I have seen a few posts contrasting the technical differences between “BPC standard model” and “Embedded BPC model” . Intent of my blog is to call out the practical differences I have noticed from a business/ Practical standpoint during the implementation that I have worked on. This is by no means a comprehensive list.
| Issue | BPC standard | BPC embedded (BW-IP/PAK) | |
| Master data & other business consideration | |||
| Special characters in master data Many companies use “#, spaces” etc in their material#s. Example C345A76#01, C345A76#02 – to denote variation of the same basic SKU |
Workaround & conversion(replace ‘space’ with _ or a similar character) required. Forced to display the “BW Material#” attribute in BPC reports instead of the native value. Possibility of duplicates if there are 2-spaces of many disallowed characters* |
Native support Additionally MATN1 Conversion routine – that applies company’s template defined in ECC for material# representation is respected. Example remove leading zeros for display purposes |
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| Hierarchy support | Simple hierarchies, no support for duplicate nodes | Full blown support Duplicate nodes, external characteristics, also now “user-defined hierarchies” |
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| Integration with other BW data exampl combine the SKU-level plan with “CRM promotion data” by SKU & period |
Hard to do , have to bring data to unified format | Native support Full blown functionality |
|
| Time characteristics | only Calmonth, all others – such as fiscal period would have to be modeled as a another BPC dimension | Native support Full blown functionality ‘Automatic time conversion from “Date” to Fiscal period, Month etc. There is a possibility to use “WEEK” and “MONTH” in the provider – this is especially applicable to Trade-promotion planning |
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| BW statistics people underestimate the power of being able to records statistics on performance and usage. Allows companies to trim-down/eliminate less-used models/applications |
not really supported | Native support Full blown functionality |
|
| File upload | Standard | need workaround | |
| Locking | Last-person wins Desired behaviour in simple planning applications |
The provider is locked with the characteristic-combination/filter. This has been a pain point for some customers | |
| Future proof solution to take advantage of innovations on HANA platform | |||
| HANA views & Mixed scenarios | Not standard** | Native support BW models can be pubished to HANA & fully leverage mixed-scenario |
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| Load to BPC from aDSO and other new BW/HANA objects. i.e keep up with SAP’s innovation |
Not supported | Native support Additionally MATN1 Conversion routine – that applies company’s template defined in ECC for material# representation is respected. Example remove leading zeros for display purposes |
|
| Dashboard & other BusinessObjects tools BICS connection, develop dashboard in design studio |
no native support, but can used the generated-BW virtual providers. | Native support Full blown functionality |
|
| Available on BW/4 HANA | NO | YES | |
| Technical capabilities | |||
| UoM Conversion | no native UoM conversion in BPC standard, needs script/formula | Push-down to HANA & native support | |
| Prompts | limited use | Uses BE x queries, Full support – especially leverage User-exit variables | |
| Time characteristics | only Calmonth, all others have to be modeled as a another BPC dimension | Automatic time conversion from “Date” to Fiscal period, Month etc. There is a possibility to use “WEEK” and “MONTH” in the provider – this is especially applicable to Trade-promotion planning | |
| YTD(year to date) , PTD (period to date) | standard | Use the new delivered variables – for YTD, MTD to achieve this | |
| Performance for complex allocations logic | Good | Best Can be pushed down to HANA – depending upon the scenario |
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| Navigational attribute , more complex 2-step navigational attribute | NO real support in BPC-reports. Workaround use a BE x query on virtual provider | Native support | |
| * there is a system setting wherein you can allow BPC to use special characters – but SAP does not recommend | |||
| **It is possible to create HANA views on BPC-infocubes, but this is not a standard approach | |||
New NetWeaver Information at SAP.com
Very Helpfull
