SAP Business Information Warehouse (SAP BW) is the name of the Business Intelligence, Analytical, Reporting and Data Warehousing (DW) solution which is one of the major enterprise software applications produced by SAP AG. It was originally named SAP BIW, (Business Information Warehouse), but is now known as "SAP NetWeaver BI".
1. Can I learn SAP Business Intelligence (SAP BI)?
This is the question buzzing in the mind of new and experienced consultants from different stream. The simple answer is YES. But I need to justify that.So, read on.
2. 哪些人更适合学习SAP BI?
Since BI is the blend of technical areas such as ABAP, WebDynpro, XI, BASIS, Business Objects(now an SAP Company) etc and functional areas such as CRM, SRM, SCM, HCM etc. A consultant from these areas can easily migrate to SAP BI. Consultants from other ETL tools like Ascential, Ab Initio can also migrate to SAP BI.
3. 没有SAP知识背景的人适合学习SAP BI吗?
Absolutely No. Anybody who has got functional or technical experience in any domain can learn BI and there are no hard and fast rules for this. The only thing they should know is the fundamentals of SAP BI or any Data Warehousing tool.
4. 学习SAP BI需要哪些基本知识?
As mentioned earlier. the minimal requirement is the basic knowledge of Data Warehousing, which is mandatory in nature. Knowledge in any functional areas viz. Sales and Distribution (SD), Material Management (MM), Finance & Controlling (FI-CO), Logistics (LO), Plant Maintenance (PM) and so on is necessary and if you have more than one domain knowledge then it’s definitely an added advantage.
Consultants from technical areas such as ABAP, BASIS, and XI can easily learn BW-Technical areas such as Configuration, DB Maintenance, Portal Settings, Idoc Management etc.
5. SAP BI的顾问在BI项目中会有哪些任务？
Here I’m just giving the nature of work they may get, but finally it all depends on the Company they work for.
ABAP Consultants: They can be involved in writing routines (Update, transfer, conversion etc), SAP and User Exits, DataSource enhancement, BAdi, tables, function modules etc
Functional Consultants: Creating reports for relevant areas, data validation, functional review etc.
Other than these you may also be involved in the following:
Implementation Activities: Creating new data models, DataSource, reports etc.
Support Activities: Monitoring the data loads, data reconciliation, and other maintenance activities.
If you are a senior consultant then you may be involved in gathering the User Requirements, Creating Functional and Technical specifications, GAP Analysis etc.
If you have knowledge in Web technologies, you may work in Enterprises Portal(EP), Web Application Designer(WAD) etc.
更多的BI知识大家可以参见SAP library 和SDN网站 How to search SDN?
下面列出了一些常用连接：
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-bi
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-70
https://websmp107.sap-ag.de/bi
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/bi-elearning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAP_Business_Information_Warehouse