SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

3757465 - Enable Left Outer Join Behaviour Across different Models when designing & working with Stories incorporating Table widgets in SAP Analytics Cloud

Symptom

  • In a story table, different items display identical summation values.
  • The issue appears when analyzing a blended table in a story.
  • When specific row dimensions (for example, item code or item description) are added, calculated totals/quantities become incorrect.
  • Warning displayed: “Blended data caused some values to be duplicated for these measures”.
  • Warning displayed: “Blending caused some values to be aggregated for these measures”.
  • It would be very beneficial to have support for a more flexible model relationship behaviour similar to a “left outer join” approach.
    Where measures from one model can still be displayed while preserving all related dimension members from another model, even if matching records are missing.

Environment

  • SAP Analytics Cloud(Enterprise)

Reproducing the Issue

  1. Create a blended table that links dimensions across two models.
  2. Configure the table to use measures from one model.
  3. Add a row dimension that primarily exists in the other (linked) model (for example, item-related dimensions).
  4. Observe that multiple items show identical summation values and that blend warnings about duplicated/aggregated measures appear.

Cause

  • Currently there is a limitation in place that does not support this since:
    • Measures are taken from a model that does not contain all required row-dimension members; blended tables cannot display members that have no corresponding data in the measures’ model.
    • Non-unique/ambiguous blend links (for example, linking on descriptions rather than unique IDs) can create many-to-many matches, causing duplicated rows and aggregated measures, which leads to identical summations.

Resolution

  • There is already a product enhancement request that has been created for this specific request,please consider voting for the influence idea  Enable Left Outer Join Behavior Across SAC Models for Incomplete Related Data.
    Voting on this idea helps to highlight the idea to product management and it can be prioritised.

  • As a workaround please consider the following approaches:
    1. Use measures from the same model that contains the row-dimension members you need to display.
    2. In the blended table, add the linked dimension (or the dimension itself) from the same model as the measures to the Rows.
    3. Where possible, define blend links on stable, unique IDs rather than descriptions to avoid many-to-many matches that duplicate or aggregate measures.
    4. If totals are required, verify they are supported for the measures/accounts used in blended queries; redesign if necessary.

See Also

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Keywords

blended table, duplicate values, identical summation, aggregated measures, blend warning, blending duplication, blending aggregation, link on description, link on id, many-to-many blending, row dimension mismatch, missing members, totals in blend, story table, analytics cloud , KBA , LOD-ANA-TAB-BLE , Table Blending , Problem

Product

SAP Analytics Cloud all versions