Bdc Governance Catalog

SAP BDC Governance & Catalog

Catalog Overview & Strategy

The catalog is the central place where you discover, classify, profile, understand, and prepare all data in your enterprise. Users with the Catalog Administrator role are responsible for connecting source systems to the catalog, monitoring those systems, enriching and classifying objects, and publishing them as catalog assets.

Why Data Governance Matters

An effective data governance strategy addresses critical challenges:

• Unknown data assets or duplicated efforts across the organization
• Unclear data meaning and intent without consistent documentation
• Stale, unreliable data for current use
• Difficulty controlling consumer access to data

The catalog brings all organizational data together as a one-stop-shop for seamless data discovery and governance, enabling users to map complete data source views, build governance standards, and offer trusted self-service data access.

Core Roles & Responsibilities

Catalog Administrator

Responsible for overall setup and data governance implementation:

• Connect: Add data source systems to the catalog and extract metadata for data products and assets
• Classify and Enrich: Create and apply consistent business terms, descriptions, tags, and other information
• Publish: Prepare and make available governed assets to all data users

Data source systems are connected automatically via SAP Business Data Cloud formation or manually via local SAP Datasphere.

Catalog User

Data modelers and business users who:

• Discover: Search, filter, and explore available data items
• Evaluate: View metadata, descriptions, impact, and lineage to understand data items
• Use: Open assets in source systems, install data product APIs to SAP Datasphere spaces, or use assets in data projects

Catalog Concepts

Assets

Any data or analytic object made available in the catalog (e.g., local table or view from SAP Datasphere, story from SAP Analytics Cloud). Assets are the objects you provide governance around and publish for discovery and consumption.

Data Products

Self-contained sets of data exposed via APIs for consumption outside the producing application. SAP applications like SAP S/4HANA Cloud produce data products consumable in SAP Datasphere via SAP Business Data Cloud data packages. Data products have an active release status, which automatically makes them appear in the catalog.

Note: Catalog enrichments for data products (term and tag relationships) are not currently available.

Domains

Organizational containers for data products in SAP Business Data Cloud that provide a metadata-centric way to organize and govern products by aligning assets, access, and lifecycle responsibilities to organizational units.

Data Providers & Content Aggregators

Data providers are persons or companies offering data products. They develop, maintain lifecycle, manage versions, licensing agreements, data freshness, and API performance. They may work independently or with content aggregators.

Asset Publishing Workflow

Publish to Catalog

Publishing is the act of making assets visible and available to catalog users. Unpublished assets are available only to Catalog Administrators. Before publishing, administrators can:

• Edit and enrich metadata
• Apply appropriate classifications
• Ensure overall asset quality

Publishing actions:

• Publish: Make assets discoverable within the formation where they originated
• View Data Products: See data products from source systems in all formations (start with inactive status; become active when intelligent applications are installed or data packages are activated)
• Share Data Products: After activation, share data products with other SAP systems or supported external systems (SAP S/4HANA, SAP Databricks, SAP HANA Cloud, SAP Customer Data Platform, SAP SuccessFactors)
• Exclude from Automatic Publishing: Prevent specific items from being automatically published
• Unpublish: Remove items from catalog view
• Delete: Remove items with "Unavailable" functional status

Publication Statuses:

• Published (active in catalog)
• Unpublished (visible only to administrators)
• Functional statuses (Current, Unavailable, etc.) indicate asset state

Classification & Tagging

Tags Overview

Tags allow you to classify data assets into clear categories. The catalog provides a hierarchical tagging system for organized asset management.

Classification is the process of organizing assets into clear categories using tags. Example: Create a "Bike Products" category with hierarchical tags for product types, regions, or business lines.

Manage Tags

From the Catalog & Marketplace menu:

• Create and manage all tags needed to consistently classify assets
• Organize tags hierarchically for clarity
• Apply tags consistently across assets
• Use tags in search and filter operations to help users discover related assets

Adding Tags to Assets

On the Semantic Enrichment tab of the asset details page:

• Select or search for existing tags
• Create new tags as needed
• Delete tag relationships using the delete button per row
• Tags appear in search results, helping users discover related assets

Business Glossary & Terms

Glossary Overview

The business glossary provides a central, shared repository for defining business terms and describing how and where they are used. A well-maintained glossary promotes common understanding across the organization, reduces ambiguity, and provides term relationships linking to other terms, KPIs, and assets.

Example: Define "Sales" uniquely for your organization (currency exchanged for goods/services vs. discounted pricing) to eliminate confusion.

