SAP S/4 In Dev

SAP S/4 is an enterprise resource planning system that is built for businesses of all sizes – small, midsize, and large. SAP S/4 has modules specific to industries – from manufacturing to retail. The software supports and integrates almost every functional area of a business process from procurement of goods and services, sale and distribution, finance, accounting, human resource, manufacturing, production planning to logistics and warehouse management.

IMPORTANT: We have deprecated our existing SAP S/4 connector and replaced it with HVR 6. The HVR 6 solution supports high-volume use cases without directly querying the HANA database and does not create additional load on the database. See HVR’s SAP HANA documentation.

To sync data from your SAP HANA database, see our SAP HANA database connector documentation.

Features

Setup Guide

Follow our step-by-step SAP S/4 setup guide to connect SAP S/4 with your destination using Fivetran connectors.

Sync overview

You can use this connector to sync data from your SAP S/4 ERP.

After you grant us access, Fivetran connects to your SAP HANA database.

We check your source tables for primary key columns. If a source table has primary key(s), we create a one-time shadow table and four types of triggers for the source table in your FIVETRAN_DB schema. We use the shadow table to store changes of the source table. We incrementally update these source tables in the destination. We also capture the deleted records for incremental tables in each sync using the shadow tables.

We create the shadow table using all the primary keys of the source table and two extra columns. The two extra columns are:

• fivetran_optype - The column represents the Data Manipulation Language (DML) operation on the record. We use the following three values for the different types of operations:

  • 1 - DELETE
  • 2 - UPDATE
  • 3 - INSERT

• fivetran_updatedat - A current timestamp column to track the last updated datetime of a record.

We name the shadow table using the format, HADP_SHADOW_SCHEMANAME_SELECTED_TABLE_FIVETRAN. For example, if your table name is T503K and your schema name is SAPHANADB, then the name of the shadow table will be HADP_SHADOW_SAPHANADB_T503K_FIVETRAN.

We create four types of triggers on the table to track the three DML operations, based on the event type BEFORE or AFTER. We name the triggers using the format, HADP_SCHEMANAME_SELECTED_TABLE_TYPE_OF_DML_OPERATION_EVENT_TYPE. For example, if your table name is T503K and your schema name is SAPHANADB, then the name of the four triggers will be:

• HADP_SHADOW_SAPHANADB_T503K_INSERT_AFTER
• HADP_SHADOW_SAPHANADB_T503K_UPDATE_BEFORE
• HADP_SHADOW_SAPHANADB_T503K_UPDATE_AFTER
• HADP_SHADOW_SAPHANADB_T503K_DELETE_BEFORE

We periodically flush data for the past seven days from the shadow tables. We pull a full dump of all existing data from your SAP HANA database. Using a change data capture process, we pull incremental updates at regular intervals.

Once you deselect a source table from the connector dashboard, we remove the shadow table and the corresponding triggers from your database in the next sync.

If a source table doesn't have any primary key column, we mark the table as Reimported and we completely import the whole table during each sync. We automatically capture the deletes for the re-imported tables based on their sync time.

If data in the source changes (for example, you add new columns, new tables, or change a data type), Fivetran automatically detects and persists these changes into your destination. For every schema within the SAP HANA databases that you connect, we create a different schema in your destination that maps directly to its native schema, so that the data is in a familiar format to work with.

Schema information

Fivetran tries to replicate the exact schema and tables from your source SAP HANA to your destination. You can include tables from the S/4 ERP system and tables that reside in your HANA database.

We retrieve all the available tables from your database except the database tables with the following delivery classes:

• Delivery class L: Table for storing temporary data
• Delivery class E: System table with its own namespace for customer entries
• Delivery class S: System table, data changes have the status of program changes
• Delivery class W: System table, whose data is transported with its own transport objects

The following ERDs illustrate how important tables in different modules relate to one another.

Schema for the Sales & Distribution Module:

Schema for the Financial Management Module:

Schema for the Material Management Module:

Schema for the Quality Management Module:

Schema for the Human Resource Management Module:

Schema for the Production Planning Module:

Schema for the Plant Maintenance/Project System Module:

Fivetran generated columns

Fivetran adds one extra column to every table that is added to your destination to give you insight into the progress and changes of your connector:

Fivetran also adds one extra column to every table that does not have a primary key column to keep records unique:

Type transformation and mapping

As we extract your data, we always do our best to match SAP HANA data types to types supported by Fivetran. In some cases, we don't accept source types, so we automatically change it to the closest type possible or sometimes don't load that data at all. Our system automatically skips columns of data types that we don't accept or transform, such as BLOB.

The following table shows how your SAP HANA data types get transformed to a destination type:

Fivetran data types not supported by your destination may also get converted when we load the data into your destination. For more information about how the data is transformed from an internal Fivetran type to a type supported by your destination, visit the individual destination pages.

Contact support if you need a data type that we are missing.

Excluding source data

On your Fivetran dashboard, you can exclude tables and columns from syncing. To do so, go to the Schema tab on the connector details page and uncheck the columns or tables you would like to omit from syncing.

Initial sync

When a new source is connected, we first create the shadow tables and triggers for all the source tables on you database.

Then, we copy every row from every table in the schema that you have connected (except for the ones that you have excluded through the dashboard) and add Fivetran generated columns. Rows are copied by performing a SELECT statement on each table.

Updating data

Once the initial sync is complete, we start performing incremental updates at regular intervals using one of the following ways:

• Incremental: Tables that have a corresponding shadow table are incrementally updated. We save the sync state, so during the next sync, we start syncing from the point where we left.

• Re-import: Tables that don't have a corresponding shadow table are re-imported. We re-import tables using the following conditions:

  Table Import Duration	Import Frequency
  3 seconds or less	Every sync
  Between 3 seconds and 5 minutes	Twice a day
  More than 5 minutes	Once a week

Fivetran maintains shadow tables for the source tables that are incrementally updated. We recreate the shadow tables if you:

• Delete the triggers present on the base tables

• Add a new primary key

• Delete an existing primary key

• Change an existing primary key's datatype

• Delete the shadow table

We re-apply the triggers on the base tables and continue with the incremental syncs. However, this may cause data inconsistencies in the destination. On your connector dashboard, we display a Warning notification for these tables. To ensure data integrity, we recommend that you perform a complete re-sync for these tables.

Deleting data

• We track deleted records for all tables.
• Tables have a _fivetran_deleted column in the destination. After each re-import, any row that no longer exists in the source table is marked as deleted in the destination.