Request SAP BW Naming Conventions Review

In One Hour - Diagnose Your SAP BW System

Looking to Improve SAP BW Consultant Productivity?

Do You Want To Improve Your SAP Software Engineering Practices?

Let one of our Senior SAP BW Architects diagnose the state of one of the critical elements to SAP BW Data Warehouse success - your end-to-end software naming conventions with your SAP Business Intelligence system.  This is key to BW Project Success!

Follow SAP System Engineering Best Practice

When assessing a software system or solution, we use a systems approach that results in a naming convention that provides:

• Scalability
• Traceability
• Maintainability
• Predictability

What we often find is that our clients have a spaghetti code approach to SAP software engineering - throw it at the wall and see what sticks - this is a common software project mistake.  This results in a very expensive approach to software development and can and should be avoided.  It is a poor approach to software engineering and results in a Software Architecture that is, at the least, sub-optimal.  Though our focus with this offer is the improvement of your SAP Business Information Warehouse, we also typically find issues with client SAP ABAP naming conventions.  When you have a highly engineered, simple naming convention, you greatly reduce the learning curve of all newly assigned consultants.

SAP Business Intelligence Affects Many Other SAP Modules

The SAP Program is highly complex, with sixteen SAP application core modules, each of which is tightly integrated with one more of the other modules.  For instance, SAP CRM has well over 200 integration points with other SAP modules, such as SAP SD (Sales and Distribution) and SAP FICO (Financials and Controlling).  Each of these modules, in-turn, provide data to the SAP Business Warehouse, and often, receive data in return to support other business functions, such as Integrated Business Planning.  When you have a naming standard that everyone knows and uses, it is far easier to diagnose problems and fix them.

Naming Convention Acts as a Roadmap

The SAP Software System allows you to manipulate a variety of business process related data, including, Material Masters, Equipment Masters, Customer Masters, Vendor Masters, BOM Routings, Warehouse Locations, Business Partner data, and a whole host of other business level data entities.  Each of these data types requires a specific naming standard approach in order for the SAP consultant to be able traverse across the system, without spending hours, days or weeks trying to determine how the original implementation team configured the system.

Establish a Naming Convention Pattern

Every SAP project implementation has a requirement to establish a project documentation standard, including a naming convention, which SAP consultants and client team members come to rely on.  The SAP project management software solution, called Solution Manager, allows the project manager to establish, propagate and manage the project documents according to these naming standards.

Just as the project management approach requires the establishment of project documentation standards, so to does the SAP Business Intelligence (SAP BI) as well as the greater SAP implementation project.  That's why it is imperative to establish these naming convention standards early on for all SAP BW Objects.  It is also good practice to periodically audit the SAP software system implementation to ensure it is actually being configured per the SAP business blueprint documents.

Multi-Phase SAP Project Implementations Result in Naming Drift

Many SAP projects are implemented in phases, often stretching over many years.  Even with periodic SAP software reviews which include your software development naming conventions, most projects experience drift with regards to SAP naming conventions agreed to and implemented.  

SAP Software Solutions Reviews

One area, in particular, that often reveals an issue with naming convention compliance is an ABAP code review conducted on a project where multiple Systems Integrators (SIs) have been employed over extended periods of time.  One of the Big 4 SIs is notorious for implementing hundreds if not thousands of custom ABAP programs, with the designation of Z-Tables.  They follow their own naming standards, and NEVER deviate to come into compliance with agreed upon project naming convention standards.

This makes SAP software design more difficult than it has to be and generally more expensive to maintain.

Make Your SAP Data Warehouse Easier to Maintain and Improve

Our approach to SAP BW naming conventions and specific BW Object naming standards is designed to make your system easier to troubleshoot, and self-correcting.   If a system has a proper naming convention implemented system wide, when someone new comes aboard, if they don't follow it, their non-compliance with established naming standards will be immediately visible to all concerned.  Because our approach is based on well-proven software engineering and design principles, consultants actually find it easier to use than their previous approaches.

Get Your SAP Business Warehouse Naming Convention Review

Submit Your SAP Service Request

Data Warehouse Naming Conventions

If you would like to take advantage of this FREE datawarehouse naming strategy conventions offer, please complete the form.  During this one-hour SAP BW Naming Convention Strategy review, we will take a look (this varies by SAP BW release level) at some or all of the following BW Objects:

• InfoArea
• InfoProvider
• InfoObject
• InfoObject Catalog
• InfoSources
• InfoPackages
• Transfer and Update Rules – ABAP Routines
• Application Component(s)
• Openhub Destinations (If used)
• Hierarchies
• Process Chains
• Business Explorer
• Queries
• Variables
• Query Structures
• Query Views
• Calculated/Restricted Key Figures
• Web Templates
• Broadcast Agent
• SAP ECC/ABAP objects for BI
• Data Sources

Other Higher Level Elements to Be Reviewed

The SAP Business Information Warehouse, which is SAP's flagship data warehouse product, has continuously evolved over the years.  With the release of SAP BW on HANA and now SAP S/4 HANA, many of the core conceptual design elements have either changed or been completely eliminated.  This means that the DSO (Data Store Object), ODS (Operational Data Store), Fact Table (as a concept) and dimension tables all have changed.  Your particular system may or may not have been affected by these SAP System Design approaches.  However, the requirement for a solid naming convention is still required and more relevant and valuable than ever.

During this free one hour review, we'll do a quick review of the most relevant items within your particular system and come back with 'quick win' recommendations.  If required, we will also come back with a more detailed proposal to do a complete project to design and engineer a complete SAP BW end-to-end naming standard utilizing our SAP tool developed especially for this purpose by a SAP Business Warehouse Consultant.