Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Once the package has been created, the modeling objects needed for the development can be
created, and stored inside it.
Step 3 - Creating an attribute view
In SAP HANA, an attribute view is used, as its name suggests, to present a view of master data
to the user.
We can picture a master customer data record, where every imaginable piece of information
concerning the customer is available, from their name, their date of birth, right down to the
nearest post office, or the name of the railway station closest to the customer (yes, these fields
really are available in SAP ERP!). Most of this information is unnecessary to the development
being made and should be excluded from the view so as not to pollute the report, and so as to
limit the amount of data read from the database in order to speed up the application.
Of course, we could only copy the data we're interested in to a new table and use that, but it's
time-consuming, error-prone, and a maintenance nightmare to duplicate the data, when we can
just have the database present only the fields we're interested in and ignore the rest.
An attribute view performs this role in SAP HANA—it can join one or more tables of master data
(attributes), and present only certain fields to the user (view). Note that an attribute view can
only
use non-numeric information—you can't add numeric data to an attribute view.
In this example, we'll create a simple attribute view, selecting only certain fields for use.
The attribute view created here uses the
CUSTOMERS
table from the
previous section. In this table, the fields
CUST_ID
,
CUST_NAME
, and
CUST_COUNTRY
are available, and in the attribute view created, only
CUST_ID
and
CUST_NAME
will be visible.
From the main
Modeler
perspective of the Studio, in the
Quick Launch
panel, select
Attribute
View
, then click on
Create
. You can also right-click on the package in the
Content
node of the
Navigator pane
, and select
New | Attribute View
—whichever method you prefer, they both
lead to the same screen, shown in the following screenshot:
