Information Systems and Technologies

Information Systems and Technologies

WHY INFORMATION SYSTEMS ARE IMPORTANT

An understanding of the effective and responsible use and management of information systems is important for managers and other business knowledge workers in today’s global information society. Information systems and technologies have become a vital component of successful businesses and organizations. Information systems constitute an essential field of study in business administration and management, as they are considered a major functional area in business operations.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Managerial end users need to know how information systems can be employed successfully in a business environment. The important question for any business end user or manager is: What do you need to know in order to help manage the hardware, software, data, and network resources of your business, so they are used for the strategic success of your company?

An IS Framework for Business Professionals:
Managers or business professionals are not required to know the complex technologies, abstract behavioral concepts, or the specialized applications involved in the field of information systems. Figure below illustrates a useful conceptual framework that outlines what a manager or business professional needs to know about information systems. It emphasizes five areas of knowledge:
• Foundation Concepts
• Information Technologies
• Business Applications
• Development Processes
• Management Challenges



What is an Information System?
An information system (IS) can be any organized combination of people, hardware, software, communications networks, and data resources that collect, transforms, and disseminate information in an organization.

Information Technologies:
Business professionals rely on many types of information systems that use a variety of information technologies. For example:

Types of IS - Manual (paper-and-pencil) information systems
- Informal (word-of-mouth) information systems
- Formal (written procedures) information systems
- Computer-based information systems

Computer-based information systems (IS) use hardware, software, the Internet, and other telecommunications networks, computer-based data resource management techniques, and other forms of information technologies (IT) to transform data resources into a variety of information products for consumers and business professionals.

SYSTEM CONCEPTS

System concepts underlie the field of information systems. Understanding system concepts will help you understand many other concepts in the technology, applications, development, and management of information systems. System concepts help you understand:
• Technology. That computer networks are systems of information processing components that uses a variety of hardware, software, data and telecommunication technologies.
• Applications. That electronic business and commerce involves interconnected business information systems.
• Development. That developing ways to use information technology n business includes designing the basic components of information systems.
• Management. That managing information technology emphasizes the quality, strategic business value, and security of an organization’s information systems.

What is a System?
Question: What is a system as it applies to the concept of an information system?

Answer: A system is a group of interrelated components working together toward a common goal by accepting inputs and producing outputs in an organized transformation process.

A system (sometimes called a dynamic system) has three basic interacting components or functions. These include:
• Input involves capturing and assembling elements that enter the system to be processed.
• Processing involves transformation processes that convert input into output.
• Output involves transferring elements that have been produced by a transformation process to their ultimate destination.

Feedback and Control:
Two additional components of the system concept include feedback and control. A system with feedback and control components is sometimes called a cybernetic system, that is, a self-monitoring, self-regulating system.
• Feedback is data about the performance of a system.
• Control involves monitoring and evaluating feedback to determine whether a system is moving toward the achievement of its goals. The control function then makes necessary adjustments to a system's input and processing components to ensure that it produces proper output.

Other System Characteristics:
A system does not exist in a vacuum; rather, it exists and functions in an environment containing other systems.

Subsystem: A system that is a component of a larger system, where the larger system is its environment.

System Boundary: A system is separated from its environment and other systems by its system boundary.

Interface: Several systems may share the same environment. Some of these systems may be connected to one another by means of a shared boundary, or interface.

Open System: A system that interacts with other systems in its environment is called an open system (connected to its environment by exchanges of inputs and outputs).

Adaptive System: A system that has the ability to change itself or its environment in order to survive is called an adaptive system.


COMPONENTS OF AN INFORMATION SYSTEM

An information system model expresses a fundamental conceptual framework for the major components and activities of information systems. An information system depends on the resources of people, hardware, software, data, and networks to perform input, processing, output, storage, and control activities that convert data resources into information products.

The information systems model outlined in the text emphasizes four major concepts that can be applied to all types of information systems:
• People, hardware, software, data, and networks, are the five basic resources of information systems.
• People resources include end users and IS specialists, hardware resources consist of machines and media, software resources include both programs and procedures, data resources can include data and knowledge bases, and network resources include communications media and networks.
• Data resources are transformed by information processing activities into a variety of information products for end users.
• Information processing consists of input, processing, output, storage, and control activities.

