1. business and industrial

SAP BusinessObjects 4.0
Solution Portfolio: Picking
the right tool for the job
Dr. Bjarne Berg
Comerit Inc.
© 2012 Wellesley Information Services. All rights reserved.
In This Session …
•
We will look at all major SAP BusinessObjects frontend tools
•
You will see several demos and we will discuss
strength and weaknesses of all the tools
•
At the end of this session you will have a good
understanding of each tool’s capabilities and be able
to compare and contrast each of them
•
This session will also make you well prepared to
decide what tools you want to pursue
1
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
The BI 4.0 Launchpad and Demo
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis (OLAP tool)
SAP BusinessObjects WebIntelligence (Ad-Hoc Querying)
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer (Data exploration tool)
Crystal Reports (Formatted reporting tool)
BI Workspaces and Modules - a Demo
Wrap-up
2
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
Dashboards can be built using the
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
tool (formerly known as Xcelsius)
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
was launched in March 2010, and is
the flagship product for data
visualization and dashboards
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SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards Example — Flexibility
•
•
•
Graphs can be displayed many ways
Navigation can be done and saved as
‘scenarios’
This dashboard also has on-line help
This dashboard is based only on a
SAP BW query and BICS connector;
the cube is in SAP HANA and the
dashboard therefore loads in less
than 8 seconds.
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards – Mobile Example
•
Dashboards are
most useful when
compared to
something
•
This dashboard is
relative to a
business plan
•
Notice that all
graphs can be
displayed many
ways and that
color coding is
consistent across
dashboards
Make sure layout, buttons, and colors are
consistently used and that the location of the
objects aligns perfectly with each other.
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboard — Display and Colors
•
This dashboard
groups six different
categories and
over 30 lines into
an easily readable
table using a few
lines and mostly
colors
•
Too many lines
and incorrect use
of “bold” makes
dashboards very
hard to read
Don't cram too much into single dashboards. Plan
on multiple dashboards for each business area.
Formatted Number based Dashboard Example
• Dashboards
can
also be highly
formatted and
static with little
user interactive
• In
this dashboard
we included
some KPIs and
only the balance
sheet for an
organization,
instead of using
Crystal reports
for this sort of
work.
Not all dashboards have a high degree of navigation and
imaged. For finance dashboards, presenting the numbers
in a meaningful way may be more important.
Operational Dashboards
• Dashboards
can
be operational
• This
dashboard
focus on billing
disputes and is
used to monitor
closing of cases
• The
users of
this dashboard
are clerks in the
billing office,
not executives.
Some dashboards are operational in nature and gives a summary
of the key metrics and new cases as they occur. Such
dashboards works best when data is refreshed often or real-time
8
Linked to Web Services
•
Dashboards are
most useful when
shared with others
•
Power users can
create great
departmental
dashboards that
can be shared
inside smaller
organizational units
In this dashboard, the data is merged with Google maps and external news
feeds. This makes the dashboard much more interactive and interesting.
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What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
The BI 4.0 Launchpad and Demo
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis (OLAP tool)
SAP BusinessObjects WebIntelligence (Ad-Hoc Querying)
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer (Data exploration tool)
Crystal Reports (Formatted reporting tool)
BI Workspaces and Modules - a Demo
Wrap-up
10
BI Self Service — A New Concept Enabled by BI 4.0
The idea is to have a single launch item for all reports and
analysis. Many call this a "report center."
