The following page discusses the most common questions that come up in the context of extracting data for Spend Performance Management (SPM):
Q. Does Spend Performance Management have extractors for SAP Source systems?
A. Yes, Spend Performance Management customers get access to the data extractor starter kit.
Q. Where can I get the starter kit and is it free?
A. The starter kit can be downloaded from the note 1239883 . It is a available at no additional cost to all the Spend Performance Management licensed customers.
Q. What source systems (and versions) does it support?
A. ERP: 4.6c, 4.7, ECC 5.0 and ECC 6.0 (non EHP and all EHP versions)
SRM: 5.0 and 7.0
Q. For ECC 6.0 EHP versions, do you need a seperate extractor code line?
A. No, the same Extractor Starter kit is applicable for all EHP versions.
Q. What extraction options do I have with the starter kit?
A. There are two options available for extracting data in the starter kit: Flat file & BW datasource. Spend Performance Management understands the format of the data extracted by the starter kit. The data management functionality will upload the data in the BW cubes defined for Spend Performance Management.
Q. What is this Flat file option?
A. In this option, data gets extracted to a file (.csv) format.
Q. What is the BW datasource option?
A. This is the standard data transfer mechanism of transferring data between any ABAP system and BW.
Q. How do I choose the right data extraction option?
A. If your implementation is a hosted/BPO type operation then it might make sense to extract data in a flat file and send it over (there are ofcourse savvy ways of connecting your internal source systems to the external SPM deployments, a networking expert would be able to answer that). If you have an on premise installation then, obviously, it's recommended that you go the standard datasource route.
Q. Do these starter kits have any support for delta (periodic data updates) after the initial load is completed?
A. Yes. Deltas are available (for all source objects that support delta mechanism) in both of the extraction options. You don't need to reload the full set of data, when you perform the periodic data updates.
Q. How does the Spend data management tool support the extractor starter kit?
A. The data from the extractor starter kit is in the correct format (in terms of column headers) which can be directly consumed by the Spend data mgmt tool without using any special templates (you can leave the template as "default"). So no additional work is required to make the data fit the Spend Performance Management format.
Q. What about Currency Exchange Information?
A. The starter kit comes with extractors for currency conversions in case of flat file based data transfer. If you have loaded the Currency Conversion into BW already (maybe using the standard data source) then you don't need to do it specifically for Spend.
Q. Can I extend/customize the starter kit?
A. Absolutely. The recommendation is that, in case you need to modify the out of the box extractors, then create copy and modify the copy instead. So you are free to be bold and mess up the copy, knowing that you can always create another copy from the original.
Q. Where can I find detailed doc?
A. The extractors along with detailed documentation are part of the note 1239883. For additional information on the data mgmt tool, pls refer to the link [http://help.sap.com/content/bobj/sbu/docu_sbs_xsa_design.htm\\\\]
Q. What other options do I have for data extraction?
A. a. Write your own extractors in ABAP
b. Use SAP BusinessObjects Data Services to create extractors.
Q. If I want to write my own extractors, how do I know which fields to extract and map?
A. The documentation site for Spend on Service Market Place, https://service.sap.com/instguidesssa, contains two spreadsheet documents, "Master Data for Spend Performance Management.xls" and "Transaction Data for Spend Performance Management.xls". They contain a mapping between the source system tables and Spend Performance Management fields. These two documents can provide a great starting point for creating the extractors.
(If the shreadsheets are not visible, click on the top right icon which will "unhide" the docs. For SPM documentation details follow the link: http://weblogs.sdn.sap.com/pub/wlg/20184)
Q. What is the best practice/recommendation?
A. The recommendation is, instead of trying to create brand new extractors from scratch, take the starter kits. They should cover majority of the extraction needs for Spend Performance Management. If some minor things are missing, they can always be brought in in forms of modifications and customizations.
Q. Where can I further discuss this wiki?
A. http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/19844
Q. Do customers productively use the extractor starter kits?
A. Yes, the starter kits are preferred by majority of the customers for loading data into production systems.
Q. Is there a Forum where I can post additional questions?
A. http://forums.sdn.sap.com/forum.jspa?forumID=411