INFORMATION SYSTEM RESOURCES

The basic IS model shows that an information system consists of five major resources:
• People resources
• Hardware resources
• Software resources
• Data resources
• Network resources

People Resources:
People are required for the operation of all information systems. These people resources include end users and IS specialists.
• End Users (also called users or clients) are people who use an information system or the information it produces. Most of us are information system end users. And most end users in business are knowledge workers, that is, people who spend most of their time communicating and collaborating in teams of workgroups and creating, using, and distributing information.
• IS Specialists are people who develop and operate information systems. They include system analysts, software developers, system operators, and other managerial, technical, and clerical IS personnel.

Systems analysts – design information systems based on the information requirements of end users.
Software developers – create computer programs based on the specifications of systems analysts.
System operators – monitor and operate large computer systems and networks.

Hardware Resources:
Hardware resources include all physical devices and materials used in information processing.
• Machines - physical devices (computers, peripherals, telecommunications networks, etc.)
• Media - all tangible objects on which data are recorded (paper, magnetic disks etc.)

Examples of hardware in computer-based information systems are:
• Computer Systems – which consist of central processing units containing microprocessors, and a variety of interconnected peripheral devices.
• Computer peripherals – which are devices such as a keyboard or electronic mouse for input of data and commands, a video screen or printer for output of information, and magnetic or optical disks for storage of data resources.

Software Resources:
Software resources include all sets of information processing instructions.
• Program - a set of instructions that causes a computer to perform a particular task.
• Procedures - set of instructions used by people to complete a task.


Examples of software resources are:
• System software – such as an operating system program, that controls and supports the operations of a computer system.
• Application software – are programs that direct processing for a particular use of computers by end users.
• Procedures – are operating instructions for the people who will use an information system.

Data Resources:
Data constitutes a valuable organizational resource. Thus, data resources must be managed effectively to benefit all end users in an organization. The data resources of information systems are typically organized into:
• Databases - a collection of logically related records or files. A database consolidates many records previously stored in separate files so that a common pool of data records serves many applications.
• Knowledge Bases - which hold knowledge in a variety of forms such as facts and rules of inference about various subjects.

Data versus Information. The word data is the plural of datum, though data is commonly used to represent both singular and plural forms. The term’s data and information are often used interchangeably. However, you should make the following distinction:

Data: - are raw facts or observations, typically about physical phenomena or business transactions. More specifically, data are objective measurements of the attributes (characteristics) of entities, such as people, places, things, and events.

Information: - is processed data, which has been placed in a meaningful and useful context for an end user. Data is subjected to a “value-added” process (data processing or information processing) where:
• Its form is aggregated, manipulated, and organized.
• Its content is analyzed and evaluated
• It is placed in a proper context for a human user

Network Resources:
Telecommunications networks like the Internet, intranets, and extranets have become essential to the successful electronic business and commerce operations of all types of organizations and their computer-based information systems. Telecommunications networks consist of computers, communications processors, and other devices interconnected by communications media and controlled by communications software. The concept of network resources emphasizes that communications networks are a fundamental resource component of all information systems. Network resources include:
• Communications media (twisted-pair wire, coaxial cable, fiber-optic cable, and microwave, cellular, and satellite wireless systems.
• Network support (people, hardware, software, and data resources that directly support the operation and use of a communications network).



INFORMATION SYSTEM ACTIVITIES

Information processing (or data processing) activities that occur in information system include the following:
• Input of data resources
• Processing of data into information
• Output of information products
• Storage of data resources
• Control of system performance


Input of Data Resources:
• Data about business transactions and other events must be captured and prepared for processing by the input activity. Input typically takes the form of data entry activities such as recording and editing.
• Once entered, data may be transferred onto a machine-readable medium such as magnetic disk or type, until needed for processing.

Processing of Data into Information:
• Data is typically subjected to processing activities such as calculating, comparing, sorting, classifying, and summarizing. These activities organize, analyze, and manipulate data, thus converting them into information for end users.
• A continual process of correcting and updating activities must maintain quality of data stored in an information system.

