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SAP Information StewardDocument Version: 4.2 Support Package 8 (14.2.8.0) – 2017-05-04

What's New

Content

1 SAP information resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2 SAP Information Steward 4.2 SP8 features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52.1 General. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52.2 Administration and installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62.3 Data Insight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62.4 Metadata Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.5 Metapedia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

3 SAP Information Steward 4.2 SP7 features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133.1 Data Insight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133.2 Metadata Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153.3 Metapedia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

4 SAP Information Steward 4.2 SP6 features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174.1 Administration and installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174.2 Data Insight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174.3 Match Review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194.4 Metadata Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194.5 Metapedia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

5 SAP Information Steward 4.2 SP5 features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .235.1 Administration and installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235.2 Data Insight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

6 SAP Information Steward 4.2 SP4 features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .256.1 Administration and installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256.2 Cleansing Package Builder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256.3 Metadata Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

7 SAP Information Steward 4.2 SP3 features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277.1 Cleansing Package Builder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277.2 Data Insight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287.3 Metadata Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

8 SAP Information Steward 4.2 SP2 features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .298.1 Administration and installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298.2 Cleansing Package Builder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298.3 Data Insight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

2 P U B L I CWhat's New

Content

8.4 Metadata Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328.5 Metapedia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .338.6 Match Review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

9 SAP Information Steward 4.2 SP1 features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359.1 Administration and installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359.2 Data Insight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359.3 Metadata Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409.4 Metapedia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419.5 Match Review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

10 SAP Information Steward 4.2 features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4310.1 Administration and installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4310.2 Data Insight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4410.3 Metadata Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4510.4 Metapedia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4610.5 Match Review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

What's NewContent P U B L I C 3

1 SAP information resources

A global network of SAP technology experts provides customer support, education, and consulting to ensure maximum information management benefit to your business.

Useful addresses at a glance:

Table 1:

Address Content

Customer Support, Consulting, and Education services

http://service.sap.com/

Information about SAP Business User Support programs, as well as links to technical articles, downloads, and online discussions.

Product documentation

http://help.sap.com/bois/

SAP product documentation.

Supported platforms (Product Availability Matrix)

https://service.sap.com/PAM

Information about supported platforms for SAP Information Steward with a search function to quickly find information related to your platform.

Product tutorials

http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-8751

Tutorials that have been developed to help you find answers to the most common questions about using SAP Information Steward.

Forums on SCN (SAP Community Network )

https://go.sap.com/community/topic/information-steward.html

Discussions that include information and comments from other SAP users and the means to share your knowledge with the community.

EIM Wiki page on SCN

https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/EIM/Enterprise+Information+Management+-+EIM

The means with which to contribute content, post comments, and organize information in a hierarchical manner to so that information is easy to find.


SAP information resources

http://help.sap.com/disclaimer?site=http://service.sap.com/

http://help.sap.com/bois

http://help.sap.com/disclaimer?site=https://support.sap.com/release-upgrade-maintenance/pam.html

http://help.sap.com/disclaimer?site=http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-8751

http://help.sap.com/disclaimer?site=https://go.sap.com/community/topic/information-steward.html

http://help.sap.com/disclaimer?site=https://go.sap.com/community/topic/information-steward.html

http://help.sap.com/disclaimer?site=https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/EIM/Enterprise+Information+Management+-+EIM

http://help.sap.com/disclaimer?site=https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/EIM/Enterprise+Information+Management+-+EIM

2 SAP Information Steward 4.2 SP8 features

2.1 General

This version of Information Steward includes enhancements that affect multiple areas of Information Steward.

Custom attribute groups

You can now organize custom attributes into groups. Grouping makes it easier for you to find and use the attributes that are important to you.

To create a new group, go to Manage Custom Attributes and click Manage Groups.

For more information, see “Grouping custom attributes” in the User Guide.

System identifier

You can now add a system identifier to the top of the Information Steward user interface. For example, if you work in both a development and a testing Information Steward system at the same time, you may find it easier to identify which system you have opened by adding a system identifier to the top line of the Information Steward user interface. For example:

For instructions to set a system identifier, see the User Guide.

Support of SAP ECC Extractor

SAP Information Steward now supports SAP ERP Central Component extractors.

This new support includes only the subset of SAP extractors with the extraction method of “V” (indicating Transparent Table or DB View). None of the other SAP extraction methods (D, F1, F2, FS, Q, A, CA, CO) are currently supported.

For more information, see “SAP ERP Central Component integrator metadata objects” in the User Guide.

What's NewSAP Information Steward 4.2 SP8 features P U B L I C 5

2.2 Administration and installation

This version of Information Steward includes enhancements for administrators and IT personnel responsible for Information Steward installation and configuration.

Configurable Workflow Approval

Beginning with SAP Information Steward 4.2 SP8, system administrators will be able to set permissions to allow users in an approval group to approve rules, policy sets, policy statements, and terms that they author. Once their permissions are set, a user will be able to approve the rule, policy set, policy statement, or term that they have created, bypassing the normal approval process.

For more information about setting permissions, see the Information Steward System Administrator Guide.

For more information about creating rules, policy sets, policy statements, and terms, see the Information Steward User Guide.

SAP HANA installation no longer required

Beginning with this release of SAP Information Steward, SAP HANA Studio 1.0 SP9 and its dependents will be bundled with Information Steward. Customers will no longer need to install SAP HANA Studio in order to run the Information Steward integrator.

2.3 Data Insight

This version of Information Steward includes several new features and enhancements to Data Insight.

Attach a scorecard quality report to e-mail notifications

You can now attach a key data domain scorecard report (PDF) to your e-mail notifications.

Select the Attach scorecard quality report option when setting up your key data domain e-mail notifications. Users do not need to log into Information Steward in order to view this report.

The scorecard quality report provides the following information:

● Key data domain name.● Quality dimensions bar chart showing the overall score, individual dimension names, and the score of the last

run done in the Calculate Scorecard utility.


SAP Information Steward 4.2 SP8 features

● Quality trend line chart showing scores for runs done in the Calculate Scorecard utility over a period of time (time between first and last run).

● Score threshold information. The low and high threshold box is colored according to the key data domain definition.

● Creation date and time.

For more information, see “Setting up e-mail notifications for key data domains” in the User Guide.

Export failed data from multiple rule bindings to one Excel workbook

The software now provides you with two container options when you export data from failed rule bindings and columns from a scorecard. Choose to export the CSV files to a Zip folder, or to an Excel Workbook as individual work sheets. The following table describes how the software exports your data, and how the software names the files based on your choice.

Table 2:

Export option Description File name

Export to Zip The software exports the failed data from each column to individual CSV files. The software compiles the CSV files in a ZIP folder.

CSV file name: ISExportData_<timestamp>_<Column_Name>_<Rule_Name>.csv.

Export to Excel The software exports the failed data from each column to individual CSV files. The software exports the CSV files to Excel, which creates a worksheet for each CSV file in a Workbook.

Excel workbook name: <scorecard_name>_<generated_unique_id>.xls

Excel worksheet names: <table_name>_<column_name>_<generated_unique_id>

NoteThe software limits the workbook file name and each worksheet name to 31 characters. Therefore, the file names may be truncated.

