Beyond Basic Reporting Functions

Once you are familiar with the basic functions of the BW Reporting Tool, you may want to explore additional, more advanced, functions. The Help Guides below describe functions that are not considered “basic,” but they have proven very useful to many report users. Take some time to look them over and test them out. Then, make your own determination regarding whether or not they help meet your reporting needs.

BW How to – Delete a Saved View
Within the Business Warehouse environment, users cannot directly delete their own saved Views. However, any View marked using the procedure described in this document will be removed by a system utility run by the BW development team.

BW How to – Drill-down to Additional Detail
In the Business Warehouse reporting environment, “drilling” is the process of jumping from an aggregated value in one report to a second report in which the details underlying the aggregated value are displayed. While the drill-down capability is available in a limited number of BW reports, drilling has been enabled in several of the most-used reports, including the Funds Management and Grants Management Budget vs. Actuals reports. This document describes the process of drilling.

BW How to – Use Data From One BW Report as Input to a Second Report
Learn how to convert a large list of numbers to SAP syntax so they can be used to run or filter a second BW report. The list of numbers to be converted might be extracted from a BW report or contained in a file external to BW, e.g., an Excel or text file.

BW How to – Save and Use a Variant
You may find that you frequently specify the same variable values when executing a Business Warehouse (BW) report. By using a variant, it is possible to save those variable values so they can be recalled, thereby avoiding the need to specify them again. This document describes how to: (1) save a variant in a BW report; (2) recall and execute a saved variant when executing a report; (3) Delete a variant that is no longer needed.

BW How to – Hide or Show a Key Figure
Learn how to hide or show Key Figures within a BW report using the Filter command.

BW How to – Create a Calculated Key Figure
This document describes how to create a calculated Key Figure: a Key Figure you create “on the fly” based on a calculation performed on Key Figures within a BW report. View a Video or read a Help Guide

BW How to – Filter Key Figures using the Condition Function
The Filter function operates on report Characteristics – the variables listed in the Rows and Free Characteristics area of most BW reports. Filtering can be used to display or hide specific values. The Condition function provides a similar filtering capability when working with Key Figures. A common application is to use the Condition function to establish a threshold to view only values greater than, less than, or between a range of values. In addition to the Help Guide, this Over the Shoulder video also demonstrates how to use the Condition function.

BW How to – Recreate a Saved View
Learn how to recreate a saved view for a report that is being replaced.

BW How to – Refresh Your View of a BW Report Folder Menu
Due to a browser caching issue, it sometimes happens that new reports do not appear in the list of available reports within a Business Warehouse reporting tab. This document describes how to force your browser to refresh properly, thereby making the new report(s) visible.

BW How to – Remove Variable Personalization
This document describes how to remove Personalized Variables.