Output of Information Products:
• Information in various forms is transmitted to end-users and made available to them in the output activity. The goal of information systems is the production of appropriate information products for end users.

Storage of Data Resources:
Storage is a basic system component of information systems.
• Storage is the information system activity in which data and information are retained in an organized manner for later use.

Control of System Performance:
An important information system activity is the control of its performance.
• An information system should produce feedback about its input, processing, output, and storage activities.
• Feedback must be monitored and evaluated to determine if the system is meeting established performance standards.
• Feedback is used to make adjustments to system activities to correct deficiencies.


RECOGNIZING INFORMATION SYSTEMS

As a business professional, you should be able to recognize the fundamental components of information systems you encounter in the real world. This means that you should be able to identify:
• The people, hardware, software, data, and network resources they use.
• The types of information products they produce.
• The way they perform input, processing, output, storage, and control activities.

Analysing BellSouth’s Information System
From the Real World Case of BellSouth Corporation, we will try to recognize or visualize the resources used, activities performed, and information products produced by their information systems.

IS Resources:
• People resources include end users like BellSouth’s online customers and employees, and IS specialists like CIO Fran Dramis and project leader Lori Groves.

Hardware Resources:
• Thousands of PC server
• Other computers that BellSouth and its customers must be using

Software Resources:
• Web browsers
• Operating systems
• e-commerce websites software
• Oracle’s customer relationship management system
• Other proprietary BellSouth business software.

Network Resources:
• Communications media and network support components that are part of the network resources that BellSouth would need to support the e-business and e-commerce activities of such a large telecommunications company.
Data Resources:
• Computer-accessible databases of data about their customers, employees, services, and other necessary business information.

Information Products:
• Displays on customer and employee networked PCs that provide information about and support the provision of BellSouth’s services, such as you would find by visiting their Websites at www.bellsouth.com and www.bellsouthcorp.com.

IS Activities:
• Input activities include the input of Web site navigation clicks and e-commerce and e-business data entries and selections, and online collaboration queries and responses made by customers, suppliers, and employees.

Processing Activities:
• Processing activities are accomplished whenever any of BellSouth’s computers executes the programs that are part of their e-business and e-commerce software resources.

Output Activities:
• Output activities primarily involve the display or printing of information products mentioned earlier.

Storage Activities:
• Storage activities take place whenever business data is stored and managed in the files and databases on the disk drives and other storage media of BellSouth’s computer systems.

Control Activities:
• Control activities include the use of passwords and other security codes by customers, suppliers, and employees for entry into BellSouth’s e-business and e-commerce websites, and access of their databases and knowledge bases.


Section II: Foundation Concepts: Business Applications, Development, and Management

THE FUNDAMENTAL ROLES OF IS APPLICATIONS IN BUSINESS

Information systems perform three vital roles in any type of organization. That is, they support an organization’s:
• Business processes and operations
• Decision making by employees and managers
• Strategies for competitive advantage

The Major Roles of IS: Examples

Three major roles of the business applications of information systems include:
• Support Business Processes – involves dealing with information systems that support the business processes and operations in a business.
• Support Decision Making – help decision makers to make better decisions and attempt to gain a competitive advantage.
• Support Competitive Advantage – help decision makers to gain a strategic advantage over competitors requires innovative use of information technology.



e-BUSINESS IN BUSINESS

The explosive growth of the Internet and related technologies and applications is revolutionizing the way businesses are operated and people work, and how information technology supports business operations and end user work activities.

e-business is defined as the use of Internet technologies to internetwork and empower business processes, electronic commerce, and enterprise communication and collaboration within a company and with its customers, suppliers, and other business stakeholders.

Enterprise collaboration systems involve the use of groupware tools to support communication, coordination, and collaboration among the members of networked teams and workgroups. An internetworked e-business enterprise depends on intranets, the Internet, extranets, and other networks to implement such systems.

Electronic commerce is the buying and selling, and marketing and servicing of products, services, and information over a variety of computer networks. An internetworked e-business enterprise uses the Internet, intranets, extranets, and other networks to support every step of the commercial process.



TRENDS IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS

The roles given to the information systems function have expanded significantly over the years.