Failed data connection and permissions

Administrators now choose the connection on which to base failed data. Users must have permissions to the specific connection to be able to view more failed data and export failed data for rules and scorecards.

Administrators make an Information Steward configuration setting in the Central Management Console (CMC) to determine which connection type to use as the basis for users access to failed data. The option is Connection on which to base failed data in the Permissions section of Information Steward settings. Administrators can choose


either Source Connection, or Failed Data Connection. Administrators must further grant the individual user the following permission to the selected connection type:

● View data● View sample data● Export data

For example, if your administrator chooses to base failed data access on the source connection, your administrator must grant you the following permissions in the source connection: View data, view sample data, and export data. If you do not have these permissions to the source connection, you cannot view more failed data or export failed data for rules or scorecard results. Even if you have permission to the failed data repository, you still cannot view more failed data or export failed data if the failed data repository is not in the source connection.

For complete details about these permissions, see the Administrator Guide.

Control column order for failed data

With this release, you can control the column order for viewing failed data, viewing more failed data, and for exporting failed data. Select either database order or alphabetical order.

● Database: Lists columns in the order that existed in the database when you imported the table to Information Steward or in the order used when you created or modified a view.

● Alphabetical: Lists columns in alphabetical order.

Make the setting in Data Insight, Profile Results tab using the Modify display settings options. To access the display options, click the wrench icon in the upper right corner of the tab. The order you choose also controls the order for columns in views and the columns in the tables and views in the Rule Results tab.

Export tasks for external scheduler

With this release there are expanded features for exporting execution commands to run tasks in an external scheduler. The following table lists the details for the new features.

Table 3:

Feature Details

Expanded permissions Permission requirements now include users with scheduling privileges and the ability to view task activities. Previously, only administrators could perform these tasks.

Additional layer of security Now users only enter their user name and password into the execution commands. Users no longer have to enter the system name and system password. This requirement caused a potential security breach because the system information could be read by anyone.



Feature Details

Expanded tasks to export Users can now export all tasks in a project. Previously, users could export execution commands for rule and profile tasks, and for the calculate scorecard utility.

View history Users can now view exported task history and log files in Information Steward. Previously users could view history and log files for exported execution commands from the CMC only.

Use ISTaskExecuteCommand.bat or .sh Users can now enter parameters into an execute command utility to create and run task execution commands in an external scheduler. Previously users could only generate the command in the CMC.

NoteThis feature is also included in Data Services 4.2 SP 7 (14.2.7.2).

For complete details about these permissions, see the Administrator Guide.

2.4 Metadata Management

This version of Information Steward includes new features and enhancements to Metadata Management.

New template for Excel metadata content integrator

There is a new Excel template for Business Intelligence (BI) metadata for the Excel content integrator. The template is named bitemplate.xlsx. Use the BI template in the same way you use the relational database (RDB) template named rdbtemplate.xlsx. Find more information about the Excel integrator templates in the User Guide. Find information about creating an integrator source using the templates in the Administrator Guide.

New objects collected by Enterprise integrator source

The SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise integrator now collects Analysis OLAP and Design Studio Objects. These object types are available for SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence version 4.1, 4.2, or higher.


Table 4:

Object type Associated objects

Analysis OLAP workspace ● Analysis Rows● Analysis Columns● Analysis Datasources (based on SAP NetWeaver

Business Warehouse (BW) or SAP HANA data sources that are linked to an OLAP connection in the Central Management Console)

View impact and lineage diagrams to see which Analysis OLAP Workspace uses which BW Fields or HANA Columns.

Design Studio Application ● Analysis Rows● Analysis Columns● Analysis Datasources (Datasources that use SAP

NetWeaver Business Warehouse (BW) or SAP HANA data sources that are linked to an OLAP connection in the CMS)

View impact and lineage diagrams to see which Design Studio Application uses which BW fields or HANA columns.

For more details, see the User Guide.

Linux support for metadata integrators

Metadata integrators that use a Java-based API to extract metadata from source systems are now supported on Linux. These additional metadata integrators are included in the list of features that you choose during SAP Information Steward version 4.2 SP8 installation.

The following Java-based API metadata integrators are supported on Linux with this release:

● SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse● SAP Data Services● Common Warehouse Model (CWM)● Relational Database (RDBMS)● SAP HANA● SAP Excel● SAP ERP Central Component● Apache Hadoop

The SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise (SAP BOE) metadata integrator is also supported on Linux. There are some post-installation steps to perform before you can run SAP BOE metadata integrator on Linux in an IPS environment. For information about the additional steps, and for information about certain limitations when you use the SAP BOE metadata integrator, see “Enterprise metadata integrator on Linux and IPS” in the Installation Guide for UNIX.



Flat file and Excel file format objects included in Metadata Management

Metadata Management contains integrator sources and related objects. Additionally, it contains Data Insight connections. With this release, the Data Insight connections category now includes flat file formats and Excel file formats in addition to applications and databases. Now you can run Metadata Management processes on your flat file and Excel file formats just like for any other database table.

2.5 Metapedia


Web services operations added for policy sets and statements

You can now access policy set and statement information through web services. The following operations have been added to the metapedia-service.wsdl file:

Table 5:

Operation Description

searchPolicyStatement Returns all the policy statements that match the provided search query. The name can be a partial string with an * appended to the name string.

searchPolicySet Returns all the policy sets that match the provided search query. The name can be a partial string with an * appended to the name string.

getPolicyStatementDetailsByName Returns detailed information regarding the policy statement specified by the name in the request.

getPolicySetDetailsByName Returns detailed information about a specific policy set (exact name required).

getPolicyStatementComplianceScore Returns the policy statement compliance score, based on the name of the policy statement.

getPolicySetComplianceScore Returns the policy set compliance score, based on the name of the policy set.

getPolicyStatementsInPolicySet Returns all the policy statements found in a particular policy set, based on the name of the parent policy set.

For more information, see the Integrator Guide.

Display related policy set and statement objects in Data Insight and Metadata Management

Policy sets and statements that are associated with rules or key data domains are now being displayed in Data Insight and in Metapedia Management.


In Data Insight, association information can be found in the following areas:

Table 6:

Location Description

Rules tab The name of the policy set or statement. For more information, click the name to open the Policy Set or Policy Statement window.

All related Metapedia objects, including Metapedia Terms and Categories, are displayed in the left pane of the Detail window.

Scorecard Setup tab A policy statement icon appears next to the key data domain. For more information, click the icon to open the Policy Set or Policy Statement window.

Data Quality Detail view within the Scorecard view

A policy statement icon appears next to the key data domain. For more information, click the icon to open the Policy Set or Policy Statement window.

In Metadata Management, policy sets and statements are shown in the object tray for any associated object. Policy sets and statements are listed as links.

For more information, see the User Guide.




3.1 Data Insight


Email notifications for key data domains

You can now create plain-text email notifications for key data domain scores on scorecards.

This enhancements allows you to:

● configure when an email notification will be sent, based on the sensitivity setting you choose.● customize the subject of an email.● add multiple recipients for a single email notification. You can have a combination of users, groups, and email

addresses.● set the low and high threshold to the same value. Essentially, this allows you to remove the Warning range for

a score.● create multiple email notifications per key data domain.

For more information, see “Setting up email notifications for key data domains” in the User Guide.

