SAP BW InfoObject, Infoarea, InfoObject Catalogue & Types

By : Jessica Blake Jessica Blake
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⚡ Smart Summary

InfoObjects in SAP BW are the smallest information units, characteristics, key figures, units, and time characteristics, organized inside InfoObject catalogs and InfoAreas to build the InfoProviders such as InfoCubes and DSOs used for reporting.

  • 🧱 InfoObjects: The smallest information modules in BW, used to build every InfoProvider.
  • 🏷️ Characteristics: Business reference objects, such as customer or material, used to analyze data.
  • 🔢 Key Figures: Numeric values, such as quantity or amount, that are evaluated in queries.
  • 📁 InfoArea: A folder-like node that organizes InfoCubes, DSOs, and InfoObjects.
  • 🗃️ InfoObject Catalog: A container that groups characteristics or key figures for easy maintenance.
  • 🤖 AI Assistance: AI and modern modeling tools suggest and organize InfoObjects for data models.
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SAP BW InfoArea, InfoObject and Catalog

What Are InfoObjects?

InfoObjects take information from the source, then adjust and arrange it into a standard or customized report. InfoObjects are the smallest available information modules or fields in BI. They are needed in InfoProviders such as InfoCubes, DSOs, MultiProviders, and queries, which are all made up of InfoObjects.

InfoObjects

An InfoObject gives all information about the business. For instance, company XYZ wants to find out how much of “product x” shipped on “date x” to “factory x”. By defining InfoObjects for specific functions such as 0MATERIAL, 0DATE, and 0LOCATION, all the information can be retrieved.

InfoObjects can be classified into the following types:

  • Characteristics (for example, customers)
  • Key figures (for example, revenue)
  • Units (for example, currency or amount unit)
  • Time characteristics (for example, fiscal year)
  • Technical characteristics (for example, request number)

Characteristics

Characteristics are business reference objects used to analyze key figures. Examples of characteristic InfoObjects: Cost center (0COSTCENTER) and Material (0MATERIAL).

Key Figures

Key figures provide the values to be evaluated. They are numeric information reported in the query. Examples of key figure InfoObjects: Quantity (0QUANTITY) and Amount (0AMOUNT).

Units

Units are paired with key figure values. They assign a unit of measurement to a key figure value. For instance, in 10 Kg, 10 is the key figure and Kg is the unit. Other examples of unit characteristics: Currency unit (0CURRENCY), which holds the currency type such as USD or EUR, and Value unit (0UNIT), which holds the unit of measure such as gallon, inch, or cm.

Time Characteristics

Time characteristics give a time reference to data. Examples: Calendar day (0CALDAY), Calendar year (0CALYEAR), and Fiscal year (0FISCYEAR).

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Technical Characteristics

Technical characteristics are SAP standard objects that have their own administrative purposes. Examples:

  • InfoObject 0REQUID: while loading data to various data targets, SAP allocates unique numbers stored in this InfoObject.
  • InfoObject 0CHNGID: when an aggregate change run is done, a unique number is allocated and stored in this InfoObject.

Before creating an InfoObject, the InfoArea and InfoObject catalog need to be created.

What is an InfoArea?

  • In Business Warehouse, InfoAreas are the branches and nodes of a tree structure.
  • They are used to organize InfoCubes and InfoObjects.
  • Each InfoObject is assigned to an InfoArea.
  • An InfoArea can be thought of as a folder used to hold related files together.

What is an InfoObject Catalog?

  • Every InfoObject needs to be created within an InfoObject catalog.
  • It helps with organization and is in no way related to reporting functions.
  • Example: there are many InfoObjects for SAP Financials that can be clubbed into one InfoObject catalog. This makes management and maintenance easy.
  • An InfoObject can be assigned to multiple catalogs.

There are two types of InfoObject catalog:

  1. Characteristic InfoObject catalog
  2. Key figure InfoObject catalog

Here is the roadmap to create an InfoObject:

InfoObject Catalog Roadmap

FAQs

A characteristic is a business reference object, such as customer or material, used to classify and analyze data. A key figure is a numeric value, such as quantity or amount, that is evaluated. Characteristics describe; key figures measure.

Compounding links a characteristic to one or more superior InfoObjects so its values are unique. For example, a cost center value may only be unique within a controlling area, so cost center is compounded to controlling area.

First create the InfoArea as the organizing folder, then create an InfoObject catalog (characteristic or key figure) inside it, and finally create the InfoObject within that catalog. The catalog and InfoArea must exist first.

Yes. The SAP Joule AI copilot and modeling assistants can profile source data, propose characteristics and key figures, and recommend reuse of existing InfoObjects, helping consultants design consistent data models faster.

Machine learning reads the structured metadata of characteristics, key figures, and units to understand relationships in the data. In SAP Analytics Cloud, this lets AI auto-generate charts and answer natural-language questions accurately.

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