Core Data Service (CDS) Views in SAP Business Warehouse

Virtual data model

An ABAP Core Data Service is an SAP-compliant infrastructure that can be used to define and consume semantic data models (here, data is given a business- or process-relevant meaning). This is also referred to as virtual data models (VDM).
VDMs are the basis of SAP S/4 HANA and are used by both business processes and analytics to provide data for various reporting front ends. CDS views perform intensive calculations on the database, which reduces execution time and simplifies application coding.
Especially in the area of SAP S/4HANA embedded analytics, virtual data models play a major role because they deliver business process information in real time and without data replication, without the user having to have detailed knowledge of the data structures.

Areas of application of Core Data Service Views

Another area of application for CDS views is data extraction to SAP BW.
Thus, in BW/4HANA and S/4HANA, it is possible to replace the familiar LIS extractors, e.g. in SD Sales, Billing and Conditions, with CDS View extractors. This has a number of advantages: Anyone who knows the time-consuming filling of set-up tables for initializing the BW data layer (plus system block!) knows what I'm talking about - not to mention the time-consuming enrichment of the LIS extractors with new fields in an extraction process that is already running productively.

Released or not released? - that is the question here!

SAP S/4HANA brings with it more than 42000 CDS views. However, 90% of these are not released by SAP for further use, i.e. these VDMs can change in the future - similar to unreleased function modules. Whether to use them or not must be weighed up in each individual case. Since CDS views are often nested and based on different views, the overall structure can go through several levels and become correspondingly complex.

How can an existing Core Data Service View be found?

There are several ways to find core data views. In SAP Fiori, for example, there is a tile that displays a list of views. If you want to find out which SAP tables end up in which CDS views, you can also use transaction code SE11 in S/4 and the where-used list.

Consumption View as a source for SAP Analytics Cloud

A Consumption view, such as C_FinStmntComparison, which can be used to map a profit and loss statement and balance sheet structure, can also be used via a direct live connection S/4HANA to SAP Analytics Cloud (prerequisite is an OData service on the view) to create a model and story with it.
Big advantage here: Real-time data without replication or data loads directly in an appealing dashboard.
The term "view" should not mislead you into thinking that it is a combination of table and view. A consumption view is rather to be considered as a query or frontend object.

Transient Provider

A transient provider - sometimes also called transient query - is a construct that can result, for example, from two CDS views. The first CDS view [A] must be defined with the annotation "@Analytics.dataCategory: #CUBE". The second CDS view [B] selects the data from [A] and must contain the annotation "@Analytics.query: true". This transient provider can then be consumed in Analysis-for-Office.

This is only a small part of what is possible with CDS Views and should serve as a first introduction. The fields of application are very diverse and extend to SAP's latest platform technologies (SAP Business Process Technology).