. When necessary, we can use this function to create a new DataSource, as described in Chapter 11.