1950s - 1960s - Data Processing - Electronic data processing systems
Role: Transaction processing, record keeping, and accounting, and other electronic data processing (EDP) applications

1960s - 1970s - Management Reporting – Management information systems
Role: Providing managerial end users with predefined management reports that would give managers the information they needed for decision-making purposes.

1970s - 1980s - Decision Support - Decision support systems
Role: The new role for information systems was to provide managerial end users with ad hoc support of their decision-making process. This support would be tailored to the unique decision-making styles of managers as they confronted specific types of problems in the real world.

1980s - 1990s - Strategic and End User Support
Role: End users could use their own computing resources to support their job requirements instead of waiting for the indirect support of corporate information services departments.
• End User Computing Systems
Role: Direct computing support for end user productivity and work group collaboration.

• Executive Information Systems (EIS) -
Role: These information systems attempt to give top executives an easy way to get the critical information they want, when they want it, tailored to the formats they prefer.

• Expert Systems (ES) and other Knowledge-Based Systems
Role: Expert systems can serve as consultants to users by providing expert advice in limited subject areas.

• Strategic Information Systems (SIS)
Role: Information technology becomes an integral component of business processes, products, and services that help a company gain a competitive advantage in the global marketplace.

1990s - 2000 – Electronic business and commerce systems
Role: The rapid growth of the Internet, intranets, extranets, and other interconnected global networks has revolutionising the operations and management of today’s business enterprises.

Foundations of Information Systems in Business

Foundations of Information Systems in Business

Importance of Information Systems – An understanding of the effective and responsible use and management of information systems and technologies is important for managers, business professionals, and other knowledge workers in today’s internetworked enterprises. Information systems play a vital role in the e-business and e-commerce operations, enterprise collaboration and management, and strategic success of businesses that must operate in an internetworked global environment. Thus, the field of information systems has become a major functional area of business administration.

An IS Framework for Business Professionals – The IS knowledge that a business manager or professional needs to know includes (1) foundation concepts: fundamental behavior, technical, business, and managerial concepts like system components and functions, or competitive strategies; (2) information technologies: concepts, developments, or management issues regarding hardware, software, data management, networks, and other technologies; (3) business applications: major uses of IT for business processes, operations, decision making, and strategic/competitive advantage; (4) development processes: how end users and IS specialists develop and implement business/IT solutions to problems and opportunities arising in business; and (5) management challenges: how to effectively and ethically manage the IS function and IT resources to achieve top performance and business value in support of the business strategies of the enterprise.

System Concepts – A system is a group of interrelated components working toward the attainment of a common goal by accepting inputs and producing outputs in an organized transformation process. Feedback is data about the performance of a system. Control is the component that monitors and evaluates feedback and makes any necessary adjustments to the input and processing components to ensure that proper output is produced.

An Information System Model – An information system uses the resources of people, hardware, software, data, and networks to perform input, processing, output, storage, and control activities that convert data resources into information products. Data are first collected and converted to a form that is suitable for processing (input). Then the data are manipulated and converted into information (processing), stored for future use (storage), or communicated to their ultimate user (output) according to correct processing procedures (control).

IS Resources and Products - Hardware resources include machines and media used in information processing. Software resources include computerized instructions (programs) and instruction for people (procedures). People resources include information systems specialists and users. Data resources include alphanumeric, text, image, video, audio, and other forms of data. Network resources include communications media and network support. Information products produced by an information system can take a variety of forms, including paper reports, visual displays, multimedia documents, electronic messages, graphics images, and audio responses.

Business Applications of Information Systems - Information systems perform three vital roles in business firms. Business applications of IS support an organization’s business processes and operations, business decision-making, and strategic competitive advantage. Major application categories of information systems include operations support systems, such as transaction processing systems, process control systems, and enterprise collaboration systems, and management support systems, such as management information systems, decision support systems, and executive information systems. Other major categories are expert systems, knowledge management systems, strategic information systems, and functional business systems. However, in the real world most application categories are combined into cross-functional information systems that provide information and support for decision-making and also perform operational information processing activities.

