Deleting BI Master Data and Texts for a Characteristic

Use

You can delete master data and texts directly from the master data table in BW. In contrast to deleting at single record level, you can use this function to delete all the existing master data and texts for a characteristic in one action.

Prerequisites

In order to delete master data there must be no transaction data in BW for the master data in question, it must not be used as an attribute for InfoObjects and there must not be any hierarchies for this master data.

Functions

You reach the Delete Master Data function from the context menu of your InfoObject in the InfoObject tree and also the InfoSource tree.

If you choose the Delete Master Data function, the program checks the entries in the master data table affected to see if they are used in other objects.

When you delete you are able to choose whether entries in the SID table of a characteristic are to be retained or whether they are to be deleted:

If you delete the SID table entry for a particular characteristic value, the SID value assigned to the characteristic value is lost. If you load new attributes for this characteristic value later, a new SID value has to be created for the characteristic value. In general this has a negative effect on the runtime required for loading. In some cases deleting entries from the SID table can also lead to serious data inconsistencies. This occurs if the list of SID values generated from the where-used list is not comprehensive, however, this is rare.

Delete, retaining SIDs

For the reasons given above, you should choose this option as standard. Even if, for example, you want to make sure that individual attributes of the characteristic that are no longer needed are deleted before you load master data attributes or texts, the option of deleting master data but retaining the entries from the SID table is also absolutely adequate.

Delete with SIDs

Note that deleting entries from the SID table is only necessary, or useful, in exceptional cases. Deleting entries from the SID table does make sense if, for example, the composition of the characteristic key is fundamentally changed and you want to swap a large record of characteristic values with a new record with new key values.