A new perspective is the idea that
users can do much of their own
“development” work
The Launch Pad is intended
to make this easier. Users can:


Use multiple tabs to work on several
documents at the same time
Search for what they are looking for
and filter results
SAP BI 4.0 Demo and Launchpad and Dashboards
12
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
The BI 4.0 Launchpad and Demo
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis (OLAP tool)
SAP BusinessObjects WebIntelligence (Ad-Hoc Querying)
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer (Data exploration tool)
Crystal Reports (Formatted reporting tool)
BI Workspaces and Modules - a Demo
Wrap-up
13
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis — Excel Interface
The SAP
BusinessObjects
Analysis tool
exists in both:
•
•
MS Office edition
OLAP edition
(web)
The MS Office
edition supports
both Excel and
PowerPoint
Source SAP AG,2011
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SAP BusinessObjects Analysis — PowerPoint Interface
The tool has a query panel and can embed “live” BI analysis in the
Microsoft Office applications Excel and PowerPoint
15
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis — Web Edition
•
•
The edition for OLAP (Web edition) is great for analysts who want to interact with
the data and also add their own calculations, formatting, charts, and filtering
The output from this analysis can be shared with others within a department or
logical grouping of employees who need to see the information
This is not a basic reporting tool, but an analysis tool
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SAP BusinessObjects Analysis OLAP — Navigating the Basics
•
You can have up to four analysis items open on the same page
You can use
the task
toolbar to
toggle
between:
 Data
 Properties
 Outline
You can
have many
analysis
sheets
open at the
same time
(three is
the default)
Analysis is not a basic reporting tool, but an analysis
tool with a very high degree of flexibility to conduct
PowerUser analysis and OLAP reporting
17
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis — Navigation
The tool bars are consistently
used in the whole Web
application
Through tabs and simple
selection screens, the users
can easily access, select, and
navigate the data
Users can also add their own
formulas and calculations in
the Web interface and store
the definitions
Most power users will find
this intuitive and easy to
learn…
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What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
The BI 4.0 Launchpad and Demo
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis (OLAP tool)
SAP BusinessObjects WebIntelligence (Ad-Hoc Querying)
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer (Data exploration tool)
Crystal Reports (Formatted reporting tool)
BI Workspaces and Modules - a Demo
Wrap-up
19
SAP BusinessObjects WebIntelligence (ad-hoc reporting)
WebIntelligence is an on-line web based tool to access the data in
an ad-hoc fashion. It can be deployed as a PowerUser tool, or as an
end user tool (if the report is simplified and navigation is limited).
When deploying
WebI reports that
are linked to a
dashboards you
should pre-run as
many as possible
due to the increase
in performance
(HANA and BWA
also helps)
20
SAP BusinessObjects WebIntelligence Catalog of reports
•
WebI is also great for building an inventory of reports that are
published in a public folder on the BI 4.x Launchpad.
•
This creates a catalog of available reports that users can
search and execute based on security privileges
Security has to be build on who can publish into the public folders, we
commonly refer to those users as ‘authors’ and not PowerUsers
21
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
The BI 4.0 Launchpad and Demo
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis (OLAP tool)
SAP BusinessObjects WebIntelligence (Ad-Hoc Querying)
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer (Data exploration tool)
Crystal Reports (Formatted reporting tool)
BI Workspaces and Modules - a Demo
Wrap-up
22
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer — Exploration Tool
•
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer is a
tool that is intended for rapid
interactive analysis of large
volumes of data
•
Think of it as a BI search engine
•
The tool works by indexing large
volume of data on dedicated server
blades using the SAP HANA or
BWA Technology
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer is
accessed through pre-built Information
Spaces. These define what fields are
available in the exploration and what
users can navigate on.
The core benefit of Explorer (accelerated version): IT IS REALLY FAST!
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A Step-By-Step Demo: Searching
1. Load the SAP BusinessObjects
Explorer Web interface into a
browser
2. Search for “sales”
3. Get the search
results and a list of
“information spaces”
The search result list is sorted based on an internal “relevancy” score
A Step-by-Step Demo: The Initial View
4. The system looks at the data and formats it based on implied
hierarchies (i.e., time, geography, customer) as well as measures
 Users may navigate and change measures, graphs, and tables
Searching in a Result Set and Measures
5. Again, we are interested in sales around Texas, and can search the
initial result set
6. By changing the
Measure from “margin”
to “sales revenue” all
graphs and tables
change
Changing Charts and Drill Down
7. We can change the chart by selecting from the left menu options
8. While the first display
was based on the
“best guess,” we can
now drill down to the
different product lines
The best graphing
options, based on our
data, is highlighted by
a star:
More Graphing Options
9. There are many graphing
options and some are more
useful than others
“Proportional” view is best when
you are looking for size
relations, i.e., what are the
largest contributors to sales?
Most of the time, the reccomended graphs works best for the data set,
but not always
Try several graphing options before deciding on “your” view
Explore More — Filtering
10. By clicking on “Explore
more” you are promted to
filter on the characteristic
you selected
Since we clicked
“Explore more” in
the state box, we
can now select
only the states we
are interested in
Filtering data makes the images more meaningful.
It is harder to analyze 50 states and scroll through the data.