Sort projects

When you open Data Insight, use the Sort projects by option to sort your projects by name or by date created. Note that the default Enterprise Project is always listed first, regardless of the sort selection.

We removed the Refresh button, so use the Sort projects by button to refresh project information.

For more information about Data Insight projects, see the User Guide.

Managed failed data repositories

Your failed data repositories can become very large and may periodically require some maintenance to keep them working efficiently. Additionally, when source data (table or view) is reimported after structural changes have been made, structural inconsistencies in the failed data repository can cause rule tasks to fail. The software provides the following options to help you manage the size and content of your failed data repositories:

● The Clean Up Failed Data utility in the Central Management Console (CMC) cleans up old and obsolete failed data from all of your failed data connections.


● The Delete Failed Data and Run option in the Tasks tab of Data Insight cleans up data structure inconsistencies in your repository when a rule task fails.

● The Delete Failed Data and Run option in the task status page in the Central Management Console (CMC) deletes data structure inconsistencies in your repository when a rule task fails.

For more information about managing the failed data repository, see the User Guide.

Exporting scorecard failed data from multiple rule bindings

Export data from failed rule bindings and columns from a scorecard. A scorecard may have failed data from multiple rule bindings and multiple columns. Instead of performing a failed data export for each rule binding in a scorecard, you can export failed data from all or some of the failed rule bindings and columns all at once.

The software generates a list of failed rule bindings and columns that contributed to the failed scorecard for the selected data dimension. You can choose specific rule bindings or specific columns to export. Before the final export, you can review an export summary that reports the number of rule bindings exported and skipped. The export summary also lists all success messages as well as warning and error messages applicable to the export.

Each column's failed data is exported to individual CSV files. The software compiles the CSV files in a ZIP folder.

For more information about exporting failed data from multiple rule bindings from a scorecard, see the User Guide.

Add optional observer for rules

When you create a rule, you can select a person or group from an Observer list. To be included in the Observer list, users must have Data Insight user rights or higher.

The person or group designated as an observer recieves an email notification when a rule is approved or deleted. Even though choosing an observer is optional, you may find it convenient to include another person or group, in addition to an approver or creator, to receive basic notices about the rule when it is approved or deleted.

Read more about email notifications for rules in the User Guide.

Viewing where rules are used

You can now view where rules are used in all of the projects you manage, including the rules that are bound to each of your projects. In addition, the software will display the rules usage window if it is not able to complete a task, to show you why it could not complete the task.

Read more about viewing where rules are used in the User Guide.





SAP Hadoop metadata integrator

The Hadoop integrator supports the collection of metadata for standard relational objects.

You can do the following with the Hadoop integrator:

● Collect standard relational object metadata from a Hive Metastore.

NoteOnly Hive Metastores created in MySQL are supported.

● Collect Hadoop distributed file system (HDFS) metadata for directory structures and files.

Use the Hadoop integrator with other integrators, like the Relational Database Metadata integrator, to view impact and lineage analysis.

For more information, see “SAP Hadoop metadata integrator” and “Hadoop metadata objects” in the User Guide and “Configuring sources for the Hadoop Metadata Integrator” in the Administrator Guide.

3.3 Metapedia

This version of Information Steward includes enhancements to the Metapedia module.

The Metapedia module allows you to implement a glossary of terms related to your business concepts, and organize them.

Information Policy Management compliance monitor

Information Policy Management in Metapedia allows you to define, implement, and monitor policy sets and statements that are derived from business policies.

In this release, we added the ability to view compliance scores for active policy sets and statements. This ensures that your policies are in compliance with your company’s data governance objectives.

The policy set compliance score is displayed, along with other set information, in the Compliance section, which is located at the bottom left corner of the main pane. Policy statement scores are also displayed next to the statement name in the main pane.

For more information, see “Policy compliance monitor” in the User Guide.


Filter by date

Use filters to view only the content you want to see. You can then export only those terms or policies that meet the specified filter criteria.

To view terms or policy statements that were created or updated within a specific date range, click Filter by Date in the Metapedia tab and enter a start and end date. A green checkbox appears on the Filter by Date button once a filter is applied.

By default, Information Steward filters terms and statements based on the last saved date in the repository.

For more information, see “Filters” and “Exporting to Excel”in the User Guide.

Ability to reorder custom attribute values

In the Valid Values window, you can reorder values by clicking and dragging them into the desired sequence.

For more information, see “Creating and associating custom attributes” in the User Guide.

Add optional observer for terms, policy sets and policy statements.

When you create a Metapedia term, policy set, or policy statement, you can select a person or group from an Observer list. To be included in the Observer list, users must have Data Insight user rights or higher.

The person or group designated as an observer receives an email notification when a term, policy set, or policy statement is approved or deleted. Even though choosing an observer is optional, you may find it convenient to include another person or group, in addition to an approver or creator, to receive basic notices about the object when it is approved or deleted.

Read more about email notifications for Metapedia in the User Guide.






Two new integrator sources

SAP Information Steward now supports Sybase ASE (SAP ASE) and Sybase IQ (SAP IQ) integrator sources.

For more information, see “Configuring sources for Relational Database System Metadata Integrator” in the Administrator Guide.

4.2 Data Insight


Support for .xlsx file format

Information Steward Data Insight now allows you to create and import .xlsx files. This file format was introduced in Microsoft Excel 2007.

Enhancements to rule task email notifications

This release contains significant enhancements to email notifications for rule tasks. Email notifications allow you to notify business users when a rule score meets a specific sensitivity setting.

Enhancements include:

● More information given in the plain-text email notification.


Table 7:

Information Version 4.2.5 and earlier

Version 4.2.6

Project Name No Yes

Rule task name Yes Yes

Table name(s) Yes Yes

Column name(s) Yes Yes

Score(s) Yes Yes

Previous scores No Yes

Number of failed records No Yes

Number of passed records No Yes

Threshold Status (Good/Warning/Bad) No Yes

● Ability to configure when an email notification will be sent. New sensitivity settings include:○ Always○ Never○ Under high threshold○ Under low threshold○ Score change○ Score decrease

● Ability to customize the subject of an email. In previous versions, the subject was always set to the name of the task.

● Ability to add multiple recipients for a single email notification. You can have a combination of users, groups, and email addresses.

● Ability to set the low and high threshold to the same value. Essentially, this allows you to remove the Warning range for a score.

● Support of multiple email notifications per rule task.

For more information, see “Setting up rule task email notifications” in the User Guide.

Use return codes to represent scores

If you're using an external scheduler, you can use return codes to represent scores when running the rule task or calculate scorecard utility. This feature is set up through the CMC.

For more information, see “Using return codes to represent scores” in the Administrator Guide.

Include Source with failed data

Choose to include the source tables with the failed data tables when you define a rule or run a rule task.



Include the source table to enhance your ability to filter and drill down into the data source to gain a better understanding of why the data failed. Including the source table also enhances the software trending capability because it tracks date and time information when ever the source data changes.

See the topic “Include Source with failed data” in the User Guide for more information.

Combine views

You can now combine two or more views to create one new view.

See the topic “Combine two or more views with Union” in the User Guide for more information.

4.3 Match Review

This version of Information Steward includes several new features and enhancements to Match Review.

