Extracting data from BCS securely

[Former Member]

Hi All,

We have a user who wants to extract from BCS to a 3rd party tool (to calculate tax returns).

She initially intended to use the "Totals List" functionality

However, this has associated risks (manual mistakes in selections, saving the file incorrectly etc)

I had thought an Infohub in BI but the BI team tell me that selections are not possible so the extract would contain every single record.

So does anyone know a good way to extract data securely with no possibility for manual errors or intervention?

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I would try the open hub with a planned infospoke.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks Eugene,

the infohub and infospoke option was what I originally suggested (having used one 5 years ago), but the BI team here have said it isn't posible to make selections on the data, just dump ALL data.

I haven't had time to investigate the BI options, can you confirm that the user could make selections as to what data is extracted?

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Unfortunately, cannot confirm or object this. Have no proper configuration right now in the system.

[former_member207487]

Hi Christopher Faust,

in the whole thread your posting is interesting and important for me. We want to implement a Custom task with the mentioned execute functions. I do not realy know how to do this. your scenario with a custom task posting documents using an internal calculation is similar. We want to extract some items from BCS take them and calculate with them a capital charge. After the calculation we want to write a record back into the BCS transactional cube. Can you please give me more informations about how you implemented your scenario with posting documents using an internal calculation?

Thanks in advance,

Murat

[Former Member]

I replied to your other thread about posting custom documents.

Extracting data from the virtual cube can be done through function module RSDRI_INFOPROV_READ. It's important to have all the selection criteria provided to get the correct results (same criteria you would use to write a BI query). While definitely possible, this isn't a 10 line program and without knowing your specific system I'm probably not in a position to help. A BI developer that has some basic BCS knowledge should be able to do this for you without much trouble.

- Chris

[Former Member]

Im not sure if this has been tried already, but try creating a MP on ur totals cube and build a query and try using rscrm_bapi for the extract, of course this comes with a lot of restrictions but worth a try...

[Former Member]

In the past, I've created a custom task to extract BCS data to both a flat file and to load into a basic cube (for local reporting of results to home office systems).

Basically, I implemented the UC_TASK_CUSTOM BAdI. There are two methods called by the interface, an EXECUTE method called once per Cons Group, and EXECUTE_FINAL called after each group is run. You might want a control table if only certain groups are to be run. There is an internal table, IT_SEL, which is passed to the EXECUTE methods which contains additional parameters from the run (cons group, companies, period, year, group currency, etc).

From there, you can either start leveraging the BCS development objects or just use the RDSRI_INFOPROV_READ function module to read from your BCS virtual cube. Ensure that you include Version(s), fiscal year, period, fiscal year variant, controlling area, and chart of accounts in your selection. Always request the cons group as field to read from the cube. Also, understand that if you a hierarchy with

Cons Group A
- Cons Group B
- - Cons Group C

And you want to show fully consolidated results for A, you need to request A, B and C when you read from the cube (if you're a BI reporting person, think of the difference between "the tree" and "the equals" icon when you filter).

If I was extracting many different cons groups, I would just use the EXECUTE methods to store the ocns groups to be processed, then use the EXECUTE_FINAL method to do all the reading from the cube, writing to the file(s) to increase performance.

Anyway, if you go down this route feel free to reach out if you have questions. It took awhile for me to get it all working, but I was approaching it as a BCS person limited ABAP skills. I've since had to develop a custom task for posting documents using an internal calculation, and I've spent more time debugging the BCS interfaces than I'd care to admit.

Good luck,

- Chris

[dan_sullivan]

With the list of totals a selection variant can be saved along with a layout variant to provide the same request and data each time. This could be either a long-term solution or a short-term solution while developing another long-term approach.

[Former Member]

Thanks Dan, the variants in Totals List as a temporary measure is the current plan.

My concern is that the user has the ability to make errors/adjustments to the file, such as;

- saving file incorrectly (eg filename doesn't match the selections made)

- opening the saved file for manual adjustment, then later blaming 'incorrect' data on BCS