Run ETL

Explanation

This activity will start transfer of basic and transactional data related to the General Ledger cube from the current IFS Applications database to the target MS SQL Server database (according to Connection Settings). The ETL (Extract, Transform and Load) process is set up on SQL Server when installing the BI Analysis Package.

No OLAP cube will be processed as part of this activity. This means that when the processing is done, all necessary data has been transferred to the data warehouse on SQL Server and next step will be to process the current/target OLAP cube via the Process OLAP Cube activity.

New or modified Financial KPI Definitions will not be transferred. The KPIs previously published to the cube will still be available.

Running the ETL process from the IEE client is typically useful in demo and test scenarios.

It will be possible to perform this action in two ways:

• Online: The user can choose to wait for the data transfer to finish before control is given back to the user. This option should only be used if the amount of data to transfer is small, i.e. the transfer time is between 5-25 minutes.
• Batch: The ETL processing will be started on the SQL Server database server but the control will be directly returned to the IEE user. It is possible to, on the SQL Server, configure mail settings such that the result of the processing is mailed to one or more users. 

A word of caution: Please make sure that it is OK to start the ETL process. Starting it remotely, in this case from IFS EE, might interfere with how the Administrator wants to handle the ETL process.

Prerequisites

This activity has the following prerequisites:

• Configuration Settings must have been done, defining database and servers.
• The BI Analysis Package must have been used to set up a BI instance on the target server, configured to fetch data from the current IFS Applications database.

System Effects

As a result of this activity:

• The Data Warehouse on SQL Server will be updated with the latest basic and transactional data related to the General Ledger cube. Next logical step would be to process the OLAP cube.

Window

OLAP Cube Set Up

Related Window Descriptions

OLAP Cube Set-up

Procedure

To perform this activity,

1. Open the OLAP Cube Set Up window.
2. Right-click and select Run ETL.
3. Choose if the processing should be done directly, on-line (synchronous) or as a batch job (asynchronous).
4. When processing is done, right-click and select Process OLAP Cube to process the OLAP cube to be up-to-date.
5. Open e.g. MS Excel 2013 and connect to the Analysis Services cube and start to analyze.