This technical blog post is for BW consultants who are involved in SAP BW 7.x to SAP BW/4HANA conversion projects.
During a SAP BW/4HANA conversion project the existing content artifacts will be automatically replaced by the new, future-proofed and HANA-optimized objects such as advanced DataStore objects, CompositeProvider and Open ODS views. Before this is done, following the SAP BW/4HANA conversion guide, a code scan report is executed to detect issues if any standard function modules or programs are used in the data model e.g. by BW Transformations or Exit Variables, that are obsolete and not longer available in SAP BW/4HANA.
How to handle these kind of issues, where obsolete standard function modules and programs are used inside your data model, is generally addressed in SAP Note 2673734.
In this blog post let us focus on problems related to missing function modules called by SAP Exit Variables.
Why are some SAP Exit Variables and their function modules not longer available in BW/4HANA?
In SAP BW and the corresponding BI Content add-ons, there were a very high number of standard SAP Exit variables available. Some of these SAP Exit variables had similiar logic as others, e.g. there were five variables providing the last month. At the same time the variables in the classic BI Content for SAP BW did not follow a clear naming convention. This made it hard to find the right variable for a particular reporting use case and many projects ended up creating their own SAP Exit Variables.
With the new standard content for SAP BW/4HANA a new streamlined set of variables following clear naming conventions is introduced to make it easier for content modelers to find the right variable. A full list of the new variables including the definition of the used naming conventions can be found as attachment in SAP Note 2395579.
What can I do when the function module of a currently used SAP Exit Variable is not longer available in SAP BW/4HANA?
While the new set of variables following a consistent naming convention is helpful for greenfield implementation projects, this certainly comes as a one-time hurdle when doing a conversion project.
To ease the conversion, the new BW/4HANA Content SAP Exit Variables with their function modules have been downported to SAP BW 7.31 / 7.40 / 7.50 and SAP BI Content 737 / 747 / 757 by the SAP Notes
By implementing the SAP Notes, these SAP Exit Variables are available in your SAP BW 7.x system and all you need to do – prior to the conversion – is to replace the previous used BI_CONT SAP Exit Variables by the new variables in the queries.
The list below shows all downported SAP Exit variables. With assistance of this table, you can lookup for a currently used variable that needs to be replaced (column ‘Replaced Variable’) the functional equivalent variable (column ‘Variable (new)‘). To make things more complicated, there are some SAP Exit Variables that dependent on other SAP Exit Variables. As an example the SAP Exit variable ‘Current Fiscal Year Period’ itself reads the SAP Exit variable ‘Fiscal Year Variant’. These kind of dependencies you need to take into account when replacing the SAP Exit variables. To assist you with that, all dependencies are properly documented in the column ‘Comment’ and in the detailed footnotes below.
During a SAP BW/4HANA conversion project the existing content artifacts will be automatically replaced by the new, future-proofed and HANA-optimized objects such as advanced DataStore objects, CompositeProvider and Open ODS views. Before this is done, following the SAP BW/4HANA conversion guide, a code scan report is executed to detect issues if any standard function modules or programs are used in the data model e.g. by BW Transformations or Exit Variables, that are obsolete and not longer available in SAP BW/4HANA.
How to handle these kind of issues, where obsolete standard function modules and programs are used inside your data model, is generally addressed in SAP Note 2673734.
In this blog post let us focus on problems related to missing function modules called by SAP Exit Variables.
Why are some SAP Exit Variables and their function modules not longer available in BW/4HANA?
In SAP BW and the corresponding BI Content add-ons, there were a very high number of standard SAP Exit variables available. Some of these SAP Exit variables had similiar logic as others, e.g. there were five variables providing the last month. At the same time the variables in the classic BI Content for SAP BW did not follow a clear naming convention. This made it hard to find the right variable for a particular reporting use case and many projects ended up creating their own SAP Exit Variables.
With the new standard content for SAP BW/4HANA a new streamlined set of variables following clear naming conventions is introduced to make it easier for content modelers to find the right variable. A full list of the new variables including the definition of the used naming conventions can be found as attachment in SAP Note 2395579.
Naming Conventions for Variables – BW/4HANA Standard Content
What can I do when the function module of a currently used SAP Exit Variable is not longer available in SAP BW/4HANA?
While the new set of variables following a consistent naming convention is helpful for greenfield implementation projects, this certainly comes as a one-time hurdle when doing a conversion project.
To ease the conversion, the new BW/4HANA Content SAP Exit Variables with their function modules have been downported to SAP BW 7.31 / 7.40 / 7.50 and SAP BI Content 737 / 747 / 757 by the SAP Notes
- 2851061 – New BEx variables for simplification of conversion to SAP BW/4HANA
- 2857063 – BI_CONT: New BEx Variables to simplify conversion from SAP BW to SAP BW/4HANA
By implementing the SAP Notes, these SAP Exit Variables are available in your SAP BW 7.x system and all you need to do – prior to the conversion – is to replace the previous used BI_CONT SAP Exit Variables by the new variables in the queries.
The list below shows all downported SAP Exit variables. With assistance of this table, you can lookup for a currently used variable that needs to be replaced (column ‘Replaced Variable’) the functional equivalent variable (column ‘Variable (new)‘). To make things more complicated, there are some SAP Exit Variables that dependent on other SAP Exit Variables. As an example the SAP Exit variable ‘Current Fiscal Year Period’ itself reads the SAP Exit variable ‘Fiscal Year Variant’. These kind of dependencies you need to take into account when replacing the SAP Exit variables. To assist you with that, all dependencies are properly documented in the column ‘Comment’ and in the detailed footnotes below.
Replaced Variable | Variable (new) | Description | Comment | InfoObject |
0CD_L14D | 0CEIO_CDL14CDCY | Last 14 Days | 0CALDAY |