SAP BW/BI InfoObjects

Info objects are business evaluation objects in BI/BW. Info objects are the smallest information units in BW. They structure the information needed to create data targets. Info objects with attributes or text can be either data target's or info providers.

InfoProviders are made from InfoObjects and form something critical that permits end users to report from.

 

You will find five different types of InfoObjects offered in the SAP BW environment.

Types of InfoObjects:

A) Characteristics (Employee, Customer, Material)

B) Key Figures (Quantity Sold, Amount, Weight)

C) Time Characteristics (Year, Month, Period, Quarter)

D) Unit InfoObjects (Currency Unit, Measurement Unit)

E) Technical Characteristics (Data Load Request ID, Change Run ID, Package ID)

Key figures:

Key figures describe numeric information that are reported on in a query. The most popular types of key figures are:

• Quantity - numeric values with associated unit of measure;
• Amount - numeric values with associated currency;
• Date - enable date computation;
• Time - enable time computations;
• Number;
• Integer.

Characteristics

Characteristics describe business objects in BW like products, customers, employee, and attributes like color, material, company code. They enable us to set select criteria during which we display required data.

Unit characteristics

Unit characteristics provide a meaning of key figures values, stores currencies or units of measure (e.g., currency unit, value unit).

Time characteristics

Time characteristics describe time reference of business events. They build the time dimension - obligatory part of InfoCube. The complete time characteristics (clearly assigned to a point in time) provided by SAP: calendar day (0CALDAY), calendar week (0CALWEEK), calendar month (0CALMONTH), calendar quarter (0CALQUARTER), calendar year (0CALYEAR), fiscal year (0FISCYEAR), and fiscal period (0FISCPER). Incomplete time characteristics: CALMONTH2, 0CALQUART1, 0HALFYEAR1, 0WEEKDAY1, 0FISCPER3.

Technical characteristics

Technical characteristics have administrative purposes (e.g., stores request ID, change ID).

InfoObjects catalogs

SAP BW InfoObjects are stored in InfoObjects catalogs, separately Key figures and Characteristics (all types). Usually there are two InfoObjects catalogs (for Key figures and Characteristics) defined for every business context in SAP BW implementation.

 

Different Data types allowed for creating a characteristic info object are
CHAR, NUMC, DATE, TIME

Different Data types allowed for creating Key figure info object are
Amount, Quantity , Number, Interger, date , time 

 

For example:

ABC Corporation is interested in finding out how much of product x shipped on date x to factory x.

0NAME (ABC Corporation), 0MATERIAL (Product x), 0DATE (Ship date x), 0LOCATION (factory location) would be our characteristics needed

0AMOUNT (Quantity shipped) would be our key figure used to measure the quantity of products shipped

We know that we would need at a minimum, an InfoProvider that incorporated the above five InfoObjects.  This is important when building in BW to get the client to let you know all the pieces they are wishing to analyze (InfoObjects) so you can produce an InfoProvider containing applicable InfoObjects that will create valuable reports and in turn information for the business.

SAP delivers  standard InfoObjects.  These objects are actually in the BI content (Business Content).  BI content is SAPs strategy for an out of the box answer to your business requirements.  These objects begin with ‘0’. If SAP delivered InfoObjects will not meet your needs for development, you can effortlessly create a customized object that will meet your requirements.  You can create custom Characteristic, Key Figure, and Unit InfoObjects.