Static and Dynamic Geo-Characteristics SAP BI INFOOBJECT

Definition

Static and dynamic characteristics describe data with a geographical reference (for example, characteristics such as customer, sales region, country). Maps are used to display and evaluate this geo-relevant data.

Structure

There are four different types of geo-characteristic:

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1. Static geo-characteristics

A static geo-characteristic is a characteristic that describes a surface (polygon), whose geographical coordinates rarely change. Country and region are examples of static geo-characteristics.

Data from areas or polygons are stored in Shapefiles that define the geometry and the attributes of the geo-characteristics.

2. Dynamic geo-characteristics

A dynamic geo-characteristic is a characteristic that describes a location (information in point form), whose geographical coordinates can change more frequently. Customer and plant are examples of dynamic geo-characteristics because they are rooted to one geographical “point” that can be described by an address, and the address data of these characteristics can often change.

A range of standard attributes are added to this geo-characteristic in SAP NetWeaver BI. These standard attributes store the geographical coordinates of the corresponding object for each row in the master data table. The geo-attributes concerned are:

Technical Name	Description	Data Type	Length
LONGITUDE	Longitude of the location	DEC	15
LATITUDE	Latitude of the location	DEC	15
ALTITUDE	Altitude of the location (height above sea level)	DEC	17
PRECISID	Identifies how precise the data is	NUMC	4
SRCID	ID for the data source	CHAR	4

At present, only the LONGITUDE and LATITUDE attributes are used. ALTITUDE, PRECISID and SRCID are reserved for future use.

If you reset the geographical type of a characteristic to Not a Geo-Characteristic, these attributes are deleted in the InfoObject maintenance.

3. Dynamic geo-characteristics with values from attributes

To save you having to geocode each dynamic geo-characteristic individually, a dynamic geo-characteristic can get its geo-attributes (longitude, latitude, altitude) from another dynamic characteristic that has been geocoded already (postal code, for example). Customers and plants are examples of this type of dynamic geo-characteristics with values from attributes (type 3).

The system treats this geo-characteristic as a regular dynamic geo-characteristic that describes a location (geographical information as a point on map). The geo-attributes described above are not added to the master data table on the database level. Instead, the geo-coordinates are stored in the master data table of a regular attribute of the characteristic.

You want to define a dynamic geo-characteristic for Plant with the postal code as an attribute. The geo-coordinates are generated from the postal code master data table during the runtime.

This method prevents redundant entries from appearing in the master data table.

4. Static geo-characteristics with geo-attributes

A static geo-characteristic that includes geo-attributes (longitude, latitude, altitude) which geo-characteristics of type 3 are able to refer to. The postal code, for example, can be used as a static geo-characteristic with geo-attributes.

0POSTCD_GIS (postal code) is used as an attribute in the dynamic geo-characteristic 0BPARTNER (business partner) that gets its geo-coordinates from this attribute. In this way, the location information for the business partner is stored on the level of detail of the postal code areas.

See also:

Delivered Geo-Characteristics