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SAP BI Interview Questions

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    Many large companies are adopting SAP BI(Business Intelligence) to effectively analyze and leverage their data. This created a huge demand for skilled SAP BI professionals. In any case, if you’re applying for that important SAP BI position or looking to boost your skills, you should read on and familiarize yourself with these 20 SAP BI interview questions. After going through them, you’ll be able to answer most of the questions asked in the next SAP BI interview.

If you're looking for SAP BI Interview Questions & Answers for Experienced & Freshers, you are in the right place. There are a lot of opportunities from many reputed companies in the world. According to research SAP BI has a market share of about 5.2%.

So, You still have the opportunity to move ahead in your career in SAP Business Intelligence. Mindmajix offers advanced SAP BI Interview Questions 2024 that help you in cracking your interview & acquire a dream career as SAP BI Developer.

Top 10 Frequently Asked SAP BI Interview Questions

  1. What is OLAP?
  2. What is an index?
  3. What is the t-code to see a log of transport connection?
  4. How can you navigate to see the error idocs?
  5. What are statistical updates and document updates?
  6. How can you decide the query performance is slow or fast?
  7. How can you eliminate the duplicate records in TD, MD?
  8. What is a dashboard?
  9. What is the difference between PSA & IDOC?
  10. What we do in Business Blue Print Stage?

SAP BI Interview Questions For Freshers & Experienced

1. What is business intelligence?

 Business intelligence (BI) is a broad category of application programs and technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing, and providing access to data to help enterprise users make better business decisions. BI applications include the activities of decision support, query and reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP), statistical analysis, forecasting, and data mining.

2. What is OLAP?

OLAP means Online Analytical Processing. It is a database that contains historical data and the oldest data which is used by business people.
It comes from the data you have put in an OLTP database. OLTP means Online Transaction Processing.

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3. What is data integrity?

Data Integrity is about eliminating duplicate entries in the database. Data integrity means no duplicate data.

4. What is an index?

Indices/Indexes are used to locate needed records in a database table quickly. BW uses two types of indices, B-tree indices for regular database tables and bitmap indices for fact tables and aggregate tables.

5. What are KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)?

  1.  Predefined calculations that render summarized and/or aggregated information, which is useful in making strategic decisions.
  2.  Also known as Performance Measure, Performance Metric measures. KPIs are put in place and visible to an organization to indicate the level of progress and status of change efforts in an organization.

KPIs are industry-recognized measurements on which to base critical business decisions.
In SAP BW, Business Content KPIs have been developed based upon input from customers, partners, and industry experts to ensure that they reflect best practices.

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6. What is the t-code to see a log of transport connection?

In RSA1 -> Transport Connection you can collect the Queries and the Role and after this, you can transport them (enabling the transport in SE10, import it in STMS)

  • RSA1
  • Transport connection (button on the left bar menu)
  • Sap transport -> Object Types (button on the left bar menu)
  • Find Query Elements -> Query
  • Find your query
  • Group necessary object
  • Transport Object (car icon)
  • Release transport (SE10 T-code)
  • Load transport (STMS T-code)
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7. Lo; mm inventory data source with marker significance?

Marker is as like checkpoint when u upload the data from the inventory data source 2lis_03_bx data source for current stock and BF for movement type
after uploading data from BX u should raise the request in cube or imenn to say compress it then load data from another data source BF and set this updated data to no marker update so the marker is used as a checkpoint if u don’t do this u getting data mismatch at bex level bcz system get confused.

  • (2LIS_03_BF Goods Movement from Inventory Management– —–Uncheck the no marker update tab)
  • (2LIS_03_BX Stock Initialization for Inventory Management– —select the no marker update check box)
  • 2LIS_03_UM Revaluations —-Uncheck the no marker update tab) in the info package of “collapse”.

8. How can you navigate to see the error idocs?

If it is fine check the IDOCs in the source system go to BD87->give Ur user ID and date->execute->you can find Red status Idocs select the erroneous Idoc->Rt.click and select Manual process.
You need to reprocess this IDOC which is RED. For this, you can take the help of Any of your Teams (ALE IDOC Team or Basis Team), Or Else. You can push it manually. Just search it in the bd87 screen only to reprocess. Also, try to find why these Idocs are stuck there.

9. Difference between v1, v2, v3 jobs in extraction?

  • V1 Update: whenever we create a transaction in R/3(e.g.Sales Order) then the entries get into the R/3 Tables (VBAK, VBAP..) and this takes place in V1 Update.
  • V2 Update: V2 Update starts a few seconds after V1 Update and in this update the values get into Statistical Tables, from where we do the extraction into BW.
  • V3 Update: It's purely for BW extraction.