Introduction to SAP BW

Introduction to SAP BW

With the use of databases over the past decades, large volumes of data have been accumulated. To integrate and manage the data effectively and systematically, data warehouses have emerged. In addition, OLAP and data mining, which use the data warehouse, have become important research topics. OLAP allows users to easily analyze the data in the data warehouse in order to acquire information necessary for decision making. Data mining extracts unknown useful knowledge from the data warehouse. Data warehousing is a collection of decision making techniques aimed at enabling the knowledge worker to make better and faster decisions.
Data warehousing techniques can be classified into three categories: data warehouses, OLAP, and data mining. Research issues in the first are data cleaning, data warehouse refreshment, physical and logical design of a data warehouse, and meta data management. Research issues in OLAP are multidimensional data models, OLAP query languages, query processing, and system architectures---ROLAP (Relational OLAP) using relational databases, MOLAP (Multidimensional OLAP) using multidimensional indexes, and HOLAP (Hybrid OLAP) combining ROLAP and MOLAP. Data mining involves various techniques such as association rules, classification, clustering, and similarity search.
The objective of data warehousing is to analyze data from diverse sources to support decision making. To achieve this goal, we face two challenges:
• Poor system performance. A data warehouse usually contains a large volume of data. It is not an easy job to retrieve data quickly from the data warehouse for analysis purposes. For this reason, the data warehouse design uses a special technique called a star schema.
• Difficulties in extracting, transferring, transforming, and loading (ETTL) data from diverse sources into a data warehouse. Data must be cleansed before being used. ETTL has been frequently cited as being responsible for the failures of many data warehousing projects. You would feel the pain if you had ever tried to analyze SAP R/3 data without using SAP BW.
SAP R/3 is an ERP (Enterprise Resources Planning) system that most large companies in the world use to manage their business transactions. Before the introduction of SAP BW in 1997, ETTL of SAP R/3 data into a data warehouse seemed an unthinkable task. This macro-environment explained the urgency with which SAP R/3 customers sought a data warehousing solution. The result is SAP BW from SAP, the developer of SAP R/3.
Here we will discuss the basic concept of data warehousing. We will also discuss what SAP BW (Business Information Warehouse) is, explain why we need it, examine its architecture, and define Business Content.
First, we use sales analysis as an example to introduce the basic concept of data warehousing.
1.1 Sales Analysis—A Business Scenario
Suppose that you are a sales manager, who is responsible for planning and implementing sales strategy. Your tasks include the following:
• Monitoring and forecasting sales demands and pricing trends
• Managing sales objectives and coordinating the sales force and distributors
• Reviewing the sales activities of each representative, office, and region
In the real world, you might have years of data and millions of records.
To succeed in the face of fierce market competition, you need to have a complete and up-to-date picture of your business and your business environment. The challenge lies in making the best use of data in decision support. In decision support, you need to perform many kinds of analysis.
This type of online analytical processing (OLAP) consumes a lot of computer resources because of the size of data. It cannot be carried out on an online transaction processing (OLTP) system, such as a sales management system. Instead, we need a dedicated system, which is the data warehouse.
1.2 Basic Concept of Data Warehousing
A data warehouse is a system with its own database. It draws data from diverse sources and is designed to support query and analysis. To facilitate data retrieval for analytical processing, we use a special database design technique called a star schema.
1.2.1 Star Schema
The concept of a star schema is not new; indeed, it has been used in industry for years. For the data in the previous section, we can create a star schema like that shown in Figure 1.1



Figure 1.1 : Star schema
The star schema derives its name from its graphical representation—that is, it looks like a star. A fact table appears in the middle of the graphic, along with several surrounding dimension tables. The central fact table is usually very large, measured in gigabytes. It is the table from which we retrieve the interesting data. The size of the dimension tables amounts to only 1 to 5 percent of the size of the fact table. Common dimensions are unit and time, which are not shown in Figure 1.1. Foreign keys tie the fact table to the dimension tables. Keep in mind that dimension tables are not required to be normalized and that they can contain redundant data.
As indicated in Table 1.3, the sales organization changes over time. The dimension to which it belongs—sales rep dimension—is called the slowly changing dimension.
The following steps explain how a star schema works to calculate the total quantity sold in the Midwest region:
1. From the sales rep dimension, select all sales rep IDs in the Midwest region.
2. From the fact table, select and summarize all quantity sold by the sales rep IDs of Step 1.
1.2.2 ETTL—Extracting, Transferring, Transforming, and Loading Data
Besides the difference in designing the database, building a data warehouse involves a critical task that does not arise in building an OLTP system: to extract, transfer, transform, and load (ETTL) data from diverse data sources into the data warehouse (Figure 1.2).