Match Review usability enhancements

We've made several improvements to the Match Review user interface.

● The system now saves a user's column width preferences for a given task when the user is working with Match Review screens.

● When a user is creating an activity table connected to an Oracle database, the system now verifies the length of the table name, the length of the Match Group Number column name, and the length of the Match Group Rank column name. The system now warns the user if the name(s) are too long, and tells the user what the maximum lengths are.



Metadata Management security

The following security enhancements have been made to Metadata Management:

● The Directory page in the Metadata Management tab displays only the objects that the user has permission to view.


● Search results that include Metadata Management objects are filtered based on user permissions.● In impact and lineage diagrams, objects that a user does not have view permissions for are gray and cannot

be expanded to show details.● In the Central Management Console (CMC), a new application-level user right "Establish Relationship in

Metadata Management" has been added that restricts the user from establishing relationships between objects. This right also restricts the user from importing and exporting user-defined relationships from the Metadata Management tab.

● For Metapedia terms that the user does not have permission to access parent objects for, the display of associated objects is restricted.

For more information, see the SAP Information Steward User Guide and SAP Information Steward Administrator Guide.

Support of SAP HANA Integrator virtual tables

SAP Information Steward now supports the use of virtual tables with the SAP HANA Integrator.

4.5 Metapedia



Information Policy Management

Information Policy Management is a new feature within Metapedia that allows you to define, implement, and monitor policy sets and statements that are derived from business policies.

A policy set is a collection of policy statements. Policy sets support efficient operations and business process execution by organizing information about business policies, processes, and best practices. Policy sets can also contain other policy sets.

A policy statement supports a particular area of the business or a particular business process (for example, procurement, competitive bidding, or travel). Policy statements cannot exist on their own. They must belong to a policy set.

You can do the following in the Policies tab:

● Create and maintain policy sets and policy statements.● Associate policy statements to other Information Steward objects (for example, business terms, validation

rules, and metadata objects).

For more information, see “Understanding policy sets and statements” in the User Guide.



OnDemand category loading

While in the Terms tab, the system now displays a progress bar while it loads a category tree, the category tree loads faster, and full category names are now displayed as tool tips.

For more information, see “Metapedia” in the User Guide.

Allow terms to share the same name

When creating a term, we recommend that you give it a unique name. We are, however, aware that there are cases in which you'll want multiple terms to share the same name.

To allow terms to share the same name, you must set the new Allow Duplicated Term Names option in the CMC to Yes. This option is set to Noby default.

The new option can be found in the CMC under Applications Information Steward Applications Configure Application Metapedia Options .

NoteWhen creating a term in Metapedia, the information you enter into the Technical name field must be unique. If a technical name already exists in the Information Steward repository, an error displays and you won't be able to save the term.

For more information, see “Creating a term” and “ Exporting to Excel” in the User Guide and “Settings for Metapedia ” in the Administrator Guide.

Custom attributes

We implemented several enhancements to custom attributes that make it easier for you to use them.

Information Steward now allows you to do the following:

● You can now enter and edit multiple lines of string text when entering information into the Value field. To create a new line, use Enter or copy and paste text that contains multiple lines.For example,

Line 1 Line 2 Line 3

● You can now select multiple values when associating custom attributes to metadata objects.When creating a custom attribute, select the MultiSelect option in the Valid values (<attribute name>) window and then enter the options. Later, when you click on the Values field in the Custom Attributes window, you will be prompted to choose from the list of options you entered during creation.


NoteThe MultiSelect option is available only when the List of values option is enabled. The option is not available for Range.

● You can now use display text for URLs. For example, when creating a custom attribute, you could enter “SAP Documentation” into the Display Name field of the Edit URL window. SAP documentation would then appear in the Custom Attribute window instead of the full link (help.sap.com).



http://help.sap.com/

http://help.sap.com/




Google Chrome web browser support

You may now access SAP Information Steward using Chrome.

5.2 Data Insight


Rule descriptions now display in the Scorecard

When creating a rule, you have the option of entering a description. The description you enter now appears in the Validation Rules section of the Scorecard.

For more information, see “Creating a rule” in the User Guide.

Assigning a weight of zero

You can now temporarily disable items within the scorecard without deleting the items from your setup. For example, items such as quality dimensions, validation rules, or rule bindings.

If you assign a weight of zero to an item, the item (including its children) will not appear or be used in any calculations in the scorecard view.

For more information, see the User Guide.


Viewing Sigma values

Six Sigma is a combination of basic principles and statistical methods that you can use to improve your processes and increase efficiency.

To view six sigma scores in the scorecard, go to Manage Preferences and select the Display Sigma Values option.

NoteSigma values are available only when you set the Show score as of: option to Now.

A column showing the total Sigma value appears in the Scorecard Setup tab and in the following sections of the Data Quality Details scorecard view:

● Key Data Domain● Data Quality Dimensions● Validation Rules● Rule bindings

NoteIf all records fail, <-6 displays in the Sigma Score column.

If all records succeed, >6 displays in the Sigma Score column.

For information about the formulas used to derive the scores, see “Viewing Sigma values” in the User Guide.





This version of Information Steward includes enhancements for administrators and IT personnel responsible for Information Steward installation and configuration. .

External Scheduler Support

This version of Information Steward supports the ability to use an external scheduler instead of the CMC to run a Data Insight profile task, rule task, or calculate scorecard utility.

6.2 Cleansing Package Builder

This version of Information Steward includes new features and enhancements to Cleansing Package Builder

SAP Information Steward 4.2 SP4 includes the following enhancements to Cleansing Package Builder.

Efficient content upgrade process

Content upgrade now works in a separate process enabling you to work on other tasks in Cleansing Package Builder during upgrade. You can run several content upgrades at the same time.

Additionally, content upgrade provides an option to publish the upgraded cleansing package immediately after upgrade completes.

The content upgrade has the following states:

Table 8:

State Description

Locked ● Content upgrade in progress● Publishing in progress (when applicable)


State Description

Ready ● Content upgrade complete● Content upgrade complete with warnings

To see if there are warnings, move your mouse pointer over the name of the cleansing package for status information. If no message appears, the upgrade is successful.

Error Content upgrade not complete because of errors

Move your mouse pointer over the name of the cleansing package for error information.

For details about content upgrade, see the topic “Content upgrade for person and firm cleansing packages” in the User Guide.

New cleansing package for Turkey

With this release of Information Steward Cleansing Package Builder, we have added Turkey to our SAP-supplied Global cleansing package.


This version of Information Steward includes new features and enhancements to Metadata Management

This version of Information Steward includes enhancements to the Metadata Management module.

New integrator for SAP ERP Central Component

The SAP ERP Central Component integrator allows you to collect basic Data Model information from the SAP System, including tables, views, structures, table fields, data elements, and data domains.

NoteThe impact lineage relationships between SAP ECC tables and fields and the tables and columns of other systems are not implemented in this release.

For more information about this integrator, see the Administrator Guide and the User Guide.





This version of Information Steward includes new features and enhancements to Cleansing Package Builder

New option for setting up reference data for phone

There is a new column in the Edit Reference Data tab (data type Phone) in Cleansing Package Builder named ISO2 Country Code. The Data Cleanse transform uses the ISO2 Country Code information for enhanced international phone parsing.

