Purpose

This page contains explanations of all the different BW table types.

Overview

a 'one stop shop' of the BW relevant table types.

Attribute tables:

Attribute tbl for Time Dependent attributes:

Dimension tables:

Dimension tbls (i.e. DIM tables): /BI*/D<Cube_name><dim.no.>
stores the DIMID, the pointer between fact tbl & master data tbl
data is inserted during upload of transact.data (data is never changed, only inserted)
Examples:
- /bic/D(cube name)P is the package dimension of a content cube
- /bic/D(cube name)U is the unit dimension of a content cube
- /bic/D(cube name)T is the time dimension of a content cube
- /bic/D(cube name)I is the user defined dimension of a content cube

External Hierarchy tables:

/BI*/I*, /BI*/J*, /BI*/H*, /BI*/K*
/BI0/0P...
are tables that occur in the course of an optimized preprocessing that contains many tables.
bic/H(object name) hierarchy data of object
For more information see SAP Note 514907.

Fact tables:

In SAP BW, there are two Fact tables for including transaction data for Basis InfoCubes: the F- and the E-Fact tables.
- /bic/F(cube name) is the F-fact table of a content cube
- /bic/E(cube name) is the E-fact table of a content cube
The Fact tbl is the central tbl of the InfoCube. Here key figures (e.g. sales volume) & pointers to the dimension tbls are stored (dim tbls, in turn, point to the SID tbls).
If you upload data into an InfoCube, it is always written into the F-fact table.
If you compress the data, the data is shifted from the F-fact table to the E-fact table.
The F-fact tables for aggregates are always empty, since aggregates are compressed automatically
After a changerun, the F-fact table can have entries as well as when you use the functionality 'do not compress requests‘ for Aggregates.
E-fact tbl is optimized for Reading => good for Queries
F-fact tbl is optimized for Writing => good for Loads
See SAP Notes 631668 & 1461926 (links to which are further down this page).

Master Data tables:

/BI0/P<char_name>
/bic/M(object name) master data of object
Master data tables are independent of any InfoCube
Master data & master data details (attributes, texts & hierarchies) are stored.
Master data table stores all time independent attributes (display & navigational attribues)

Navigational attributes tables:

SID Attribute table for time independent navigational attributes: /BI*/X<characteristic_name>
SID Attribute tbl for time dependent navigational attributes: /BI*/Y<characteristic_name>
Nav.attribs can be used for naviagtion purposes (filtering, drill down).
The attribs are not stored as char values but as SIDs (master data IDs).

P table:

SID table:

SID tbl: /BI*/S<characteristic>
stores the char value (eg customer number C95) & the SID. The SID is the pointer that is used to link the master data tbls & the dimension tbls. The SID is generated during the upload (uniqueness is guaranteed by a number range obj).
Data is inserted during the upload of master data or of transactional data
S table gets filled whenever transaction gets loaded. That means if any new data is there for that object in the transactions then SID table gets fillled.

Text table:

Text tbl: /BI*/T<characteristic>
stores the text for the chars
data is inserted & changed during the upload of text data attribs for the InfoObject
stored either language dependent or independent