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Community Topic Question Data Sources

Lee Roquet

NA Business Team

David Registro

APAC SD Team

Assigned

Category Data Sources

Product Version 7.3

Connecting Yellowfin to SAP ECC

Sid Dhananjayan shared this question ago

Answered

I am researching connecting Yellowfin to SAP ECC directly, and came across this recommendation.

http://portal.yellowfin.bi/YFForum-Yellowfin-connecting-to-SAP-?thread=89430

"We wouldn't recommend that you try connecting straight to the SAP database, and neither would SAP. The application layer of SAP transforms the data, so what's in the database is not what the end user sees."

Assuming I know the data in the table I am connecting to, and can make sense out of it, does Yellowfin still not recommend connecting directly to SAP? I tested this and technically, the connection works.

If the recommendation is still not to connect directly, what is the technical basis for this recommendation?

The same question

Replies (1)

Lee Roquet ●

Sid,

Thanks for the post. That post is from our old forum and back then, we would not have recommended this but in the new system things have changed a lot.

In the next release of Yellowfin, v7.3.1, we have a SAP BW OLAP connector that will be ready for utilization. We will have some specificaitons out shortly but the planned release date is the end of April.

Hope this helps.

Lee

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Sid Dhananjayan ●

Hi Lee,

Thank you for the reply.

However, my question was specific to connecting Yellowfin directly to SAP ECC and consuming the tables, without using a BW server and the OLAP cubes.

Just to rephrase my question, if I wanted to connect to a flat table in SAP ECC(not BW)(Let's say I understand the table and it's values, so I can make sense out of the data), would there be any issue?

What was the restriction earlier? What has changed since then?

Regards,

Sid

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Lee Roquet ●

Sid, well let me pull in one of our technical team on this one.

Thanks.

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David Registro ●

Hi Sid,

You can connect directly and build your own views of your data source.

In the past we were only aware of people connecting via cubes, and were told this was the recommended approach. So we just kind of took peoples word for it.

Even up to this day, most users return a cube layer which is then sucked into YF, however you can connect any way that best suits your environment.

Sorry for any confusion caused, and hope this clears it up.

Please let me know if you have further questions on this, or if there was anything else you were after.

Regards,

David

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Sid Dhananjayan ●

Thanks David. This clarification helps.

I get the advantages of using a cube and I agree with you that it is the recommended approach. My problem was in understanding the restriction in connecting directly.

I now understand that it is more of a "Caveat Emptor" situation, rather than any restriction in the Yellowfin product itself.

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David Registro ●

Sorry for not responding sooner on this, but yep that term fits here .

Please let me know if there was anything else I can help on.

Regards,

David

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