The exercise of how to load master data in SAP BI has always been a hectic exercise to many people. This piece of work involves many computer operations and a complex decision making process that requires you to be on your toes. It is an exercise that may leave you an frustrated person especially if you miss some point somewhere as it requires you to stick to the procedure from the beginning to the end. It has, for some time, been a task for the computer savvy and the data geeks who have enough skills and experience to maneuver through the computer.
However, if you want to share some of this knowledge here is a chance for you to get some. Here is how to load master data in SAP BI
Step 1: Define Source System
The first thing to do is to define a source system. This is the system from where you are planning to load data. To select this system, you go to “context menu” and you right click the system sources tab. You then click “create”. In case of you are using flat file system, you select “file system” i.e. manual metadata or data through file interface.
When you are done here, you will get results explaining that you have created a source system. This message will flash on your screen; at the bottom.
Stage 2: Create Application Component
In this stage, you will be required to define the particular component you want to load data to. This component is referred to as the Info Source. Here is how you go about it. From the InfoSource tree, select “root”. After this step go on to “context menu” and right click this tab. You will get “create application component”. Select this option. After this step you get a message appearing on your screen informing you that you have successfully created application component.
Stage 3: InfoSource- Source System Assignment
In this level, you assign the source system to InfoSource. Here you go to the InfoSource tree and select “your application component” then select “one of your InfoSources”. You then right click “context menu”. Finally you assign the source system.
At this point, the program shifts you directly to another platform; transfer structure maintenance. This system will produce the DataSources for all the three types of data. You can load any of the three types of data, namely:
- Attributes
- Texts
- Hierarchies
This system will also generate transfer rules, transfer structure and communication structure.
Stage 4: Maintenance of Transfer Rules and Transfer Structure
Here you choose between the DataSource to which you will load texts or which you will load attributes. A proposal for data source, transfer rules, communication structure and data structure is automatically generated.
The structure that your flat file should contain is displayed by the proposal in the case of attributes. This also happens in the case of texts. You are however supposed to ensure that you observe the sequence provided in the proposal. This is because the column sequence in transfer structure must be similar to that in flat file. When you observe this, you can go on to activate the transfer rules, transfer structure and communication structure.
This exercise might seem difficult on paper because it is a practical activity. By transferring this procedure to your computer, you will learn that it is quite simple and easy. At this point you will have achieved your objective of how to load master data in SAP BI.