10. What are statistical updates and document updates?

Synchronous Updating (V1 Update). The statistics update is made synchronously with the document update. While updating, if problems that result in the termination of the statistics update occur, the original documents are NOT saved. The cause of the termination should be investigated and the problem solved. Subsequently, the documents can be entered again. Radio button: V2 updating

11. Do you have any idea how to improve the performance of the BW..?

Asynchronous Updating (V2 Update). With this update type, the document update is made separately from the statistics update. Termination of the statistics update has NO influence on the document update (see V1 Update).

Radio button: Updating in the U3 update program
Asynchronous Updating (V3 Update) With this update type, updating is made separately from the document update. The difference between this update type and the V2 Update lies, however, with the time schedule. If the V3 update is active, then the update can be executed at a later time. In contrast to V1 and V2 Updates, no single document is updated. The V3 update is, therefore, also described as a collective update.

12. How can you decide the query performance is slow or fast?

You can check that in the RSRT code. execute the query in RSRT and after that follow the below steps. Go to SE16 and in the resulting screen give table name as RSDDSTAT for BW 3.x and RSDDSTAT_DM for BI 7.0 and press enter you can view all the details about the query like the time taken to execute the query and the timestamps.

13. What is statistical setup and what is the need and why?

Follow these steps to filling the setup table.

  • Go to transaction code RSA3 and see if any data is available related to your DataSource. If data is there in RSA3 then go to transaction code LBWG (Delete Setup data) and delete the data by entering the application name.
  • Go to transaction SBIW –> Settings for Application-Specific Datasource –> Logistics –> Managing extract structures –> Initialization –> Filling the Setup table –> Application-specific setup of statistical data –> perform setup (relevant application)
  • In OLI*** (for example OLI7BW for Statistical setup for old documents: Orders) give the name of the run and execute. Now all the available records from R/3 will be loaded to set up tables.
  • Go to transaction RSA3 and check the data.
  • Go to transaction LBWE and make sure the update mode for the corresponding DataSource is serialized V3 update.
  • Go to BW system and create info package and under the update, tab selects the initialize delta process. And schedule the package. Now all the data available in the setup tables are now loaded into the data target.
  • Now for the delta records go to LBWE in R/3 and change the update mode for the corresponding DataSource to Direct/Queue delta. By doing this record will bypass SM13 and directly go to
  • RSA7.Go to transaction code RSA7 there you can see the green light # Once the new records are added immediately you can see the record in RSA7.
  • Go to the BW system and create a new info package for delta loads. Double click on the new info package. Under the update tab, you can see the delta update radio button..
  • Now you can go to your data target and see the delta record.

14. Why we have to construct set-up tables?

The R/3 database structure for accounting is much easier than the Logistical structure. Once you post in a ledger that is done. You can correct, but that gives just another posting.BI can get information directly out of this (relatively) simple database structure. In LO, you can have an order with multiple deliveries to more than one delivery address. And the payer can also be different.
When 1 item (order line) changes, this can have its reflection on order, supply, delivery, invoice, etc. Therefore a special record structure is built for Logistical reports. and this structure now is used for BI. In order to have this special structure filled with your starting position, you must run a set-up. From that moment on R/3 will keep filling this LO database. If you wouldn’t run the setup. BI would start with data from the moment you start the filling of LO (with the logistical cockpit).

15. How can you eliminate the duplicate records in TD, MD?

Try to check the system logs through SM21 for the same.

16. What use marker in MM?

Marker update is just like a checkpoint. ie it will give the snapshot of the stock on a particular date ie when was the marker updated. Because we are using a Noncumulative key figure it will lot of time to calculate the current stock for example at report time. To overcome this we use marker update. Marker updates do not summarize the data. In inventory management scenarios, we have to calculate opening stock and closing stock on a daily basis. In order to facilitate this, we set a marker that will add and subtract the values for each record. In the absence of marker updates, the data will be added up and will not provide the correct values.

17. Tell me the web template?

You get information on where the web template details are stored from the following tables :

  • RSZWOBJ Storage of the Web Objects
  • RSZWOBJTXT Texts for Templates/Items/ Views
  • RSZWOBJXREF Structure of the BW Objects in a Template
  • RSZWTEMPLATE Header Table for BW HTML Templates. 

You can check these tables and search for your web template entry. However, If I understand your question correctly, you will have to open the template in the WAD and then make the corrections in the same to correct it.

18. What is a dashboard?

A dashboard can be created using the web application Designer (WAD) or the visual composer (VC). A dashboard is just a collection of reports, views, and links, etc in a single view. For e.g. google is a dashboard. A dashboard is a graphical reporting interface, which displays KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) as charts and graphs. A dashboard is a performance management system when we look at all organization's measures of how they are performing with helicopter view, we need a report that teaches and shows the trend in a graphical display quickly. These reports are called Dashboard Reports, still, we can report these measures individually, but by keeping all measures on a single page, we are creating a single access point for the users to view all information available to them. Absolutely this will save a lot of precious time, gives clarity on a decision that needs to be taken, helps the users to understand the measure(s) trend with business flow creating dashboard Dashboards: Could be built with Visual Composer & WAD create your dashboard in BW,

  1. Create all BEx Queries with required variants, tune them perfectly.
  2. Differentiate table queries and graph queries.
  3. Choose the graph type required that meet your requirement.
  4. Draw the layout how the Dashboard page looks like.
  5. Create a web template that has navigational block/selection information.
  6. Keep navigational block fields are common across the measures.
  7. Include the relevant web items into the web template.
  8. Deploy the URL/Iview to users through portal/intranet.

