Wonder if Design Studio is able to leverage BW Workspaces? Here the answer

In order to do a demo in Design Studio these days, I was preparing to cook some data in SAP BW. In this sort of situations, I use a small InfoCube with some InfoObjects that are relevant for the corresponding demo. In order to upload a dataset, I use the program CUBE_SAMPLE_CREATE (runnable from SE38), which allows me to directly enter data to the InfoCube, without actually having a data model to feed the cube. This already efficient, but is there an even easier way to upload data to SAP BW?

Yes, there is: BW Workspaces, and even better, Design Studio is able to directly connect to BW Workspaces!

A BW Workspace is a dedicated area in SAP BW, where a specific department can upload local data and even combine it with central data. One of the prerequisites for the usage of BW Workspaces is a recent accelerated version of SAP BW (BW Accelerator or SAP HANA). In this blog, I would like to share with you my experience in creating a BW Workspace, uploading a local Dataset and create a Design Studio application on top of the BW Workspace.

If you would like to learn more about BW Workspaces, I recommend you to watch following SAP TechEd session: 

Here's our overall plan:

Afterwards click "Create".

In the next screen, you can configure the Workspace and among other, set a Workspace prefix and adjust memory limits for the Workspace:

Start the excel version of Analysis for Office and connect to your BW System. I am connecting through the BI Platform but you can also connect in local mode. Enter your desired dataset, you are free to enter any column title and value you can think of, I am typing in following table:

After entering the values in a tabular format, make sure to select all its cells (e.g. hitting control+A) and hit “Create” on the Data Source menu group:

 

In the next screen you can configure the new data source:

In the next screen you can select “Do not insert”, as we do not want to insert the newly created data source in Analysis:

Now you can go ahead and start Design Studio and log either locally or through a BI Platform. Add a new data source and search for your BW Workspace:

Notice that BW Workspaces start with an at sign” @” followed by the Workspace prefix. Hit "OK" on this screen.

Edit the initial view of the BW Workspace and select the desired objects:

And finally, create a nice multidimensional application on top of the excel table that we uploaded to the BW Workspace:

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post about using BW Workspaces in Design Studio.