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In order to ensure performant reporting based on SAP BW, it is necessary to avoid redundant requests. An important element in this context is the optimized master data request. This can be implemented particularly easily and effectively for hierarchy objects (especially menu hierarchies).
In this case, a menu hierarchy object in which the customers of an application can be selected will serve as example. If the customer element is drawn from the database window into the menu hierarchy object, the standard layer preferences are set. In this process, only the All node becomes visible. In the background, arcplan generates an MDX request in order to determine the menu content. Even though only master data is visible, this leads to a joining with the fact data within SAP BW and thus tends toward an expensive operation:
In order to avoid this joining with the facts, SAP provides special functional elements which directly request the dimension data. These functional elements can be used by arcplan by changing the layer settings for the menu hierarchy object. In this context, it must be noted that this way, the entire hierarchy is always (!) requested, so that this setting should only be used for smaller hierarchies (<1000 elements). For these, however, the request of all elements is generally markedly more performant than a joining with the facts.
If the layer settings are made as in illustration 2, arcplan will generate the activation of the functional element in the background. Now, the complete hierarchy is requested and initially presented in arcplan. Via the hierarchy formatting and the button “Set initial state” it is possible to adjust the initial presentation as required, so that the end user does not have to close the hierarchy:
Thus, on the surface, the menu looks absolutely identical to the end user.
In the background, however, the access via the functional element – which is markedly more performant for smaller hierarchies – is generated. The joining with the facts is thus avoided.
