Portlet Factory, Version 6.1.2

 

SAP BW Data Access builder

Use the SAP BW Data Access builder to access to a SAP Business Warehouse using the XMLA protocol. Use this builder when you want to get access to a data store.

XMLA is a specification of an XML-based query syntax that runs over SOAP, suitable for execution against multiple dimension database and analysis engines. A feature of XMLA is that the query issued is a MDX expression. SAP provides a MDX test utility that is very helpful for creating these query expressions.

Note: This builder is based on and replaces the XMLA Execute builder. The major advantages of this builder over the earlier version are:

  • Easier access to data

  • Simple sample models illustrating how to produce tables with either Dynamic Table or Data Page builders.

  • Connection pooling to control the number of simultaneous queries being issued.

 

How this builder works

This builder adds an LJO to your model that provides access to a SAP Business Warehouse using the XMLA protocol. The builder allows you to specify the URL to the SAP BW SOAP endpoint and the MDX Command expression. The builder then adds the SAPBWDataHelper LJO to the model and puts the command expression into a Variable for use at runtime.

In your model you can then invoke the executeMdx method on the LJO and it will execute the query and return the result.

The result returned is the whole XMLA response which although complete can be difficult to interpret. The SAPBWDataHelper LJO provides additional methods that can be invoked to return the particularly useful data, such as the data necessary to build a table, the row and column label names, unique row identifiers, chart data (suitable for use in the WebChart builder), and so on. The sample models illustrate use of these methods, and they use the dummy response feature so you can tun them without needing to access a SAP Business Warehouse system.

The SAP Extension package features a number of sample models that illustrate the use of this builder. Because the protocol runs on SOAP, no additional jar files are required.

  • About using the builder call editor

    The builder call editor allows you to specify all the input values to a builder call.

  • SAP BW Data builder inputs

    This topic describes the inputs for the SAP BW Data builder.

  • Objects Created by the SAP BW DATA Builder

    The SAP BW Data builder creates Variables for the Command and Properties data (if they were provided "hard-coded" instead of with a runtime indirect reference) and a "xmlaResponse" Variable which holds the complete XMLA response after the executeMdx method has returned.

  • SAP BW connection pooling

    There is not actually a pool of open connections used by this builder because the XMLA/SOAP protocol is connection-less.

  • SAPBWAccess

    It is not generally necessary to use this object, but it allows Java-level access to the SAP BW.

  • SAP View & Form builder

    Use the SAP View & Form builder to call a remote-enabled SAP function or BAPI and display the results on a page.

Parent topic: Builder help

Library | Support |