Figure 1.2 : ETTL process
In data extraction, we move data out of source systems, such as an SAP R/3 system. The challenge during this step is to identify the right data. A good knowledge of the source systems is absolutely necessary to accomplish this task.
In data transfer, we move a large amount of data regularly from different source systems to the data warehouse. Here the challenges are to plan a realistic schedule and to have reliable and fast networks.
In data transformation, we format data so that it can be represented consistently in the data warehouse. For example, we might need to convert an entity with multiple names (such as AT&T, ATT, or Bell) into an entity with a single name (such as AT&T). The original data might reside in different databases using different data types, or in different file formats in different file systems. Some are case sensitive; others may be case insensitive.
In data loading, we load data into the fact tables correctly and quickly. The challenge at this step is to develop a robust error-handling procedure.
ETTL is a complex and time-consuming task. Any error can jeopardize data quality, which directly affects business decision making. Because of this fact and for other reasons, most data warehousing projects experience difficulties finishing on time or on budget.
To get a feeling for the challenges involved in ETTL, let's study SAP R/3 as an example. SAP R/3 is a leading ERP (Enterprise Resources Planning) system. According to SAP, the SAP R/3 developer, as of October 2000, some 30,000 SAP R/3 systems were installed worldwide that had 10 million users. SAP R/3 includes several modules, such as SD (sales and distribution), MM (materials management), PP (production planning), FI (financial accounting), and HR (human resources). Basically, you can use SAP R/3 to run your entire business.
SAP R/3's rich business functionality leads to a complex database design. In fact, this system has approximately 10,000 database tables. In addition to the complexity of the relations among these tables, the tables and their columns sometimes don't even have explicit English descriptions. For many years, using the SAP R/3 data for business decision support had been a constant problem.
Recognizing this problem, SAP decided to develop a data warehousing solution to help its customers. The result is SAP Business Information Warehouse, or BW. Since the announcement of its launch in June 1997, BW has drawn intense interest. According to SAP, as of October 2000, more than 1000 SAP BW systems were installed worldwide.
Here we will discuss how SAP BW implements the star schema and tackles the ETTL challenges.
1.3 BW — SAP Data Warehousing Solution
BW is an end-to-end data warehousing solution that uses preexisting SAP technologies. BW is built on the Basis 3-tier architecture and coded in the ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming) language. It uses ALE (Application Link Enabling) and BAPI (Business Application Programming Interface) to link BW with SAP systems and non-SAP systems.
1.3.1 BW Architecture
Figure 1.3 shows the BW architecture at the highest level. This architecture has three layers.



Figure 1.3 : BW architecture
1. The top layer is the reporting environment. It can be BW Business Explorer (BEx) or a third-party reporting tool. BEx consists of two components:
o BEx Analyzer
o BEx Browser
BEx Analyzer is Microsoft Excel with a BW add-in. Its easy-to-use graphical interface allows users to create queries without coding SQL statements. BEx Browser works much like an information center, allowing users to organize and access all kinds of information. Third-party reporting tools connect with BW OLAP Processor through ODBO (OLE DB for OLAP).
2. The middle layer, BW Server, carries out three tasks:
o Administering the BW system
o Storing data
o Retrieving data according to users' requests
We will detail BW Server's components next.
3. The bottom layer consists of source systems, which can be R/3 systems, BW systems, flat files, and other systems. If the source systems are SAP systems, an SAP component called Plug-In must be installed in the source systems. The Plug-In contains extractors. An extractor is a set of ABAP programs, database tables, and other objects that BW uses to extract data from the SAP systems. BW connects with SAP systems (R/3 or BW) and flat files via ALE; it connects with non-SAP systems via BAPI.
The middle-layer BW Server consists of the following components:
o Administrator Workbench, including BW Scheduler and BW Monitor
o Metadata Repository and Metadata Manager
o Staging Engine
o PSA (Persistent Staging Area)
o ODS (Operational Data Store) Objects
o InfoCubes
o Data Manager
o OLAP Processor
o BDS (Business Document Services)
o User Roles
Administrator Workbench maintains meta-data and all BW objects. It has two components:
• BW Scheduler for scheduling jobs to load data
• BW Monitor for monitoring the status of data loads

