What frustrates you when using the "Administrator Word Bench"? (RSA1)

[john_lang]

Hi All,

As a developer and user of the "Administrator Workbench (RSA1)" ... what feature makes you mumble under your breath in frustration?

Problem: When deleting PSA requests, the dialog box does not have a u201CSelect Allu201D button. It was easy to manually clean up the PSA requests in the older AWB.

Solution: You have several choices, neither of them is ideal and both are not as good as having a u201CSelect Allu201D button. You can either select each row/requests individually or change screens and create a temporary process chain/variant in transaction RSPC to do it.

Problem: The u201CTransport Connection Wizardu201D functionality is a memory hog that spends a lot of time processing iterative, nested loops which means even a decent hardware capable desktop slows down and makes selecting/ticking individual nodes/objects to be gathered into a transport request a slow and un-necessary time consuming activity.

Solution: You can stop the slowdown from occurring by collapsing the branches as you go. There is a very noticeable difference in speed if you minimise the number of open branches at any given point in time. This allows you to gather many simular objects in one cycle and then proceed to analyse them all at once by navigating the object tree one branch at a time.

The question is only for BW Developers and Administrators who spend a fair amount of time in transaction RSA1.

Please, politely vent your frustration at even the smallest thing.

Kind Regards,

John.

[former_member1310099 · Accepted solution]

Hi John,

They are few Data sources which respective cubes which I have found on Help.sap. But when I try to find these cubes in the business content, it says no object is found. The same case with few info objects as well in the business content search, which are not available.

Kindly help. Thank you.

Regards,

Sravan.

[sven_mader2 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

you have to consider the SAP release. Some datasources are in a newer PI plugin.

Sven

[Former Member]

Hi John,

The process which I don't like in RSA1 is whenever I click on Transport connection or Meta Data it takes lot of time to display the screen. Do you have idea on how that time can be minimized?

Regards,

Durgesh.

[sven_mader2]

Hi,

1. don't install the completly BI Content - you have much rubbish in your RSA1.

2. select the data: by source system, by dataflow (only necessary objects)

Sven

[john_lang]

Hi Durgesh,

Sven is absolutely right.

You need to put some time aside and remove the unused objects from the system. Usually the development system is the worst as many objects are activated but never used and never transported.

This activity is best done in reverse to the order in which you would have activated the content.

Web Templates

Queries

MultiProviders

DTP

Transformation

Update Rule

InfoSource

Cube

DataStore

InfoPackage

InfoArea

Application Component

Etc, etc, etc u2026

I would suggest a 2 phase approach to doing this.

(1) The $TMP objects. Try once for all objects that allow you to delete them without a transport request. Take note of the objects that have previously been transported as you would be wise to do further impact analysis in the Test and Production systems before committing to deleting them from Development and transporting the deletion. For each of the previously transported objects do a quick where-used search in the Test and Production systems to confirm that it is truly not being used. The issue we are trying to avoid is that we can never know what other developers might have broken in development (accidentally) without realising and then you come along and transport an object deletion that was ok (not related) in development but is still being used in Test/Production.

(2) Using the above list of previously transported objects, try transporting the deletion of only 1 type of object per week or per official transport cycle for move to Production. This will allow you to clean up the system with out consuming too much noticeable time from other more important activities. It will also reduce the risk of getting something wrong because boring, monotonous tasks like this one (clean up) it is too easy to get distracted and accidentally transport active objects that you did not mean to.

Now do a clean up of unused DataSources in any source system connected to BW.

This includes DataSources for the "Myself" DataMart where BW talks to itself.

Kind Regards,

John.

[Former Member]

Hi John

In your experience have you ever used the Business Content queries and Web Templates? I have never found them useful and they always need too much work to make them useful.

Chami

[john_lang]

Hi Chami,

The business content queries and web templates are great for prototyping and show casing the capabilities of the BW system.

Unfortunately, the final queries and web templates used by the reporting user community always end up being built from scratch.

This is worth the time and effort it takes to build them as they always end up a lot closer to the reporting requirements.

The process of building the queries also gives the developer a better chance to identify small performance improvements and tidy up other aspects of the end user reporting experience.

