SAP Connectors

The SAP SE corporation provides enterprise software, including SAP ERP, to manage business operations, customer relations, and other IT solutions for large companies.

Birst provides different SAP Connectors used to extract data from an SAP system and analyze the data in Birst. These SAP Connectors are available through the Birst Connect product. Data is transferred securely to Birst using strong authentication and compression.

Prerequisites

The Birst Connect and Birst SAP Connector products must be installed. To use the SAP XML/A connector, you must also have the Live Access product installed. See Checking Which Products Are Installed.
In order to use the SAP Connectors, you need to download the SAP library files from SAP, save them to a folder on a local machine, and launch Birst Connect from the command line.
The SAP Connectors require a valid set of SAP user account credentials to authenticate.
Your SAP account must have permissions to access the desired SAP objects and functional areas.
Refer to the SAP documentation for the most current information about SAP products.
Any data source must contain at least two columns. If a source has only one column, Birst will not load it.

Birst SAP Connection Methods

Birst Connect can connect to an SAP system using different connection options:

Read-only BAPI function calls

DSO API calls

Open SQL

SAP queries (ABAP queries)

XMLA MDX Live Access

The connection methods are illustrated in the following diagram.

SAP Data Extraction Summaries

The following tables summarize the different ways to extract data from SAP and the advantages and disadvantages of each.

SAP ECC/ERP Connections

Connection Type	Description	Real-time Connection?	Comments
SAP Open SQL	Accesses SAP version 6.0 or later using SQL statements. Requires a one-time installation of Birst-specific RFC functions (transport) onto SAP ERP and the SAP Java Connector. Requires Infor Connect and the Infor SAP Connector. See Using the SAP Open SQL Connector.	Scheduled or ad-hoc	Does not require an ABAP program or SAP Query. After the function modules are configured in SAP, you edit the queries in Infor Connect. Can extract the data from SAP in the most granular format, and can be integrated with other data sources.
SAP BAPI Connections	Accesses BAPI functions that come standard with SAP ERP environments. Custom BAPI functions can be added in SAP ERP and referenced from Birst. Requires Infor Connect and the Infor SAP Connector. See Using the SAP BAPI Connector.	Scheduled or ad-hoc	Standard BAPI functions are already available in SAP. Takes advantage of logic already built-in to BAPI functions. Custom BAPI functions can be created in SAP providing flexibility. Often high level information. A large number of BAPI functions can make it difficult to find and work with them in SAP. BAPI functions require a high degree of processing which can result in slow performance on the SAP side. Works with both older (R/3) and newer (ECC) versions of SAP ERP. Group server login is now enabled for the SAP BAPI Connector. See Using the SAP BAPI Connector in the online help for more information.
SAP Query Connections	Accesses ABAP queries installed on SAP ERP. Requires a one-time installation of Birst-specific RFC functions (transport) onto SAP ERP. Values for any ABAP query parameters can be set in Birst Connect. Requires Infor Connect and the Infor SAP Connector. See Using the SAP Query Connector.	Scheduled or ad-hoc	Custom ABAP queries can be written in SAP and provide access to a variety of SAP tables and objects. ABAP queries are not automatically generated by Birst Connect and have to be written in SAP. Data volume is a consideration as there is a SAP standard 10 minute limit on queries. Works with both older (R/3) and newer (ECC) versions of SAP ERP.

SAP BI/BW Connections

Connection Type

Description

Scheduled or Real-time

Comments

SAP BW DSO

Accesses BW cubes via DataStore Objects (DSO).

Provides a selectable list of DSOs available in the SAP BI/BW environment.

A DSO serves as a storage location for consolidated and cleansed transaction data or master data at the document (atomic) level.

Requires Infor Connect and the
Infor SAP Connector.

See Using the SAP BW DSO Connector.

Scheduled or ad-hoc

Access to the same Data Source Objects used in BW cubes. Up to 10,000,000 rows can be extracted.

SAP XMLA

Accesses InfoProviders of type Target such as InfoCube, DataStore Object, and InfoObject.

Live Access provides a real-time connection to SAP using MDX (Multidimensional Expressions).

Requires Infor Connect, Infor Live Access, and the Infor SAP Connector.

See Using the SAP XMLA Connector.

Real-time connection using Live Access

May place strain on SAP application environment. Possible performance implications related to real-time connections.

See Also
Using Birst Connect
Running Birst Connect from the Command Line
Downloading SAP Library Files
Checking Which Products Are Installed