6.5    SAP S/4HANA Core Data Models

When SAP S/4HANA was first introduced, it had the SAP S/4HANA Finance (then known as SAP Simple Finance) module with a new code base. With SAP S/4HANA 1511, the new code base has extended to cover several business processes in logistics and operations. The new code base was on top of the simplified data models, which had removed the redundant data in terms of the aggregate tables. This simplification of the data models has continued with SAP S/4HANA 1610, including changes in the Sales and Distribution (SD) area.

Before SAP HANA came into the picture, aggregate tables such as table BSEG and table BKPF were required to have faster reporting. Database operations were more complex because every time the transactional tables (header, item, and sometimes subitem) were updated, these aggregate tables had to be updated too. The design of the data model was to boost the performance of the reports while aggregating these data during reporting, which could leverage the aggregate tables instead of the detailed transactional tables.

Now, with the advent of SAP HANA, creating this aggregation in runtime is fast and easy. This simplification is leveraged in the data models that now do away with many of the tables and have a consolidated table for each major area such as financials and logistics (refer to Chapter 3 and Chapter 4).

This simplified data model has quite an impact on the database size as the data volume to be persisted diminishes. There is an impact on custom code as well. The migration effects are discussed in Chapter 9. From an implementation perspective, when writing any custom code, you need to consider mapping the fields from the new combined table such as table ACDOCA in finance or table MATDOC for material documentd, instead of using multiple tables as were used earlier. There are additional considerations in terms of using CDS views or generating CDS views using the Business Function Library (BFL) for functions implemented on the SAP HANA database layer.

Note

Details on the custom coding aspects are found at https://websmp104.sap-ag.de/~sapidp/012002523100002530422016E.pdf.