Skip to main content

Celonis Product Documentation

TS Columns

On this page, the App Store team provides an overview of the TS Columns.

What is a TS Column?

TS Column (TimeStamp Columns) can be seen in the Standard Transformation scripts. They contain an original column explicitly casted to Timestamp, Date or Time data type. For instance, a view containing the column AEDAT, will also contain the column TS_AEDAT. TS Columns are inserted into the Standard Views so they are part of the Standard Data Models.

Why are they needed in App Store Apps and Standard Transformations?

These columns are needed because in many cases, customers store timestamps, dates or times as Strings or other non-standard data types. In order to not alter the original column in the Tables, TS Columns are inserted into the Standard Views. App Store Apps use these columns instead of the original columns. By doing this, it is possible to guarantee that the information is in the right format and the different KPIs and calculations can be performed without having to use the casting functions inside an App.

These columns ensure compatibility and the proper use out of the box of the Standard dates, timestamps and time columns in the App Store Apps. If the TS Columns are removed from the Transformations and not loaded into the Data Models, the App Store Apps would not work and the Date, Timestamps and Time columns would need to be altered in the components using them.

Example - Order to Cash - SAP ECC

The following snippet was taken from the Standard Order to Cash Vertica Script. It contains the creation of the VBAP View that is inserted in the Order to Cash Data Model. In this case, the table contains 5 Dates (ABDAT, AEDAT, ERDAT, STADAT and STDAT). These Dates are casted to Date type explicitly and included into the View with the "TS_" convention in the name. By doing this, users have access to the original column in addition to the casted column while building Apps.

22118629.png
Conclusion

It is recommended to not remove the TS columns from the Standard Transformations. In case you exclude these columns, be aware that the Apps will not work and will require modifications.