Having moved to SAP Design Studio from Xcelsius, I really missed Excel and the ability to do front end data manipulations, in SAP Design Studio. But not for long ! That was only until I found out how easy it was, to use Analysis for Office Workspaces for that.

Reports created using SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, are called Analysis Workspaces. Also, BW workspaces are dedicated areas in a BW system where you can safely upload locally changed data without actually changing the source objects in the BW system. Follow steps below to see how we can use the two workspaces to get data – changed as desired, into SAP Design Studio.

Creating a BW Workspace

Create a workspace in SAP BW using transaction RSWSP. Enter a name and click on Create.

Fill the other values – Expiry Date, Workspace Prefix, etc. Then Save and Activate it.

Uploading local data to a Workspace

Go to Analysis for Office, insert a data source from BW and create a report. Add / Change data in the columns as required, using necessary front end calculations. Here, we have used a formula based on column C to create the new column D, as shown.

After making changes to the data, select the range of data that you want to upload to the BW Workspace and then click on Create.

Log in to the system where the workspace was created, and select the workspace.

Click on OK and proceed with configuring the local provider. Enter a description and technical name for the local provider. The technical name is prefixed with the value given when creating the workspace. Click on Next.

Choose where the connection to the new local provider is to be placed, on the Analysis for Office report.

Using the Workspace in a SAP Design Studio Application

Start SAP Design Studio and log in either locally or through the BI Platform.

In the Outline section, right click on Data Sources, add a new data source and search for the BW workspace that now has the local provider.

Click on Ok. Edit the initial view of the obtained data source to view the data.

And, we have the locally added column AA available now, in our data source in SAP Design Studio. This is comparable to the ‘Smart Export’ feature in Analysis for Office. Reusability of the data provider is one advantage of using BW Workspaces.

Read more blogs from SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio category here.