For you and I, a variable for reporting is useful but not the most important aspect of a query; however to a regular query user who only runs reports, the variable screen is a big deal. Small things like proper spelling, terminology that matches the business speak, useful drop down lists, dynamic default values (step 1 of customer exit), multiple single option or even a hierarchy selection instead of a list … they all make a big difference to the reporting user.

Building a query from scratch gives us a chance to tidy up that user experience.

Kind regards,

John.

[Former Member]

Hi John

This might work better as a blog post or wiki, rather than a forum.

Agree with you about the PSA deletion, that is really annoying. One thing I find a little frustrating is in the DataSources view. When you are looking at the Dataflow upwards for a Master Data flow you cannot go upto the target InfoObject. You have to switch to a different view if you want to look at Master Data, Activate data, Maintain the InfoObject, etc.

Chami

[john_lang]

Hi Chami,

Thanks for the response and agreed.

There is room for more polish on the developer and administrator experience. The administrator work bench has come a long way from where it started and I look forward to seeing some of these inconveniences removed in future versions.

Hopefully posts like this will be read by someone in SAP who can put the solutions on the development radar ???

Kind Regards,

John.

[john_lang]

Hi Sven,

Good question. I'm hoping the users of the AWB; the developers and administrators, will provide their specific point of view in using the technology.

We all see different parts of it in different ways and I'm hoping others will provide their unique insights into making everyoneu2019s experience a little better.

The forum does not just have to be about immediate problems but could also be used to provide efficiency and quick tips as we find them. It is the little things that we don't even give a second thought to that are usually more valuable to others because they are still looking for the answer we have found and moved on from.

The 2 example problems listed in the original post above are obvious to a seasoned developer or administrator but are invaluable to a junior who is struggling to save time and effort anywhere they can.

So, for each of your examples; What is it specifically that makes them un-finished or broken?

All questions and opinions are welcomed.

Kind Regards,

John.

[sven_mader2]

Hi,

>What is it specifically that makes them un-finished or broken?

You don't know what is missing in LISTCUBE?

you are a lucky man.

You have only little cubes. I have many infoobjects in my cube. Listcube supported only 72. So, when you start the transaction you have to choose. And then you detect, there is missing a navigation attribute for your selection. You have to restart the transaction, and reselect your infoobject.

Then after 2 hours, you need again LISTCUBE to check the infocube data. And again the selection.

=> this need hours in a project.

=> Why I can't create a variant?

=> Now, there are some group selection. more than at beginning. But I miss a group: activate/deactivate a dimension.

This is one example.

or the example from the other users: Datasource administration or infocube administration.

- the requests are displayed in a table.

- there is a selection column.

=> Why can't SAP insert two buttons "select all", "deselect all"

=> or a button "select request between" => you want delete requests before 2011.

a.s.o.

=> little things, but it's helps so much.

I could go on and on for hours.

SAP don't ask the users, their works with the system daily. It's costs so many time.

Sven

[john_lang]

Hi Sven,

I absolutely agree with the frustrating experience of using LISTCUBE. That is one feature that could be easily improved and provide so much benefit to the developer and administrator community.

Thank you for taking the time to identify 2 features that could save so much time; should they be enhanced in a future version.

Kind Regards,

John.

[sven_mader2]

Hi,

"frustrating"

There are an other tool: the Query Designer. He is implemented very bad.

- when I click on an query element, most time there is select the object before in the list.

- the same sometimes in transformation

=> this is dangerous, because the calcuation/mapping is wrong. You don't see it always - your project includes some mistakes.

Or the performance of the Query designer:

- I start it, I can work very well.

- but after some minutes the Designer is very slow, I have to wait after every input.

- in the task manager you see, the program works to 100% and used over 300MB.

=> I mean, the Designer keep in mind every navigation. Or don't release the memory.

=> you have to restart the Query designer. You should restart every, 3 minutes?

=> I don't understand, why SAP can't do anything?

Sven

[sven_mader2]

Hi,

What is your target? Every software has weakening. There are many functionalities in SAPBW, their are note finsihed implemented. For excample: Remodelling, LISTCUBE, loading per DTP, ...

Sven