All about BW Table Types (MD tbl, SID tbl, DIM tbl, etc)

Attribute tables:

·         Attribute tbl for Time Independent attributes:

·         /BI*/P<characteristic_name>

·         stored with characteristic values

Attribute tbl for Time Dependent attributes:

·         /BI*/Q<characteristic_name>

·         Fields DATETO & DATEFROM are included in time dependent attribute tbl.

·         stored with characteristic values

Dimension tables:

·         Dimension tbls (i.e. DIM tables): /BI*/D<Cube_name><dim.no.>

·         stores the DIMID, the pointer between fact tbl & master data tbl

·         data is inserted during upload of transact.data (data is never changed, only inserted)

·         Examples:

o    /bic/D(cube name)P is the package dimension of a content cube

o    /bic/D(cube name)U is the unit dimension of a content cube

o    /bic/D(cube name)T is the time dimension of a content cube

o    /bic/D(cube name)I is the user defined dimension of a content cube

External Hierarchy tables:

·         /BI*/I*, /BI*/J*, /BI*/H*, /BI*/K*

·         /BI0/0P...

·         are tables that occur in the course of an optimized preprocessing that contains many tables.

·         bic/H(object name) hierarchy data of object

·         For more information see Note 514907.

Fact tables:

·         In SAP BW, there are two fact tables for including transaction data for Basis InfoCubes: the F and the E fact tables.

o    /bic/F(cube name) is the F-fact table of a content cube

o    /bic/E(cube name) is the E-fact table of a content cube

·         The Fact tbl is the central tbl of the InfoCube. Here key figures (e.g. sales volume) & pointers to the dimension tbls are stored (dim tbls, in turn, point to the SID tbls).

·         If you upload data into an InfoCube, it is always written into the F-fact table.

·         If you compress the data, the data is shifted from the F-fact table to the E-fact table.

·         The F-fact tables for aggregates are always empty, since aggregates are compressed automatically

·         After a changerun, the F-fact table can have entries as well as when you use the functionality 'do not compress requests‘ for Aggregates.

·         E-fact tbl is optimized for Reading => good for Queries

·         F-fact tbl is optimized for Writing => good for Loads

·         see Note 631668 

Master Data tables

·         /BI0/P<char_name>

·         /bic/M(object name) master data of object

·         Master data tables are independent of any InfoCube

·         Master data & master data details (attributes, texts & hierarchies) are stored.

·         Master data table stores all time independent attributes (display & navigational attribues)

Navigational attributes tables:

·         SID Attribute table for time independent navigational attributes: /BI*/X<characteristic_name>

·         SID Attribute tbl for time dependent navigational attributes: /BI*/Y<characteristic_name>

·         Nav.attribs can be used for naviagtion purposes (filtering, drill down).

·         The attribs are not stored as char values but as SIDs (master data IDs).

P table:

·         P-table only gets filled if you load master data explicitly.

·         As soon as the SID table is populated, the P tbl is populated as well

SID table:

·         SID tbl: /BI*/S<characteristic>

·         stores the char value (eg customer number C95) & the SID. The SID is the pointer that is used to link the master data tbls & the dimension tbls. The SID is generated during the upload (uniqueness is guaranteed by a number range obj).

·         Data is inserted during the upload of master data or of transactional data

S table gets filled whenever transaction gets loaded. That means if any new data is there for that object in the transactions then SID table gets fillled.

Text table:

·         Text tbl: /BI*/T<characteristic>

·         stores the text for the chars

·         data is inserted & changed during the upload of text data attribs for the InfoObject

·         stored either language dependent or independent