3430513 - Dynamic variable values when scheduling Analysis Office workbooks in BI Platform

You want to know if it is possible to use dynamic variables when scheduling Analysis Office workbooks in BI Platform. The idea is that you maintain the scheduling instance once and that the subsequent runs automatically adjust the prompt variable values according to some rule. This is usually the case for time/date variables.

SAP Analysis for Microsoft Office

In the interface where the prompt variables are maintained, you cannot find an option to enter anything different from plain text in the values.

By design behavior.

The usage of dynamic prompt values, formulas or customer exits is not possible in the below window where the prompt values for scheduling are maintained:

This is a by design behavior. There are no changes planned to this mechanism.

The main reason for this is that when variables are provided in the interface above, the AO BIP Add-on is not yet connected to the target system, so nothing based on the variable values and options cannot be checked or used for a calculation.

Check KBAs 2979389 and 2845593 for how to enter the variables in the above screen.


Possible workaround:
The promp values are assigned to the variables during the precalculation step in a hierarchical order. The value that's provided for a specific variable in the scheduling interface overwrites all other values. Once a value is maintained in the scheduling prompts window for a specific variable, this will be the value used in the precalculation step for this variable. If no value is defined in this scheduling interface, however, any value stored in the workbook for this specific variable will be taken into account in case  the workbook was saved with workbook option "Store Prompts with Workbook" set (checked). If, for a given variable, we have no value provided in the scheduling prompts interface and also no value coming from workbook (workbook option "Store Prompts with Workbook" is not set in the workbook or this specific variable has no stored value), then the precalculation process will connect to the target system and use the prompt values that the system provides. The system usually provides a blank value (no value), default values or the result of customer exit code associated to the variables (if the target is a BW).

Therefore, providing no value for a variable in scheduling prompt  interface and having no value coming from the workbook can make your precalculation use some kind of dynamic variables, depending on your scenario. This would, however, be out of the control of the scheduling mechanism as the entire calculation would be in the backend side. This could work as a workaround specially for time/date related variables.

• SAP KBA 2979389 - How to enter the variable values when scheduling Analysis Workbooks in BI platform
• SAP KBA 2845593 - How to enter the variable values in Analysis Office using the input-string notation

dynamically, custom formulas , KBA , BI-RA-AO-BIP , AO Precalculation, Scheduling and AO InfoOb... , Problem