Data Locate: Locate the exact SAP test data you need, even at high volume

At the center of DSM is the Business Object Workbench, and the value of that is not that we have the definitions of over three thousand different data types. It's that it's being used in multiple products around the world by organizations from a very wide range of industries, and that keeps the information that we have up to date. The latest usage of that intellectual property is a product called Data Locate. Data Locate allows you to build rules in order to go and find specific types of data that fit the rules that you're interested in. So we've got examples like, I need to do some testing for changes we've made in our receiving plant in Berlin. And so I set up rules to say, go find vendors and filter the list of vendors that you find on company code because only a particular company code is using this Berlin center. Once you've got those vendors that are for that company code, now filter the data down and pick out just the ones that have an address in Berlin for me. So we're thinking things that will be delivered from a vendor in Berlin. And then we need to look at the specific purchase organizations that are affected. So for those vendors, go and look at which purchase organizations they have ordered things against from our existing dataset so that you can essentially have an output that says, if you want to test this process for purchase org one thousand, here's a list of vendors that you can choose that will probably work because they've ordered things from that purchase organization before. If you want to test it for two thousand, here's a list of vendors that fit your requirements. Data Locate is designed to be able to take those really large datasets and efficiently filter things and then build rules based on top of that Business Object Workbench to be able to help you locate the data that you need for the particular test that you're looking to do. When you then integrate that into test automation and finding test sets, it becomes incredibly powerful. So anything where you are needing to do complex selection of data, you might have found yourself downloading multiple tables from SAP and doing numerous lookups to try and find things, but often finding that the sheer volume of what you're looking at is just too much. And so you start to think, well, can we write an ABAP program for this? But, you know, then we've got to get a programmer in. We've got to build a functional spec, a technical spec. We've to go through testing validation. This is where Data Locate allows us to very quickly build these select nodes, filter nodes, and decision nodes, and then put it together as rules and a profile to be able to go and pull out data that fits your particular testing need.

Finding the right SAP test data shouldn't take hours

Your projects depend on realistic SAP test data; but in Production systems holding millions of records, finding the precise object keys your testers need is slow, manual and error-prone. Pull the wrong data and tests fail; pull too much and you waste storage and time. SAP's deeply interconnected data model makes it harder, because a single business object rarely stands alone. You need a fast, reliable way to search, filter and select exactly the transactional and master data each test case requires, without combing through high-volume tables by hand, or waiting on scarce Basis and functional IT colleagues.

Lights out testing is the aim for all organisations as they navigate the ever-more rapidly changing IT landscape. With Data Sync Manager, you can leverage Data Locate to define rules that identify specific types of data, enabling complex selections and filtering based on the test you want to perform. Object Extractor then retrieves the values from the selected transactional data, while Object Sync simultaneously copies the relevant master data to your QA system to ensure the automated transaction can process correctly in the Test system. This process can be automated to run periodically, ensuring you always have the latest data that happens in Production being used for testing. With accurate data, you'll be able to monitor and highlight any disparities, giving you peace of mind knowing your testing is happening automatically in the background, and you only hear when there is something to investigate.

Data Locate: precise object key selection for SAP testing

Data Locate, part of our Data Sync Manager (DSM) suite, locates and selects object keys. Search, filter and select the exact object keys you need, then process them for manual or automated testing, on demand.

Data Locate allows you to find specific instances of data, by building rules to select, filter and process keys into different groups based on the functional need. Rather than downloading multiple tables from SAP and doing numerous lookups, Data Locate can do incredibly granular cross-searches across different data types – such as finding a Business Partner for a combination of Sales Org, Distribution Channel and Division – but also combining other criteria, such as previous products purchased.

Precise selection, backed by our proprietary 3,700+ BOW definitions

At the heart of DSM is our proprietary Business Object Workbench (BOW) which includes the definitions of over 3,700 different data types, which are constantly updated. Data Locate is designed to take really large data sets and filter through them efficiently, and then build rules based on top of that BOW to be able to help you locate the data that you need for the particular test that you're looking to do. When you then integrate Data Locate into test automation and finding test sets, it becomes incredibly powerful.

Use Data Locate on its own, or combine it with Object Sync, Object Extractor and Data Secure to copy, extract and mask the data you've pinpointed – delivering relevant, right-sized test data, ready when your teams are.

Challenge	What it means	How Data Locate helps
Data is hard to find	In high-volume Production systems, locating the right object keys for a test is slow and manual.	Select, filter and process object keys directly — designed for extremely high data volumes.
Related data gets missed	SAP objects are interlinked, so selecting one without its dependencies breaks the test.	Leverages 3,700+ business objects and their relationships to select complete, consistent data.
Automated testing stalls	Manual data prep slows Continuous Improvement (CI) and automated test pipelines.	Selects and processes object keys for both manual and automated testing, on demand.
Point tools don't scale	Standalone utilities can't cover the full test-data lifecycle.	Works alone or with other components in the DSM suite: Object Sync, Object Extractor, Client Sync and Data Secure.

Data Sync Manager has provided perfect data quality without significant load on the systems, and test and training systems are much smaller now. Business users work independently of Global IT when they need to copy objects from the productive system to test systems. Object Sync has been very valuable for checking and fixing incidents, e.g. in Payroll.

Esben Fagerlind, SAP Landscape & Release Consultant, Vestas

The Data Sync Manager suite ticked all the boxes for us

Sylvia Odekerken, Service Manager at Vebego

DSM has saved us a considerable amount of time as refreshes have improved from manual intervention with a lot of costly activity, to minimal activity.

Jeff Greiner - Director, Enterprise Applications Engineering at Siemens PLM Software

The benefits of bringing in DSM were that we could reliably and quickly deliver consistent test data to our systems that weren’t manipulated to suit certain test scenarios, and that could meet the criteria we needed without technical intervention. It is actually a tool that is used by the business to deliver their own test data, so they can understand and manage their test data more reliably and more quickly.

SAP Solutions Manager, leading British energy retailer

One of the key elements for us was the flexibility that the EPI-USE Labs team provided, both with landscape alignment and on a project management level. Dunelm did not have the resources to do that. We needed a partner that could come in with a technical mindset as well as a project management mindset.

Steve Ross, SAP Technical Services Manager, Dunelm

DSM has given us a faster, more consistent test process, and allowed us to meet ad-hoc business requests quickly. It’s also reduced our data footprint and masked our sensitive data, which is a big bonus.

Tom Garreis, SAP Basis & Security Manager, A.O. Smith

The EPI-USE Labs products have shortened the time and effort to get a valid system up and running. The major benefit from the DSM Suite is that we can take over objects and we can make them usable, and test without compromising GDPR data. The ability to do a quick and valid sync is also a benefit.

Hans Henrik Jensen, Service Delivery Manager, Coop Denmark