Metadata Repository contains information about the data warehouse. Meta-data comprise data about data. Metadata Repository contains two types of meta-data: business-related (for example, definitions and descriptions used for reporting) and technical (for example, structure and mapping rules used for data extraction and transformation). We use Metadata Manager to maintain Metadata Repository.
Staging Engine implements data mapping and transformation. Triggered by BW Scheduler, it sends requests to a source system for data loading. The source system then selects and transfers data into BW.
PSA (Persistent Staging Area) stores data in the original format while being imported from the source system. PSA allows for quality check before the data are loaded into their destinations, such as ODS Objects or InfoCubes.
ODS (Operational Data Store) Objects allow us to build a multilayer structure for operational data reporting. They are not based on the star schema and are used primarily for detail reporting, rather than for dimensional analysis.
InfoCubes are the fact tables and their associated dimension tables in a star schema.
Data Manager maintains data in ODS Objects and InfoCubes and tells the OLAP Processor what data are available for reporting.
OLAP Processor is the analytical processing engine. It retrieves data from the database, and it analyzes and presents those data according to users' requests.
BDS (Business Document Services) stores documents. The documents can appear in various formats, such as Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, and HTML. BEx Analyzer saves query results, or MS Excel files, as workbooks in the BDS.
User Roles are a concept used in SAP authorization management. BW organizes BDS documents according to User Roles. Only users assigned to a particular User Role can access the documents associated with that User Role.
1.3.2 BW Business Content
One of the BW's strongest selling points is its Business Content. Business Content contains standard reports and other associated objects. For example, BW provides you, the sales manager, with the following standard reports:
Quotation Processing
• Quotation success rates per sales area
• Quotation tracking per sales area
• General quotation information per sales area
Order Processing
• Monthly incoming orders and revenue
• Sales values
• Billing documents
• Order, delivery, and sales quantities
• Fulfillment rates
• Credit memos
• Proportion of returns to incoming orders
• Returns per customer
• Quantity and values of returns
• Product analysis
• Product profitability analysis
Delivery
• Delivery delays per sales area
• Average delivery processing times
Analyses and Comparisons
• Sales/cost analysis
• Top customers
• Distribution channel analysis
• Product profitability analysis
• Weekly deliveries
• Monthly deliveries
• Incoming orders analysis
• Sales figures comparison
• Returns per customer
• Product analysis
• Monthly incoming orders and revenue

Administrative and Management Functions
• Cost center: plan/actual/variance
• Cost center: responsible for orders, projects, and networks
• Order reports
• WBS Element: plan/actual/variance
• Cost center: plan/actual/variance
• Cost center: hit list of actual variances
• Cost center: actual costs per quarter
• Cost center: capacity-related headcount
1.3.3 SAP BW over R/3
R/3 was designed as an OLTP system and not an analytical and reporting system. In fact, depending on your needs you can even get away with a reporting instance .
You can run as many reports as you need from R/3 and web enable them but consider these factors:

1. Performance -- Heavy reporting along with regular OLTP transactions can produce a lot of load both on the R/3 and the database (cpu, memory, disks, etc). Just take a look at the load put on your system during a month end, quarter end, or year end -- now imagine that occurring even more frequently.

2. Data analysis -- BW uses a Data Warehouse and OLAP concepts for storing and analyzing data, where R/3 was designed for transaction processing. With a lot of work you can get the same analysis out of R/3 but most likely would be easier from a BW.


Major benefits of BW include:

1. By offloading ad-hoc and long running queries from production R/3 system to BW system, overall system performance should improve on R/3.

2. Another key performance benefit with BW is the database design. It is designed specifically for query processing, not data updating and OLTP. Within BW, the data structures are designed differently and are much better suited for reporting than R/3 data structures. For example, BW utilizes star schema design which includes fact and dimension tables with bit-mapped indexes. Other important factors include the built-in support for aggregates, database partitioning, more efficient ABAP code by utilizing TRFC processing versus IDOC.

