UDT vs. IDT Comparison

What is Information Design Tool(IDT)?

The information design tool is a SAP Business Objects metadata design environment that enables a designer to extract, define, and manipulate metadata from relational or OLAP sources to create and deploy SAP Business Objects universes.

What Does It Do?

• It provides the necessary resources for the designer to :
• Create connections to data sources.
• Extract a complete OLAP cube schema.
• Extract tables and joins to build a relational schema called a data foundation.
• Create metadata objects from the cube or the data foundation. These objects are contained and organized in a business layer.
• Share resources to allow multiple designers to work on the same resources concurrently.
• Publish a universe, which compiles the business layer, the data foundation, and the connections into single universe file (.unx) either to a repository or locally.
  Create security profiles to define user access to universe data and metadata.

IDT over Universe Designer

1. Universe design is managed in a project
2. Components are compartmentalized into logical work spaces .
3. Provides the ability of sharing and managing changes in the project for each component.
4. Allows the retrieval of a universe from the central repository or locally.
5. Allows the publishing of the universe to the central repository or locally.
6. Allows the use of multiple connections.
7. Allows the use of external files (excel) into the data foundation.
8. Allows the use of one data foundation for multiple business layers.
9. Allows for creating queries and viewing the results.
10. Enhanced GUI with color highlights. (i.e. contexts are easier to follow)
11. Allows for creation of subsets (views) of the data foundation.

IDT Resources

• Project
• Connection and Connection shortcut
• Data Foundation
• Business Layer
• Queries
• Parameters and lists of values
• Universe
• Security Profiles

What is a project?

A project is a named local workspace that contains the resources used to build one or more universes.

 

What can you do in a project?

• Create resources using the wizards available on the New menu.
• Convert a .unv universe that was created with the universe design tool, or migrated from an earlier version.
• Retrieve a published universe.
• Create a shared project so that you can share resources with other designers.
• Check integrity of data foundations and business layers.
• Publish a business layer as a universe to the local file system or a repository.
• Publish a connection to a repository.
• Show dependent resources.
• Save a resource as a report.

What is a Data Foundation?

A data foundation contains a schema of relevant tables and joins from one or more relational databases that are used as a basis for one or more business layers

Contents of the data foundation are:

• Connections
• Tables and Derived Tables
• Aliases and Contexts
• Parameters and Lists of Values
• Properties
• Joins

What can you do in a Data foundation?

• Select or define the connections to be used (One or Multi)
• View the Data Sources
• Insert the tables to be used
• Establish the relationships of the tables (Joins)
• Create object transformations (define objects, derived tables)
• Detect Loops, aliases and contexts
• Set Parameters (filters or selection criteria)

What is a Business Layer?

A business layer is a collection of objects that map to SQL or MDX definitions in a database. It is the semantic layer that presents the Metadata in a GUI (Graphic User Interface) form.

In summary it transforms and presents, what otherwise would be raw and disconnected data, into discernible information that can be used by the business community for analysis, and decision making . It does this without requiring the user to know any programing language.

What can you do in a Business Layer?

• Organize data through the creation of folders and sub-folders
• Categorize dimension objects
• Define new objects (Data Transformation)
• Create formulated objects
• Create Measure objects
• Insert Filters
• In summary, present all data in a format that the business community can understand.

Contents of the Business Layer are:

• Folders
• Dimension Objects
• Attribute Objects
• Measure Objects
• Defined Objects
• Filters
• List of Values

Logical Steps to Follow

1. Create a project folder
2. Define the Connections
3. Build the Data Foundation
4. Build the Business Layer
5. Publish the Universe
6. Define Universe Security