SAP BW Queries behave different Bex analyzer vs Analysis for OLAP

[Former Member]

Platform:

SAP BW 7.01 SP7

SAP BO BI 4.0 SP4

Hello,

I have a BEX query which contains a hierarchy. This Query when executed with Bex Analyzer for either Web or Excel takes seconds to be executed. But when executed using Analysis for OLAP it takes about two minutes. (strangely enough it is always about 2 minutes).

When I look into BW while the run is being executed(refreshed) at Analysis for OLAP, I can see the system is doing a sequential read on a customer text table and it can be seen it takes around 2 minutes.

My question is why Analysis triggers this and not Bex Analyzer?

Other queries run perfectly fine, except for this with the hierarchy

I'll appreciate your comments!

[I_MCA]

Hello Hugo

Do you have access to Analysis edition for MS Office? If so could you try using this tool with the same query. The underlying connectivity to the BW query is different between the Analysis clients and the BEx clients. I'm keen to find out if the problem you are seeing is related to the connectivity used or if it is specific to Analysis OLAP. A test with Analysis for MS Office will help confirm that.

Thanks

[Former Member]

Hi Hugo,

I believe this is related to some calls that Analysis OLAP does to show the various display options for the members (key, text, etc.). This was optimized in patch 6 and I would expect that if you applied that patch, your performance issue would go away. However, if you are going to update you system, it might be best to go straight to Service Pack 5, which has this fix too.

I hope this is of some help,

Philip

[Former Member]

Hello Ian,

Thanks for your response. Yes, when I execute this same Query with analysis for MSO, it runs in seconds, is actually faster than the Bex Analyzer. I'm not connected to the BI Platform though, I'm not sure if that helps the query.

Thanks,

[I_MCA]

Hello Hugo

Thanks for confirming the issue is restricted to Analysis OLAP. Please also see Philip's reply. If you install BI4.0 SP5 we expect the performance issue to be resolved.

Thanks

Ian

[Former Member]

I appreciate your responses. I would rather wait for SP5. We are stabilizing our SP4 enviroment and I rather go to the patching route.

Thanks,

[Former Member]

I have a follow on question to this discussion.  I have also noticed that Analysis for OLAP returns a different list of values when doing a "Filter by Member"  compared to BEx Analyzer.  Has anyone else noticed this?  My users noticed it right away. 

[TammyPowlas]

I haven't noticed that - could you post screen shots?  It would be interesting to see

Tammy

[I_MCA]

Dan,

This is a surprise. Please raise a support call. The same query should (and does!) return the same result whether BEx Analyzer is being used of A-OLAP. I beleive you should have access to A-Office? If so can you try that also and tell our support folks if you see the same problem in A-Office.

Regards

[Former Member]

The result set is the same, but the values displayed in the filter dialog box are not.  I just tried Analysis for Office, and the filter list is consistent with Analysis for OLAP.  I do have an OSS message open.  Looking at the attached image, column A shows valid values.  The filter dialog box directly to the right show a bunch of entries starting with "AE" that are not part of the result set.  BEx does not show the "AE" entries.

[TammyPowlas]

What patch of Analysis Office are you using?  Looks like some patches may have fixed the filtering issues.

BTW, SP5 for Analysis Office just came out on 12/14

Tammy

[I_MCA]

Thanks Dan

Our support team will do further analysis. I believe this may have something to do with "booked" values and "master" values. Would I be correct is assuming that for the query you used, the "AE" members have no data associated with them? Can you also confirm in the Query Designer if the query is supposed to show "master" values or only "booked" values?

Thanks

[Former Member]

That setting in BEx Query Designer fixed our issue.  We had checked the setting in the InfoProvider itself, but we didn't check the BW query.  I think we also had a user BEx Analyzer setting at work.  Analysis for OLAP (and for Office) both matched BEx after we adjusted that setting in Query Designer.  Thanks.  Dan.

[I_MCA]

Excellent. Thanks for confirming the solution Dan.

Regards

Ian