3. Better front-end reporting within BW. Although the BW excel front-end has it's problems, it provides more flexibility and analysis capability than the R/3 reporting screens.

4. BW has ability to pull data from other SAP or non-SAP sources into a consolidated cube.

In summary, BW provides much better performance and stronger data analysis
capabilities than R/3.
1.3.4 BW in mySAP.com
BW is evolving rapidly. Knowing its future helps us plan BW projects and their scopes. Here, we give a brief overview of BW's position in mySAP.com.
mySAP.com is SAP's e-business platform that aims to achieve the collaboration among businesses using the Internet technology. It consists of three components:
• mySAP Technology
• mySAP Services
• mySAP Hosted Solutions
As shown in Figure 1.4, mySAP Technology includes a portal infrastructure for user-centric collaboration, a Web Application Server for providing Web services, and an exchange infrastructure for process-centric collaboration. The portal infrastructure has a component called mySAP Business Intelligence; it is the same BW but is located in the mySAP.com platform. Using mySAP Technology, SAP develops e-business solutions, such as mySAP Supply Chain Management (mySAP SCM), mySAP Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM), and mySAP Product Lifecycle Management (mySAP PLM).


Figure 1.4 : mySAP Technology and mySAP Solutions

mySAP Services are the services and support that SAP offers to its customers. They range from business analysis, technology implementation, and training to system support. mySAP Hosted Solutions are the outsourcing services from SAP. With these solutions, customers do not need to maintain physical machines and networks.

Emotion

Emotion

An emotion is a term for a mental and physiological state associated with a wide variety of feelings, thoughts, and behavior. Emotions are subjective experiences, or experienced from a individual point of view. Emotion is often associated with mood, temperament, personality, and disposition. The English word 'emotion' is derived from the French word émouvoir. This is based on the Latin emovere, where e- (variant of ex-) means 'out' and movere means 'move'. The related term "motivation" is also derived from movere.

Emotions can be divided between 'cognitive' theories of emotions and 'non-cognitive' theories of emotions; or instinctual emotions (from the amygdala), and cognitive emotions (from the prefrontal cortex). Some psychologists divide emotions into basic and complex categories, where base emotions lead to more complex ones. Emotions can be categorized by their duration. Some emotions occur over a period of seconds (e.g. surprise) where others can last years (e.g. love). No definitive taxonomy exists.

A related distinction is between the emotion and the results of the emotion, principally behaviours and emotional expressions. People often behave in certain ways as a direct result of their emotional state, such as crying, fighting or fleeing. Yet again, if one can have the emotion without the corresponding behaviour then we may consider the behaviour not to be essential to the emotion. The James-Lange theory posits that emotional experience is largely due to the experience of bodily changes. The functionalist approach to emotions (e.g.,Nico Frijda) holds that emotions have evolved for a particular function, such as to keep the subject safe.

1). A mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes; a feeling: the emotions of joy, sorrow, reverence, hate, and love.

2). A state of mental agitation or disturbance: spoke unsteadily in a voice that betrayed his emotion.

3). The part of the consciousness that involves feeling; sensibility: "The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect" Emotional abuse

Rejection

Rejection occurs from a refusal to acknowledge a person's presence, value, or worth. It is achieved by communicating to a person that she or he is useless or inferior and by devaluing that person's thoughts and feelings. For example, continually treating a child differently from siblings in a way that is unfair and suggests dislike for the child.

Degradation

This occurs from the use of insulting behaviour, such as ridiculing, name calling, imitating and infantilizing. It aims to diminish the dignity and self-worth of the person, and affects their sense of identity in a demeaning way. Examples include: yelling, swearing, publicly humiliating or labelling a person as stupid; mimicking a person's disability; or treating someone as though they were much younger than they are and preventing them from making normal decisions.

Terror

This is the evocation of extreme fear in a person, done by coercion through intimidation. It can include placing or threatening to place a person in an unfit or dangerous environment. Examples include: making a child watch violence perpetrated on people the child cares about or a pet;