The steps to be followed in the creation of the Dashboard using WAD are summarized as below:
Open a New Web template in WAD.

  1. Define the tabular layout as per the requirements so as to embed the necessary web items.
  2. Place the appropriate web items in the appropriate tabular grids
  3. Assign queries to the web items (A Query assigned to a web item is called as a data provider)
  4. Care should be taken to ensure that the navigation block’s selection parameters are common across all the BEx queries of the affected data providers.
  5. Properties of the individual web items are to be set as per the requirements. They can be modified in the Properties window or in the HTML code.
  6. The URL when this web template is executed should be used in the portal/intranet.

19. How do we decide what cubes have to be created?

Ans It depends on your project requirement. Customized cubes are not mandatory for all projects. If your business requirement differs from the given scenario (BI content cubes) then only we will opt for customized cubes. Normally your BW customization or creation of new info providers all are depending on your source system. If your source system other than R3 then you should go with customization of your all objects. If your source system is R3 and your users are using only R3 standard business scenarios like SD, MM or FI… etc., then you don’t want to create any info providers or you don’t want to enhance anything in the existing BW Business Content. But 99% of this is not possible. Because surely they should have included their new business scenario or new enhancements.

For example, In my first project, we implemented Solution Manager BW implementation. There we have activated all the business content in CRM. But the source system has new scenarios for message escalation, aging calculation, etc., according to their business scenario, we couldn’t use standard business content. For that, we have taken only existing info objects and created new info objects which are not there in the business content. After that, we have created a custom data source for info providers as well as reports.

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20. How can you solve the data mismatch tickets between r/3 and BW?

Check the mapping at BW side for 0STREET in transfer rules. Check the data in PSA for the same field. If the PSA is also doesn’t have complete data then check the field in RSA3 in the source system.

21. What is the difference between PSA & IDOC?

BI7 is PSA used only for Data load from Source System into BW

22. About DTP?

Data Transfer Process:
The data transfer process (DTP) loads data within BI from one object to another object with respect to transformations and filters. In short, DTP determines how data is transferred between two persistent objects. It is used to load the data from PSA to data target (cube or ods or info object) thus, it replaced the data mart interface and the Info Package.

23. What we do in Business Blue Print Stage?

SAP has defined a business blueprint phase to help extract pertinent information about your company that is necessary for implementation. These blueprints are in the form of questionnaires that are designed to probe for information that uncovers how your company does business. As such, they also serve to document the implementation. Each business blueprint document essentially outlines your future business processes and business requirements.

The kinds of questions asked are germane to the particular business function, as seen in the following sample questions:

  1. What information do you capture on a purchase order?
  2. What information is required to complete a purchase order?

Accelerated SAP question and answer database: The question and answer database (QADB) is a simple although aging tool designed to facilitate the creation and maintenance of your business blueprint. This database stores the questions and the answers and serves as the heart of your blueprint. Customers are provided with a customer input template for each application that collects the data. The question and answer format is standard across applications to facilitate easier use by the project team. Issues database: Another tool used in the blueprinting phase is the issues database. This database stores any open concerns and pending issues that relate to the implementation. Centrally storing this information assists in gathering and then managing issues to resolution, so that important matters do not fall through the cracks. You can then track the issues in the database, assign them to team members, and update the database accordingly.

24. How do we gather the requirements for an Implementation Project?

One of the biggest and most important challenges in any implementation is gathering and understanding the end-user and process team functional requirements. These functional requirements represent the scope of analysis needs and expectations (both now and in the future) of the end-user.

These typically involve all of the following:- Business reasons for the project and business questions answered by the implementation - Critical success factors for the implementation- Source systems that are involved and the scope of information needed from each- Intended audience and stakeholders and their analysis needs- Any major transformation that is needed in order to provide the information- Security requirements to prevent unauthorized use This process involves one seemingly simple task: Find out exactly what the end users’ analysis requirements are, both now and in the future, and build the BW system to these requirements. Although simple in concept, in practice gathering and reaching a clear understanding and agreement on a complete setoff BW functional requirement is not always so simple.

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About Author

I am Ruchitha, working as a content writer for MindMajix technologies. My writings focus on the latest technical software, tutorials, and innovations. I am also into research about AI and Neuromarketing. I am a media post-graduate from BCU – Birmingham, UK. Before, my writings focused on business articles on digital marketing and social media. You can connect with me on LinkedIn.

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