Building and extending Data Products with SAP Business Data Cloud 

With SAP Business Data Cloud (SAP BDC), SAP introduces a new way to create and share data as Data Products. Instead of exposing raw tables or single views, SAP BDC uses a product-centric approach. Data is packaged into governed, discoverable, and reusable Data Products.

These Data Products form the base for analytics, planning, and AI initiatives.

This article explains the lifecycle of Data Products in SAP BDC: how they are created, how they can be extended and how customers can build their own. It also outlines the current limitations.

SAP Managed Data Products 

Today, most SAP Managed Data Products are based on SAP S/4HANA. They are generated from SAP-released CDS views in both private and public cloud editions.

They include built-in connections, lineage, data models and data updates. SAP maintains all of this.

Because SAP manages the connections and updates, customers get a stable and trusted view of core business areas like finance, procurement, sales, and supply chain.

These Data Products are ready to be used in SAP BDC. They can also be shared with external platforms through BDC Connect without extra modeling.

Any source changes are handled by SAP. SAP Managed Data Products require a separate monthly fee on top of the SAP BDC license. The price depends on the source system. For S/4HANA-based products, the cost is based on the number of Full User Equivalents (FUEs).

Extending SAP Managed Data Products 

Many companies enhance their S/4HANA systems with custom (Z) fields. SAP BDC allows you to extend Data Products with these fields, as long as the underlying CDS view is extended as well.

If the CDS view was enhanced before activating the Data Product, the custom fields appear automatically after installation or reinstallation. This allows custom logic and attributes to flow into BDC without manual work.

Extensions can be created through: 

• Key user extensibility, using the Custom Fields & Logic Fiori app 

• Developer extensibility, using CDS view extensions 

If the Data Product was activated before the CDS extension, the full data package must be uninstalled and reinstalled. This can be resource-intensive, especially for large datasets.

After activation, the new fields are available in tools such as SAP Datasphere, SAP Analytics Cloud, or external platforms via BDC Connect. 

Creating Custom Data Products 

 Not all data comes from SAP systems. Standard SAP Data Products may also not cover all customer-specific logic. Many organizations combine SAP and non-SAP data or build their own models.

This is where Custom Data Products are used.

They can be built from:

• Custom CDS entities 

• BW/4HANA InfoProviders (via the Data Product Generator in SAP BW within SAP BDC) 

The typical process is:

1.     Load or replicate data into SAP Datasphere or into the SAP BDC object store.

2.     Apply transformations, often using a medallion architecture.

3.     Define a Data Provider Profile.

4.     Publish the Data Product in the SAP BDC Catalog with proper metadata and business context.

 Once listed in the SAP BDC Catalog, the product becomes discoverable and consumable across the organization.

Important notes: 
It is currently not possible to load data from local tables or views in SAP Datasphere into the object store. However, S/4HANA data can be directly loaded into the object store using replication flows.

If you use BW/4HANA, you can use the Data Product Generator to replicate data and meta data from InfoProviders into BDC’s embedded object store and publish them as Custom Data Products.

To use the object store in SAP BDC/Datasphere, a minimum setup of 4150 Capacity Units is required. This makes the environment large and costly, especially for development systems.

Derived Data Products and Data Product Studio (Release: Q2 2026) 

SAP is developing a new tool called Data Product Studio. It is a low-code environment, similar to transformation flows in SAP Datasphere. It simplifies the creation of Derived Data Products, which combine existing Data Products.

This capability was presented at SAP TechEd.

With Data Product Studio, users can combine Data Products, enrich them semantically, apply transformations, and publish them to the SAP BDC catalog.

The key concept is composability. Data Products from across the SAP Business Data Cloud portfolio including SAP Databricks, SAP Datasphere, and SAP Snowflake (planned) — can be reused and combined into higher-level products.

Data Products published from SAP Databricks to BDC Connect can also be reused as inputs. This enables cross-platform data to be reused.

Conclusion 

SAP Business Data Cloud introduces a data product-centric approach to enterprise data. It shifts the focus from technical assets to governed Data Products.

Organizations can use SAP Managed Data Products as a starting point, extend them with custom fields, or build fully custom products that combine SAP and non-SAP data. All while maintaining semantics, lineage, and governance.

Data Product development is still evolving and has some limitations. However, with new capabilities like Data Product Studio, SAP BDC is moving toward simpler and more scalable data product creation.

If you would like to learn more about SAP BDC and what it can do for your organization, feel free to reach out to: Joran.de.vries@mccoy-partners.com