Extraction Using the SAP Query 

SAP Query is a comprehensive tool for defining reports. It uses many different forms of reporting. It allows users to define and execute their own evaluations of data in the SAP system without requiring ABAP programming know-how.

To define the structure of evaluations, you enter texts in SAP Query and select fields and options. InfoSets and functional groups allow you to easily select the relevant fields.

An InfoSet is a special view of a set of data (logical database, table join, table, sequential file). It serves as the data source for SAP Query. An InfoSet determines which tables or fields of these tables are referenced in an evaluation.InfoSets are usually based on logical databases.

The maintenance of InfoSets is one component of SAP Query. When an InfoSet is created, a data source is selected in an application system. Since the number of fields for a data source can be high, fields can be combined into logical units, the functional groups. Functional groups are groups of several fields to form a logical unit within an InfoSet. Any fields that you want to use in an extraction structure have to be assigned to a functional group. In generic data extraction using an InfoSet, all the fields of all functional groups for this InfoSet are available.

The relevance of SAP Query to SAP NetWeaver BW lies in the definition of the extraction structure by selecting fields of a logical database, a table join or other datasets in an InfoSet. You can use generic data extraction for master or transaction data from any InfoSet. A query is generated for an InfoSet that gets data and transfers this data to the generic extractor.

InfoSets represent an additional, easily manageable data source for generic data extraction. They allow you to use logical databases of all SAP applications, table joins, and further datasets as data sources for SAP NetWeaver BW. For more information about SAP Query, in particular InfoSets, see the SAP Query documentation -> System Administration.

In the following section, the terms SAP Query and InfoSet are used independently of the source system release.SAP Query is the same as an ABAP Query or ABAP/4 query, dependent on the source system release. The InfoSet is also called a functional area in some source system releases