Glossary Structure

A business glossary consists of:

• Glossary Template: Defines guidelines and required/optional information for term definitions
• Categories: Group related terms hierarchically
• Defined Terms: Provide business context and clarity

Creating & Managing Glossaries

Best Practice: Create glossaries in the SAP Business Data Cloud cockpit to make them available across all catalog views. Create in local SAP Datasphere only if intended for a single formation.

Reference Templates: When creating a glossary, choose a reference template to pull definition and custom attributes from an existing glossary. Changes are unique to the new glossary—not reflected elsewhere.

Custom Attributes:

• Define custom attributes for terms (free text, validated with min/max values, or lookup tables)
• Set attributes as required or optional
• Group input fields into separate tabs or sections
• Create labels offering context and guidance for users
• Example: Create a "Quality Assurance" group with Definition Date (required) and Approved (optional) attributes

Term Lifecycle

1. Subject matter experts create and define terms, create term relationships, place them in categories
2. Publish terms so organization-wide users can view them
3. Business users search the glossary when they have questions about term meanings

Creating Glossary Categories

• Define category hierarchies to organize terms logically
• Place related terms within appropriate categories

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

KPI Overview

A Key Performance Indicator measures progress toward a result such as a goal or objective. KPIs provide an analytical basis for decision-making.

• Goals/Objectives: Broader organizational targets (qualitative, time-bound)
• KPIs: Metrics indicating progress toward goals

Using KPIs

• Create relationships between KPIs and assets, terms, and other KPIs
• When users search for KPIs, they find all relevant objects
• Monitor KPI status (Current, Needs Repair) for data quality tracking

KPI Management

From the Catalog & Marketplace menu:

• Create KPIs: Define new performance indicators with custom attributes and relationships
• Edit/Delete: Modify existing KPIs or remove them
• Manage Templates: Define the KPI template structure (required/optional fields, custom attributes, groupings)
• Manage Relationships: Create and update KPI-to-asset, KPI-to-term, and KPI-to-KPI links

Privilege Requirements:

• Catalog KPI Object (–R–––-M): View published and unpublished KPIs

Filtering & Searching KPIs

Search results show KPI filters:

• Status: Current, Needs Repair
• IDs & Keywords: Filter by defined KPI identifiers or keywords
• Published/Unpublished: Show or hide unpublished KPIs
• Edit Date/Create Date: Filter by date ranges
• Related Terms: Find KPIs linked to specific glossary terms
• Tenant: Filter by creation tenant (useful in multi-tenant SAP Business Data Cloud scenarios)

KPI Import

Import glossary terms and KPIs from Microsoft Excel spreadsheets into the catalog:

• Import Glossary Terms: Bulk-import business terms
• Import Key Performance Indicators: Bulk-import KPI definitions
• View import details and error handling after import

Metadata Enrichment

Asset Enrichment Overview

Metadata enrichment improves asset discoverability and usability by adding:

• Descriptions and context
• Glossary term relationships
• Tags for classification
• KPI relationships

Enriched assets help users find and understand data before consuming it.

Semantic Enrichment Tab

Access the Semantic Enrichment tab on asset details pages to:

• Add Glossary Terms: Link business glossary terms to assets
• Add KPIs: Associate key performance indicators with assets
• Add Tags: Apply classification tags

Preview Sections: Each section shows up to 20 rows; use "Show All" to view more in a separate page.

Adding Term Relationships to Assets

1. Go to asset details page
2. Select Semantic Enrichment tab
3. Select object type (Terms)
4. Search for and select glossary terms
5. For attribute/measure/dimension-level relationships, select Semantic Enrichment within those sections
6. Relationships appear in search results, enabling term-based discovery

Adding KPI Relationships to Assets

1. Access catalog and open asset details page
2. Go to Semantic Enrichment tab
3. Select KPI relationships
4. Search for and add KPIs
5. For attribute/measure/dimension relationships, use the relevant section's Semantic Enrichment options
6. KPI links enable KPI-based asset discovery

Removing Enrichments

• Use the delete button (—) for each row to remove term, tag, or KPI relationships
• Deletions take effect immediately but do not delete the term/KPI itself—only the asset-to-term/KPI link

Metadata Extraction Monitoring

Enhanced monitoring ensures catalog reliability:

• Extraction Error Detection: Errors detected early and visible in extraction summary logs and asset details pages
• Auto-Resynchronization: Source systems with data product or API extraction issues are automatically resynchronized
• Manual Synchronization: Manually synchronize source systems to update data products
• Installation Blocking: Users cannot install data products with outdated APIs
• Data Product Statuses: New granular statuses aligned with the Catalog for detailed monitoring of data product provisioning and lifecycle

Impact & Lineage Analysis

Understanding Lineage & Impact

The Impact and Lineage Analysis diagram helps you understand data provenance and dependencies:

• Lineage (left/below): Shows source objects used by the analyzed object. Enables tracing errors to root causes.
• Impact (right/above): Shows objects using the analyzed object as a source. Enables understanding change impact on dependent objects.

