Workflow reporting with BW - how to extract information?

[mikko.maki-rahkola@accenture.com]

Hi wug members,
 
we're planning to do some more serious reporting on process statistics and we have selected BW as the reporting engine & frontend. The statistical information contains both workflow-specific container element info such as company codes and general workflow header statistics such as completion times. The backend system is R/3 4.6c.
 
My problem is how to determine the best approach for extracting the information. The following are my initial options and thoughts about them. Please let me know if you have had a similar decision to make and which way did you go, if you have can tell which is the most convenient option or if you can just comment on some of them.
 
Thanks!
-Mikko
 
1. Direct extraction from standard tables SWWIOBJCT, SWWWIHEAD and SWW_CONT
- either build a function module which picks up the information from all the tables and works as a BW data source or
- do the table joins in BW
- pros: no development needed in R/3, data to be kept in a single location, easy use in BW if fm is built
- cons: custom functionality build effort in R/3, problems with table joins (especially linking workflows to objects and workflows to container elements), extraction performance, amount of future support (changing a container element name results in fm changes)
- my preferred option currently if it's possible
 
2. Extract first to WIS, then extract to BW
- with the user exit and steps in help.sap.com, the stats can be extracted first to a new WIS table/structure and
- BW can then be used to extract the information from workflow-specific WIS structures/tables
- I have tested the WIS update procedure with the user exit codings and all, but it felt a bit awkward and I remember having some problems with it
- pros: less custom coding in R/3, WIS quick to be filled
- cons: duplicate information in standard tables and WIS, possible BW extraction problems, extra configuration for future workflows
- not too keen about this, wis used just as a middleman
 
3. Extract to BW from process-specific custom tables
- quick and dirty approach, a custom log table to be created for all workflows
- a single table line contains all the information needed for that process for a single process instance
- pros: easy to build reports on, easy to extract to BW,
- cons: duplicate information with standard tables, new tables for all new future workflows
- not too eager to do this either, too much work in the long run


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