If you add an additional country to the cleansing package, you can include the ISO2 Country Code along with the Country Name and Country Code.

For more information about the enhanced international phone parsing features for Data Cleanse, see the What’s New guide for Data Services 4.2.3.

New reserved word

We have added a new reserved word to the categories and attributes list: Match_Person. Data Services uses this field during the Match transform comparison process.

Description: A form of Person that may be used in the Match transform during the comparison process. Data is output in uppercase, apostrophes are removed, other punctuation is replaced with a single space, and data that is extraneous for matching purposes is removed. Extraneous data includes pre-given name, pre-family name, and pre-name as well as honorary and maturity post names and name designators.


7.2 Data Insight


New option to read SAP tables in views

If your Data Insight view contains one or more large SAP tables, you can specify the ABAP data transfer method in the view definition to improve read performance. For more information, see topic “Data transfer methods for SAP tables in views” in the User Guide.



The Metadata Management module provides an integrated view of metadata and metadata relationships across different systems in an enterprise landscape such as RDBMS, ETL, Data Warehouse, Reporting, and so on.

BusinessObjects Enterprise metadata integrator and Lumira objects

The BusinessObjects Enterprise metadata integrator now collects metadata about Lumira version 1.18 datasets and stories that use data from universes. You can view impact and lineage diagrams for Lumira objects.. For more information, see “Relationships for Lumira objects” in the User Guide.

Excel Metadata Integrator for relational database objects

Metadata Management now offers an Excel Metadata Integrator that imports relational database metadata when it is defined in Excel spreadsheets that are formatted to work with Metadata Management.

Microsoft Excel is often used to capture and document physical, logical, and business metadata for various database types, including relational databases. With the Excel Metadata Integrator, you can import this relational database metadata and use the features of Metadata Management to view impact and lineage relationships among other things. Read about this new metadata integrator in the topic “Excel Metadata Integrator” in the User Guide.






Export and Import enhancements

This version extends the export and import feature to enable you to move the following objects between system landscapes, such as between development, test, and production environments.

● Match Review configurations● User-defined relationships between objects in Metadata Management● Associations defined between Metapedia terms and objects such as a table in a relational database, a report

in Business Intelligence platform, or a rule in Data Insight● Author name and approver name for each exported Metapedia term and category

For more information, see:

● “Migration between landscapes” section in the Information Steward Administrator Guide● “Import and export of terms and categories with Excel” section in the Information Steward User Guide


This version of Information Steward includes new features and enhancements to Cleansing Package Builder.

Cleansing Package Builder empowers data stewards to use their domain knowledge to create data cleansing solutions. The cleansing package defines how data should be parsed and standardized by the Data Cleanse transform in Data Services based on the domains set up in the package. Cleansing Package Builder allows data domain experts to use a drag-and-drop graphical user interface to easily develop and refine cleansing packages. Technical knowledge of Data Services is not required.

For more information about these enhancements, see the “Cleansing Package Builder” section of the Information Steward User Guide.


Validate person and firm cleansing packages

Use the new Validate tab in Cleansing Package Builder's Advanced mode to test proposed multi-domain person and firm cleansing package changes against sample data before you publish and test it in Data Services.

When you achieve the desired parsing and cleansing results on your sample data, publish the cleansing package and notify the Data Services tester to test the updated cleansing package on a larger data set.

The Validate tab reduces the often iterative process of creating a person and firm cleansing package, publishing it, and testing it in Data Services. With the ability for testing in Cleansing Package Builder, the data steward can be more confident that the cleansing package sent to Data Services will produce the desired results.

NoteThe changes that you make in the Validate tab do not affect the actual cleansing package until you publish the cleansing package.

The Validate tab is available for multi-domain person and firm cleansing packages.

NoteCleansing packages from SAP Information Steward Version 4.0 and earlier are single-domain, and cannot be validated using this method. For more information about upgrading single-domain cleansing packages from older versions of Information Steward, see the Cleansing Package Builder section of the Upgrade Guide for the Information Steward Version 4.1 release. A PDF version of the Upgrade Guide is located on the SAP Help Portal at http://help.sap.com/boall_en. Also see “Other import options for for Data Services 3.2 dictionary” in the User Guide.

Data Cleanse reserved words: Additional name output fields

There are two new fields for the Data Cleanse transform that are added to the reserved word list in Cleansing Package Builder. You can use the new fields to output the standardized and cleansed dual first name and the standardized and cleansed dual last name without having to consolidate fields in a post processing step.

Table 9: Standardized composite fields

Field name Description

Given_Name_Full A single cleansed field for the combination of Given_Name1 and Given_Name2 fields.

Family_Name_Full A single cleansed field for the combination of Family_Name1 and Family_Name2 fields.



http://help.sap.com/boall_en

Example

Table 10:

Input data Parsed data Composite

Ms. Mary Ann Smith Jones, CPA

Account Mgr.

Jones Inc.

Prename Ms.

Given Name1 Mary Given_Name_Full

Mary AnnGiven Name2 Ann

Family Name1 Smith Family_Name_Full

Smith JonesFamily Name2 Jones

Honoray Postname CPA

Title Account Mgr.

Firm Jones, Inc.

8.3 Data Insight


Data Insight provides comprehensive data quality analysis capability with shareable validation and cleansing rules, a data quality dashboard, and scorecard functionality through a business user-oriented interface.

Automatic rule suggestions for advanced profiling tasks

Information Steward automatically suggests rules for three additional profiling tasks: Dependency, redundancy, and uniqueness. For more information see the Profiling sections in the User Guide.

Joins in views

This version provides the following enhancements:

● Number of rows for each table now display on the Set Optimal Order dialog to assist you in ranking the tables to join.

● The Propose Join feature now uses content type, profiled data, and fuzzy matching column name to propose a join that would perform better.

For details, see “Creating a join ranking” in the User Guide.





Custom metadata reports

You can now add your own user-defined Crystal Reports on the Information Steward repository to answer metadata questions such as” What tables have similar names in different integrator sources?” For more information, see “Enable user-defined reports to display in Custom Reports of Information Steward” in the Administrator Guide.

Export from graphical or tabular views to Microsoft Excel

You can now export the tabular representation of a metadata relationship view to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. The export icon is available on both the graphical and tabular views.

For more information, see “Exporting views to Microsoft Excel” in the User Guide.

Improved performance for metadata integrators

In this release, performance has improved for the following metadata integrators:

● Data Services metadata integrator for larger sources● PowerDesigner metadata integrator for large models

PowerDesigner metadata integrator and nested package object collection

The PowerDesigner metadata integrator collects nested packages at the root level, and all packages included in the root-level package. Additionally, PowerDesigner metadata integrator displays two additional physical model metadata objects: Structures and data elements. For more information see “PowerDesigner metadata objects for Metadata Management” in the User Guide.

Relational Database metadata integrator

For the Relational Database metadata integrator, the software now collects dependent objects from multiple schemas and reflects the dependencies in the impact and lineage diagrams. Also, users can set simple



expressions in the CMC at runtime to include or exclude tables or views from the collection. For more information, see “View object dependencies from multiple sources” in the User Guide.

WHERE expression for query filters

For Web Intelligence document sources with query filters, the WHERE expressions display for the filters in both the graphical and tabular views.

