Info objects

Info objects are business evaluation objects in BI/BW. Info objects are the smallest
information units in BW.
They structure the information needed to create data targets.infoobjects with attributes
or text can be either data target's or infoproviders

They are divided in to Five types

1. Characteristics Ex: Material
2. Key figures Ex: sales
3. Unit Ex: amount , quantity
4. Time Ex: Year, month,date There are 13 predefined Time characteristics in SAP BI we
cant create new time characteristics
5. Technical Ex: Request number , Technical characteristics are used for administrative
purpose with in BI/BW
Steps to create an Info object

Create Infoarea (InfoAreas are used to organize InfoCubes and InfoObjects. Each
InfoCube is assigned to an InfoArea. Through an InfoObject Catalog, each InfoObject is
assigned to an InfoArea as well. The maximum number of characters allowed for the
technical name is 30.)
Create Infoobject catalog (InfoObject Catalogs organize InfoObjects. Two types of
InfoObject Catalogs exist: one for characteristics, and one for key figures. The maximum
number of characters allowed for the technical name is 30.)
Create infoobject
Types of characterstic info objects
Based on the options we select while creating characteristic info objects we have
following types of character info objects

1. Display Attribute: A display attribute provides supplemental information to a
characteristic.
Time dependent Display attribute
Time independent Display attribute

2. Navigational Attribute: A navigational attribute indicates a characteristic-to-
characteristic relationship between two characteristics. It provides supplemental
information about a characteristic and enables navigation from characteristic to
characteristic during a query. Time independent Navigational Attribute and Time
dependent navigational attribute .
3. Text
4. Hierarchy : version dependent, time dependent , interval hierarchies
5. Compound attribute: A compound attribute differentiates a characteristic to make the
characteristic uniquely identifiable. For example, if the same characteristic data from
different source systems mean different things, then we can add the compound attribute
0SOURSYSTEM (source system ID) to the characteristic; 0SOURSYSTEM is provided
with the Business Content.
Different tables created while activating Infoobjects are as follows:
1. Master data table
2. Text Table
3. SID table
4. Hierarchy table
5. Attribiute table


Naming convention :
Master data table: /BIC(O)/M<Info object name> BIO is for Sap delivered objects
and BIC for customer created objects

Text tables /BIC/T<Info object name>
SID tables /BIC/S<Info object name>
Hierarchy tables : /BIC/H<info object name>
/BIC/I<info object name> Time depedent Hierarchy Structure
/BIC/K<info object name> Hierarchy SID Table
Attribute tables
/BIC/P< info object name > Time Independent Display Attribute
/BIC/Q< info object name> Time dependent Display attribute
/BIC/X<Info object name> TIme Independent Navigational Attribute
/BIC/Y< Info object name> Time Dependent Navigational Attribute

Different Data types allowed for creating a characteristic Infoobjects are
CHAR, NUMC, DATE, TIME

Different Data types allowed for creating Key figure info object are
Amount, Quantity , Number, Interger, date , time