Powe5r BI Desktop with SAP BW connector Direct Qurery mode

[tomas12344]

HI All

Have a customer, which want to use PBI with SAP BW connector in direct query mode. The connection is build, but i think something is not correct configured, because i get date values formated as text. I would like to ask you for some tips, what to check, setup,... I never used SAP nor the SAP connector.

- is this problem on the SAP BW side? the only thing, i can change is the setting of locale in my PBI. When i set en_EN, i can get the data, but the date is formated as text. Becuase of the limitation, i cannot change the format. I have also chosen de_DE, but i get error, when aplying this change.

- what need to be set on the SAP BW side? any idea. I dont know, if the colleagues whould know, what to setup.

Thanky for any adevice

Tomas

[JyothsnaTummala]

Hi ,

I am also working with customer who want to use PBI with SAP BW connector in direct query mode. In BW date fields are defined as DATS but in Power BI using Direct Query mode, date fields are formatted as text.

I could not have an option to change data type .

My requirement is to perform YTD calculations in report file. Please let me know ,if this requirement is feasible ? and help me in suggesting the approach.

Thanks in advance

[v-jingzhang · Accepted solution]

Hi @tomas12344 

You couldn't change date column type because it has hit the following restriction. For more restrictions about connecting to SAP BW using DirectQuery, please refer to DirectQuery and SAP Business Warehouse (BW) in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Docs

The primary additional modeling restrictions when connecting to SAP BW using DirectQuery in Power BI are the following:

• Column and measure details are fixed: The list of columns and measures seen in the field list are fixed by the underlying source, and cannot be modified. For example, it is not possible to delete a column, nor change its datatype (it can, however, be renamed).

According to this reason, you need to change column type and format in SAP BW. I don't have experience in SAP BW. You could seek help from SAP Help Portal or SAP Community or do some google searching. 

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Jing
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