For more information, see “Metadata associated with report types” in the User Guide.

8.5 Metapedia



Usability enhancements

This release of Metapedia provides the following usability enhancements:

● If you have only read rights in Metapedia, you can now view category details when you double-click a category name in the left pane of Metapedia. If you have the Edit right for terms and categories, you can edit the category properties.

● You can now view details of a category or related term from the Edit Term dialog.● For the author or approver, the full name of the user now appears if it is defined in the Central Management

Console in addition to the account name.

For more information about the category details and properties, see topic “Viewing terms and categories” in the Information Steward User Guide.

Export and import enhancements

In this release, you can now export and import the following objects when moving Metapedia terms from one landscape environment to another:

● Approver name (in addition to the author name) and import both the author and approver names● Associations defined between Metapedia terms and objects such as a relational table, a report in Business

Intelligence platform, or a rule in Data Insight.

For details, see the section “Importing and exporting terms and categories with Excel” in the Information Steward User Guide.


8.6 Match Review

This version of Information Steward includes enhancements to the Match Review module.

The Match Review module enables business users or data stewards to review the results of automated matching and to make any necessary corrections.

Export and import enhancments

In this release, you can now export and import Match Review configurations when moving from one landscape environment to another. For details, see the topic “Exporting and importing Match Review configurations” in the Information Steward Administrator Guide.





SAP Information Steward 4.1 SP1 includes enhancements for administrators and IT personnel responsible for Information Steward installation and configuration.

Separate Information platform services

This release recommends installing Data Services and Information Steward on a separate Information platform services system (instead of BI platform) to provide flexibility to upgrade Data Services and Information Steward independently from BI platform. If you want BI launch pad users to view the lineage of a document (Crystal Report or Web Intelligence document) or view the Metapedia definition, configure the BI launch pad from the Information Steward application in the CMC.

For details, see the “Separate Information platform services” topic in the Data Services and Information Steward Master Guide.

9.2 Data Insight



Data Quality business value analysis

Data Quality business value analysis lets business-oriented data stewards connect the financial ROI aspect to data quality initiatives. It provides instant visibility into how bad data can impact the organization's bottom line. You can also perform a “what-if” analysis to identify potential savings if you clean the bad data and accordingly focus your efforts in the areas that will benefit most. For each applicable rule in a project, you can estimate a value for what would be the financial impact per failure of that rule, which will be used to estimate aggregate financial impact at the key data domain level.

For details, see the Information Steward User Guide section “Business value analysis”.


Scorecards and financial impact

This release includes additional financial data available on scorecards to view the data cost score, data cost trend, and data cost score per quality key data domain dimension. In addition to the Summary view and the Data Quality Detailed view, you can also view information from the new Business Value Analysis view. This view lets you estimate how much money inaccurate data could be costing your business.

For details, see the Information Steward User Guide sections “Business value analysis” and “Scorecards”.

Custom scorecard sorting

You can now customize the order in which the key data domains appear on a scorecard.

For details, see the User Guide section "Viewing scorecards".

Data Quality Advisor

Data Quality Advisor encompasses several new product features that guides data stewards to rapidly develop a solution to measure and improve the quality of their information assets. Data stewards can use Data Quality Advisor features to assess their data and get a recommendation on validation and cleansing rules with additional capabilities to review and tune the cleansing rules to better meet their business needs.

1. Assess the data using content type profiling.Content type profiling provides suggested meaning based on the data and the metadata attributes in the column. Automatically identifying the content types helps to suggest appropriate validation rules after running a content type profiling task.

2. Receive validation and cleansing rule recommendations.To better define best practices regarding the implementation of validation, cleansing, and matching rules, use the Data Validation Advisor and Data Cleansing Advisor.After content type profiling, users can view new generated validation rule recommendations by launching Data Validation Advisor. These rules are automatically suggested based on the content type profiling results for person, firm, and address-related data as well as statistical analysis of the data. Then data stewards determine if they want to use the validation rule on the profiled data. Likewise, if an existing rule is available for a defined content type, Information Steward suggests using the rule on other profiled data that has the same content type, when applicable.Data Cleansing Advisor is a new feature within Data Insight that simplifies the data cleansing process by intelligently recommending a data cleansing solution for your data. The recommended data cleansing solution is based on your data's content-type identification results and SAP best practices for your specific data.A data cleansing solution is a collection of cleansing and matching rules for party data that you can publish for use in Data Services Workbench. Party data is data about individuals or organizations, such as name, address, and phone data. Examples of party data include customer data and vendor data.

3. Tune the cleansing and matching rules using Data Cleansing Advisor.In Data Cleansing Advisor, you can see the data cleansing solution's effects on your data by viewing cleanse and match results, including statistics, graphs, and a data preview. If the data preview reveals unsatisfactory results, you can change option settings and see a new preview of the results on your data.



The data changes that you preview in Data Cleansing Advisor are temporary and for planning purposes only. Data Cleansing Advisor creates staged data based on your data and works on the staged data. Nothing is changed in your actual data until the job is processed in Data Services Workbench.

For details about content type profiling, see the Information Steward User Guide sections “Creating a content type profiling task” and “Editing content types”.

For details about automatic validation rule suggestions, see the Information Steward User Guide sections “Managing profile tasks” and “Rules overview”.

For details about Data Cleansing Advisor, see the Information Steward User Guide section “Data Cleansing Advisor”.

Content type discovery

Content type profiling provides suggested meaning based on the data and the metadata attributes in the column. After running a content type profiling task, content type suggestions are automatically identified to help suggest appropriate business rules. Then you can create business rules using a specific content type. Each time a content type is assigned to a column, Information Steward “learns” the patterns or enumerations in the data to better recommend the content type during future content type profiling tasks. You can assign content types from a pre-defined list, or choose to create custom content types. To see which rules and tables are associated with a content type, you have the option to view the dependencies.

NoteAfter creating one or more custom content types in Data Insight, you will see a cleansing package named CTID_CUSTOM_TYPE in Cleansing Package Builder. Do not open or modify CTID_CUSTOM_TYPE in Cleansing Package Builder because it will impact the custom content types.

For details, see the Information Steward User Guide sections “Creating a content type profiling task” and “Content types”.

Automatic rule discovery

After content type profiling, you can view new or existing rules that are suggested based on the profiling results for person, firm, and address-related data, and then determine if you want to use the validation rule on the profiled data. Likewise, if an existing rule is available, Information Steward suggests using the rule on other profiled data, when applicable.

For details, see the Information Steward User Guide sections “Managing profile tasks” and “Rules overview”.


Data Cleansing Advisor

Data Cleansing Advisor is a new feature within Data Insight that simplifies the data cleansing process by intelligently recommending a data cleansing solution for your data. The recommended data cleansing solution is based on your data's content-type identification results and SAP best practices for your specific data.

A data cleansing solution is a collection of cleansing and matching rules for party data that you can publish for use in Data Services Workbench. Party data is data about individuals or organizations, such as name, address, and phone data. Examples of party data include customer data and vendor data.

In Data Cleansing Advisor, you can see the data cleansing solution's effects on your data by viewing cleanse and match results, including statistics, graphs, and a data preview. If the data preview reveals unsatisfactory results, you can change option settings and see a new preview of the results on your data.