Viewing Lineage & Impact

• Click Open Impact and Lineage button in the asset or data product header
• Dialog displays an interactive diagram showing:
• Object-level data analysis
• End-to-end visualization of object dependencies across multiple systems and layers
• Source data, transformations, final state, and dependent objects
• Publication and functional statuses (Published, Current, etc.) on each object

Diagram Interactions

• Show/Hide Levels: Use "Show Next Level" or "Hide" buttons to expand/collapse object hierarchies
• View Details: Select objects and use "Show Details" icon to preview properties without closing diagram
• Open Objects: If available, use "Open" icon to navigate to object in source system
• Favorites: Use "Add to Favorites" icon for frequently-used data products

Objects Included in Lineage

• SAP Datasphere tables and views
• SAP Analytics Cloud models, stories, and insights
• SAP BW systems: BW Query objects (ELEM), BW Data Transfer Processes (DTPA) and Transformations (TRFN)
• Data subscriptions (DSUB) from SAP BW/4HANA (minimum version: SAP BW/4HANA 2023 Support Package Stack 4)

System Container Information

• Connected Systems: Display user-friendly business or technical name extracted from source system
• Unmonitored Systems: Show system type + "unmonitored" label for systems not connected to catalog
• Additional Details: When sharing data products, view system type, deployment region, and system ID

Data Owner Roles & Privileges

Catalog governance requires clear permission structures. Key role privilege combinations control who can:

• Publish/unpublish assets and terms
• Manage tags, glossaries, and KPIs
• View and edit glossaries, terms, KPIs
• Create and manage glossary categories

Refer to detailed privilege matrices in source documentation for complete access control configurations.

Hierarchical Tags — Deep Dive (NEW 2026-05-02)

Tag hierarchies are multi-level groupings of tags. You assign tags to assets so that you can search across all assets sharing a tag. Tags are managed under Catalog & Marketplace → Search → Manage Tags.

Creation options (some are immutable)

When you create a tag hierarchy, you set:

• Name and description
• Allow multiple tags per asset — immutable after creation. Disable when an asset can only be one classification (e.g. account type = saving OR checking, not both).
• Expose in search filters / SAP Business AI — changeable later. When enabled, the hierarchy appears in the catalog filter panel and SAP Business AI can suggest tags from it.

> Best practice: limit to 10 or fewer exposed hierarchies. Performance degrades when more than 10 hierarchies are shown in the filter panel.

Cockpit vs. Datasphere creation rule

Where you create a tag hierarchy determines its visibility:

• Created from BDC Cockpit system → visible in all formations
• Created from a Datasphere system → visible only in that one formation

Same rule applies to glossaries and KPIs.

System-defined Data Protection & Privacy hierarchy

The catalog ships a read-only system-defined hierarchy applied automatically during metadata extraction:

• Personal Data — applied to data products containing personal data (height, weight, eye/hair color, name, etc.)
• Sensitive Personal Data — applied to data products containing high-risk data (health/HIPAA, financial, political opinions, biometric, employment details, vulnerable persons, etc.)

You cannot manually create or remove these tags — extraction does it. The catalog detects presence; it does NOT collect or store the personal data itself.

Required privileges

• BDC Data Packages (-R-----) — access BDC Cockpit
• Catalog Asset (-RU---M) — edit asset metadata
• Catalog Tag Hierarchy (CRUD---) — add/edit/delete hierarchies and tags

Business Glossary — Mechanics (NEW 2026-05-02)

Hierarchical structure: Glossary → Categories (hierarchical) → Terms. Terms can belong to multiple categories. Each glossary has its own term template (custom attributes).

Glossary creation

• One or more glossaries per system (Cockpit-vs-Datasphere visibility rule applies)
• Reference Templa

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Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: MarioDeFelipe
• Source: MarioDeFelipe/sap-bdc-plugin
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.