SAP BW Authorization is definitely different from R/3 authorization. Why? Well, first, R/3 authorization usually involves up to the transaction code level. But for SAP BW, the mostly used transaction is "RSA1" and "RRMX". Therefore, authorization based on transaction code alone, is definitely not sufficient.

So how do we design authorization in SAP BW? There's a few authorization objects that relates to SAP BW.

For reporting, you will most probably use the following SAP BW authorization object:

1. S_RS_COMP - Reporting Component, here is where you control the query authorization blah blah.
2. S_RS_COMP1 - Reporting Component Owner, you can control users to only be able to access report created by Power Users, here.
3. S_RS_FOLD - Disable/Enable the 'InfoAreas' button.

Besides that, you will also need to configure the following authorizations:

1. S_RS_ICUBE - Infocube authorization
2. S_RS_ODSO - ODS Objects
3. S_RS_HIER - Hierarchy Authorization

For SAP BW administration purposes, aside from the above, you also need to configure the following authorization objects:

1. S_RS_ADMWB - Administrator Workbench
2. S_RS_IOBJ - Info Objects authorization
3. S_RS_ISOURCE - Transaction Infosource
4. S_RS_ISRCM - Master Data Infosource

There that's what you need for authorization. Anyway, to achieve "field level" authorization like those in R/3, you can create a customize object, select the infoobject that has been set "authorization relevant", and add it in the authorization matrix, and walla, you got "field level" authorization.

Recently, I had the chance to learn a general overview of SAP Business Consolidation or BCS in short. Or more precisely, the consolidation process. All I can say is that, I'm quite overwhelmed. I mean I feel more like an accountant each day. With all the mumbo jumbo about 'interunit elimination', 'equity method' blah blah blah, It's sometimes, quite hard to digest.

Anyway, to cut long story short, this SAP BCS is basically a long process that follows a certain sequence that will eventually transform a certain infocube, into a virtual cube that can be used as a basis for consolidation reporting.

The following is a gist of what process that we have to go through to do consolidation:

1. Master Data
   - Consolidation Unit, Consolidation Group, FSI Item, Breakdown, Version
2. Data Collection
   - Method
   - Validation on Reporting Financial Data (RFD)
   - Currency Translation
   - Standardising Value Entries
   - Validation on Standardized Financial Data (SFD)
   
3. Consolidation Process
   - Manual Entry of Consolidation Financial Data (CFD)
   - Interunit Elimination
   - Reclassification/Allocation
   - Consolidation of Investments
   - Balance Carry Forward
   - Validation on CFD
4. Reporting
   - Standard
   - Customized

So basically, it's a lot. I'm not going to elaborate much on what each process is. Well for that, you have to attend SAP BCS course :) But the main point is, there's a lot of "creative accounting" at work here, and for that my friend, you might have to take, perhaps an accounting certificate!

On the last day of our SAP BW 360 Training, we learned about attribute change run and process chain.

Remember the stuff about dropping index before loading, create index after, load master data first before transaction blah blah? Well, there's an easy way to automated all this. Yep, using 'Process Chains'. This process chains can connect all the different things required to do for the whole extraction/loading/transformation 'shebang'!

You can group different process chains, mix and match here and there, and automated much of the itty gritty administrative stuffs.

What about 'attribute change run'? Well, we use this attribute change run, to propagate changes in the master data attribute to all the relevant objects that uses this master data. For example, aggregrates etc etc.

So that's what we learn in day 5. All in all, I think the SAP BW360 is a good course to teach you about different ways to improve performance of SAP BW. It's a bit of BASIS, ABAP, Functional and Application lump into one.