The data changes that you preview in Data Cleansing Advisor are temporary and for planning purposes only. Data Cleansing Advisor creates staged data based on your data and works on the staged data. Nothing is changed in your actual data until the job is processed in Data Services Workbench.

For details, see the Information Steward User Guide section “Data Cleansing Advisor”.

Enhancements for SAP tables in views

Views that contain SAP tables have the potential for improved performance and added security in this release.

SAP administrators can choose between two options for executing the required ABAP programs. The setting is made when administrators set up a connection to an application in the Central Management Console (CMC). When Execute preloaded is selected for the Execute option parameter in the connection setup, Information Steward uses ABAP programs that were preloaded into an SAP application instead of those generated from Information Steward during processing. Using the ABAP program preloaded into the SAP application may be required in production environments where security policies may be stricter than in test environments.

When you set up views with SAP tables, follow our best practices for more efficient processing. Best practices include using ABAP-supported functions in views expressions, and joining SAP tables from the same source instead of different sources.

For details, see the Information Steward Administrator Guide and the Information Steward User Guide.

Automatic email notifications for rules

This release features automatic email notifications for specific rule tasks.

The system sends an email notification to the applicable rule approver or author when a rule task is near or has passed the due date. The system sends an email immediately after a rule is submitted for approval, is approved, rejected, or deleted.

For details about email notifications for rules, see the topic “Automatic email notifications for rules” in the Information Steward User Guide.



Public and private rules

A rule approver can now make a rule public or private. After the rule is approved, it is now private and visible only to the project in which it was approved. The rule approver can keep it private or make it public and visible to other projects.

For details about public and private rules, see the Information Steward User Guide section “Rules”.

New functions for rules

There are two new functions for rules.

● is_data_dependent● is_unique

The new functions can be found under the Lookup category in the Advanced Expression Editor for rules (filter and validation) expressions. The results of rule expressions that contain these functions affect the entire data set. If the result of the function is True, the data set passes. If the result of the function is False, the data set fails.

Table 11: Function descriptions

Function Description Syntax

is_data_dependent Returns True when the value of the primary column determines the value of the dependent column. For example, if “X” is the primary column and “Y” is the dependent column, then “X --> Y” or “X determines Y”.

Also, one value of the primary column has only one value in the dependent column. If one value in the primary column has more than one value in the dependent column, it is not data dependent.

There can be multiple columns listed in the function for both the primary and dependent columns.

is_data_dependent ([primary], [dependent])

is_unique Returns TRUE when the specified column has a unique value across all records in the data source. Returns FALSE if the value of the specified column is repeated in the data source. There can be multiple column combinations specified in the function. The value of the combined columns must be unique in the data source. The result affects the entire data set.

is_unique (col1, col2, col3)

The software assigns a group ID to records that fail the data dependent and is unique functions. The group ID field appears in the failed data table. The group ID consists of the rule identifier, column identifier, and a sequence number. The group ID appears in the following syntax:


ruleID_col1ID_col2ID_..._seq#

For details, see the Information Steward User Guide “Functions” section of the Data Insight chapter.

Excel spreadsheet files

In this release, you can now profile data in Excel workbooks and run validation rules on data in Excel workbooks.

For details, see the Information Steward User Guide section “Manage file formats” and the Information Steward Administrator Guide section "Defining a Data Insight connection to a file".

Browse Metadata

The Browse Metadata window for a Data Insight connection now displays schema names that you can individually expand to show the tables within each schema.


SAP Information Steward 4.2 SP1 includes enhancements to the Metadata Management module.


Update Option for PowerDesigner Metadata Integrator

The SAP Sybase PowerDesigner Metadata Integrator has a new Update Option parameter with two options:

● Delete existing objects before starting object collection● Update existing objects and add newly selected objects

The option Update existing objects and add newly selected objects is selected by default. The default option reduces processing time because the system updates only the physical data models that have changed since the last run.

Find the Update Option parameter in the Central Management Console (CMC) when you schedule the PowerDesigner Metadata Integrator.

For more information, see the following topics in the Informatin Steward Administrator Guide:

● Runtime parameter for SAP Sybase PowerDesigner Metadata Integrator● Defining a schedule to run a Metadata Integrator● Changing runtime parameters for integrator sources



New Impact and Lineage Diagrams

This version of the Metadata Management module now uses HTML 5 and SAP UI5 technologies for the Impact and Lineage diagrams, and it has been enhanced to do the following:

● Dynamically expand or collapse systems and metadata objects to enable you to see only the pertinent objects that you are interested in viewing in a large relationship diagram.

● Allow searching and filtering within the relationship diagram to quickly find the pertinent metadata objects.● Allow searching and highlighting of metadata object to enable you to view a subset of the lineage diagram

without losing the context of the found object by not filtering out the adjacent objects.● Allow you to focus on one metadata object within a relationship diagram and display the impact or lineage of

that specific object.● Allow tracing a particular impact or lineage path to more clearly see the impact of a particular object on a

report or other metadata object.● Display metadata and all attributes of a metadata object in a pop-up window on the relationship diagram.● Allow you to go back to the original lineage diagram after drilling down into specific metadata objects.

For details, see the following topics in the Information Steward User Guide:

● Search for objects in impact or lineage diagram● Dynamic viewing options for impact and lineage diagrams● More metadata for impact and lineage diagrams

9.4 Metapedia

SAP Information Steward4.2 SP1 includes enhancements to the Metapedia module.


Automatic email notifications for terms

This release features automatic email notifications for specific term tasks.

The system sends an email notification to the applicable term author or approver when a term is nearing or has passed the due date. The system sends an email immediately when the term is submitted for approval, is approved, or is rejected.

For details, see the topic “Automatic email notification for terms” in the Information Steward User Guide.

9.5 Match Review

SAP Information Steward 4.2 SP1 includes enhancements to the Match Review module.



Automatic email notifications for match review tasks

This release features automatic email notifications for specific match review tasks.

The system sends an email notification to the applicable match review administrator, approver, or reviewer when a match review task is nearing or has passed the due date. The system sends an email immediately after a match review task is generated, is forced to complete, is auto completed, or is canceled.

For details, see the topic “Automatic email notification for match review tasks” in the Information Steward User Guide.



10 SAP Information Steward 4.2 features


SAP Information Steward 4.1 includes enhancements for administrators and IT personnel responsible for Information Steward installation and configuration.

New Application Service

The Application Service is now required for:

● The Information Steward web application to access the Information Steward repository.● The Metadata Management feature to process relationships (such as impact and lineage) of metadata

objects. The Metadata Relationship Service no longer exists, but its functionality is combined with the Application Service.

When you install Information Steward, you must ensure that the Application Service is installed on at least one computer in your enterprise deployment.

For details, see the “Standard installation” section of the Information Steward Installation Guide.

DSN-less and TNS-less connections

Information Steward now provides server name (also known as DSN-less and TNS-less) connections by default to databases that you use as the Information Steward repository, Data Insight sources for profiling, and databases to store data that failed validation rules. Server name connections eliminate the need to configure the same DSN or TNS entries on every machine in a distributed environment.

For profiling sources and data that failed rules, you can define either server name and DSN-less/TNS-less connections for compatibility with Data Services.

