What is Multi Providers in BI 7.0

Definition
A MultiProvider is a special InfoProvider that combines data from a number of InfoProviders and makes them available as a whole to reporting. The MultiProvider itself does not contain any data; its data comes exclusively from the InfoProviders it is based on.

InfoProviders and MultiProviders are the objects or views that are relevant for reporting.

Use
A MultiProvider allows reporting using several InfoProviders.





InfoCube and InfoCube: You have an InfoProvider with actual data for a logically closed business area and an equivalent InfoProvider with plan data. You can combine the two InfoProviders into one MultiProvider so that you can compare the actual data with the planned data of a query. In BW release 2.0B/2.1C, this combination of two InfoCubes was still called a MultiCube.

InfoCube and InfoObject: You have an InfoCube with your products and sales. You combine InfoObject 0PRODUCT. In this way you can display the "slow-moving items" since products that do not result in sales are also displayed. This is made possible because a union operation is used to combine the tables (see below).Structure

A MultiProvider can consist of different combinations of the following InfoProviders: InfoCube, ODS object, InfoObject and InfoSet. The data from these objects can be combined in the MultiProvider with a union operation.

The union operation creates a union of the featured tables. That is, all values in these tables are combined. As a comparison: InfoSets are created using joins. These only combine values that appear in both tables. In contrast to a union, joins build the intersection of the featured tables