For details, see the “Defining a Data Insight connection to a database” section of the Information Steward Administrator Guide.

Sybase SQL Anywhere database support

This release supports SQL Anywhere as a repository, as a profiling source, and as a database for storing failed data.

For details, see to the Information Steward Administrator Guide.

What's NewSAP Information Steward 4.2 features P U B L I C 43

10.2 Data Insight



Rule approval integration with My Worklist

The rule approval process is now integrated with My Worklist to centralize all approval processes such as Metapedia term approval and data review. Also governance is enforced on the approval process by assigning rule authors, approvers, administrators, and due dates.

For details, see the Information Steward User Guide section “Managing rules” and the Information Steward Administrator Guide section “Group rights for projects”.

Reuse existing views in other views

Save time by reusing existing views when you create a new view or edit an existing view. By adding an existing view to a view that you are creating or editing, you are making all of the database tables, files, and SAP tables that are included in the existing view available in the new or edited views.

For instructions to create a view using existing views, see the Information Steward User Guide section “Creating a view”.

Existing views now available in Lookup Value and Exists functions in rules

When you include a Lookup Value (formerly known as Lookup Database) or Lookup Exists function in a rule definition expression, you can select the Views group for the Lookup connection name (or Connection name) parameter, and you can select a view instance for the Lookup table name (or Table name) parameter.

These parameters appear when you choose Lookup Value or Exists from the Lookup drop-down menu in the Advanced Expression Editor for rules window.

Row and file size metrics for viewing source data

When you view data in a database file in Information Steward, you can now see how many total rows the database contains, and the number of rows in your current view. For databases with a large number of rows, the software displays the file size in kilobytes (KB). This information is helpful in many ways. For example, use the row or size information when you plan task scheduling so that files that may take a long time to process are scheduled during non-business hours. Or use the row metrics to determine the effects of filter criteria you have set.


SAP Information Steward 4.2 features

For details, see the Information Steward User Guide “Data Insight” section.

Bulk loading option for failed data

When Data Insight generates a list of failed data for large sized databases, processing time may increase because the entire database (each row) is searched. Decrease this time by selecting the Bulk Loading and Rows per commit options when you create or edit a database connection in the CMC.

The bulk loading option is available for the following database types:

DB2OracleSAP HANA

Improved performance for profiling data

In this release, the performance of profiling data in SAP HANA databases has improved by pushing down processes to the SAP HANA database server.


SAP Information Steward 4.2 includes enhancements to the Metadata Management module.


SAP Sybase PowerDesigner metadata integrator

SAP Sybase PowerDesigner is database modeling software that defines data architecture, information architecture, and enterprise architecture. PowerDesigner contains the architectural and conceptual information related to physical data models. When you combine the PowerDesigner information with the physical data and transformations in Information Steward, you have a powerful end-to-end view of enterprise data.

The PowerDesigner application also has a glossary that provides equivalent functionality to Metapedia. The PowerDesigner metadata integrator obtains glossary information from the PowerDesigner repository using the SAP Sybase PowerDesigner application. (Glossary collection is an optional feature.) For more information about PowerDesigner and the glossary, see Metapedia [page 41].

The new PowerDesigner metadata integrator works with Information Steward version 4.2 SP1 (14.2.1) and newer and the SAP Sybase PowerDesigner application version 16.1 and newer. If you use the PowerDesigner application version 16.0 and older, continue to use the Meta Integration Metadata Bridge (MIMB) metadata integrator for SAP Sybase PowerDesigner metadata collection.


The PowerDesigner metadata integrator has many advantages, including the following functionality:

● Collects glossary information● Collects models from the PowerDesigner repository● Identifies the architectural models that are input to the physical models● Establishes relationships from model objects to business rules and domains● Shows rules and domains in end-to-end impact and lineage analyses● Establishes relationships from columns to joins and indexes● Contains impact and lineage analyses that show the columns that are used in a join or an index● Collects index columns● Organizes data in the same way as it is presented in the PowerDesigner application

For complete information about the PowerDesigner metadata integrator, see the User Guide in both the Metadata Management and the Metapedia sections. For details, see the Information Steward Administrator Guide.

10.4 Metapedia

SAP Information Steward4.2 includes enhancements to the Metapedia module.


Glossary terms from SAP Sybase PowerDesigner metadata integrator

Add glossary terms and related information to Metapedia using the new SAP Sybase PowerDesigner metadata integrator. (Glossary collection is an optional feature of the metadata integrator.) The PowerDesigner metadata integrator obtains glossary information from the PowerDesigner repository using the SAP Sybase PowerDesigner application. The PowerDesigner metadata integrator also collects architectural and conceptual information related to physical data models for Metadata Management. For more information about the PowerDesginer metadata integrator, see Metadata Management [page 40].

The PowerDesigner application has a glossary that provides equivalent functionality to Metapedia. By running the new PowerDesigner metadata integrator, you can add the following information to your Metapedia glossary:

● Terms● Categories● Associations and relationships

The new PowerDesigner metadata integrator works with Information Steward version 4.2 SP1 (14.2.1) and newer and the PowerDesigner application version 16.1 and newer. Collecting glossary terms and related information is not available when you use PowerDesigner version 16.0 and older.

Find complete information about objects collected by the PowerDesigner metadata integrator in the Metadata Management section of the Information Steward User Guide. Find complete information about PowerDesigner metadata integrator glossary collection in the Metapedia section of the Information Steward User Guide.



Standardized search feature

The Search tool in Metapedia has been enhanced so that it uses the same search framework as the Metadata Management advanced search tools. This enhancement creates a more reliable and consistent search setup and results between Metadata Management and Metapedia.

When you perform a search in Metapedia in Information Steward 4.2 SP1, you can use multiple criteria. The software uses the Apache Lucene search functionality and automatically applies boolean and wild card syntax based on the criteria you choose. Other enhancements to search include:

● A Filter by Status option to search for terms that are in specified stages of approval. Options include Editing, Submitted for approval, Approved, and Rejected.

● Additional search criteria to choose. You can choose to search for a term in the following attributes:

NameDescriptionMetapedia keywordMetapedia synonymAuthorCustom attributes (defined by user)

Search results appear in bold font so that you can quickly scan the results and see the matches. For details, see the Metapedia search section of the Information Steward User Guide.

10.5 Match Review

SAP Information Steward 4.2 includes enhancements to the Match Review module.


Best record creation

A best record is the unified record that comprises the best values of the matching source records. Your Data Review Configuration Manager should enable best record creation and optionally define best record strategies during the match review configuration. Then, while reviewing a match group, you can review the best record created from the defined strategies and also manually edit it as necessary to further improve or refine it.

For details, see “Defining a best record strategy” and “Creating or changing a best record” in the Information Steward User Guide.

Moving records and creating new groups

The Match transform in Data Services provides a comprehensive set of mechanisms to automatically match and group duplicate records. However, there are cases when a record ends up in a group in which it does not belong,


or it might be incorrectly identified as a unique record. It is also possible that matching records end up in more than one group. Therefore, this release includes the ability to move one, multiple, or all records from one group to another group or to a new group.

For details, see “Moving records” in the Information Steward User Guide.



Important Disclaimers and Legal Information

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