Filter Results
We now see only the (product) lines sold in three states
Filter values are
displayed
here:
Always see if any items have been removed in a filter before
you look at the data, i.e., 15,061,789 is not the sales
revenue for the firm, only the revenue for three states
The Visualization Panel
11. You can also zoom in on the data by only
showing the visualization panel
In the Visualization
Panel, you can view
all the fields and
measures as a
complete table
Notice: The table
only contains data
from the three states
we filtered on
Other Display Options
12. You can view the data in
relative size by using a
comparison graph
13.
Line graphs are usually preferred if
you have 3-20 data points
Areas on the graphs can
be highlighted by clicking
on one or more data
points
Sorting and New Calculations
13. Any data panel can be sorted in many ways
15. We can also add our own
measures
In our example we are adding
the measure “Margin Per Unit”
as total margin divided by
“quantity sold”
Measures used on any graph can be calculated “on-the-fly”
Downloading a Data Set
14. Any result set displayed in SAP BusinessObjects Explorer may be
saved to a PC as a comma-delimited file
You can select to
save the data set
filtered by the
navigations or
only the data from
the visualization
panel
Data saved this way can be opened in Excel or imported
directly into Access and other databases
Configuring Measures
15. Measures in the data set can also be configured to be “filter columns”
for user navigation
Other options
include:
• Max
• Min
• Sum
• Average
This is how you determine how data will be accessed and
how measures will be displayed
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer — Big Picture
SAP Business Objects
Explorer Client
Web Application
Server (BOBJ
Enterprise Web
App.)
SAP Business Objects
Explorer Web Application
BO Explorer Servers
Explorer Servers
Explorer Servers
Explorer Servers
Explorer Servers
Master
Service
Indexing
Service
Exploration
Service
Search
Service
BWA Driver
Central Mgmt.
System (CMS)
Lucene Driver
Lucene
Indexes
BWA
Accelerator
BO
Enterprise
Servers
Report Server
(WIRS)
Central Mgmt.
System (CMS)
Enterprise
Repository
Source: Dr. Berg, Comerit Inc.
SAP BW
7.x
Database using
a Universe
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
The BI 4.0 Launchpad and Demo
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis (OLAP tool)
SAP BusinessObjects WebIntelligence (Ad-Hoc Querying)
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer (Data exploration tool)
Crystal Reports (Formatted reporting tool)
BI Workspaces and Modules - a Demo
Wrap-up
37
SAP Crystal Reports Is a Pixel Controlled Reporting Tool
Crystal Reports was one of
the leading vendors that
became part of Business
Objects and later SAP.
Crystal, with its two versions,
is great tool for batch
reporting of “pixel controlled”
formatted reports
There are some capabilities to
do interactive analysis, but it
is primarily a tool for
structured information access
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SAP Crystal Reports Is Available as a Free Trial Version
Today there are two versions:
• SAP Crystal Reports 2011 (upgrade from 2008)
• SAP Crystal Reports Enterprise.
This is a version with tight integration to SAP BW via BICS, a new
interface, language support and integration to BI platform alerting
framework
You can download a 30-day fully
functional trial version of SAP Crystal
Reports and see if this product is
interesting for your organization at:
•
https://www.sap.com/campaign/2011_CURR_SA
P_Crystal_Reports_2011/index.epx
SAP Crystal Reports has been embedded
with SAP BW since version 3.0B in 2002
39
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
The BI 4.0 Launchpad and Demo
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis (OLAP tool)
SAP BusinessObjects WebIntelligence (Ad-Hoc Querying)
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer (Data exploration tool)
Crystal Reports (Formatted reporting tool)
BI Workspaces and Modules - a Demo
Wrap-up
40
BI Workspaces and Modules
BI Workspaces allows you to link many SAP BI tools in the same area, without
the need to jump between them. In this workspace, we have 3 Dashboards, 1
WebI report, 1 Analysis report and 1 Crystal report running at the same time.
41
BI Workspaces and Modules
We can also link the objects in a
workspace together and pass variables
and navigation between some of them
This
alleviates
some of the
task of
opening and
running the
workspace
every day.
42
Modules
We can also use Modules
to make the objects more
interesting by adding
comments to them.
There are two types of
Modules
• Text modules
• Compound modules
You can access Modules from
the ‘my application area.
The Text Module
Using the Text Module
we can add our
comments and update
them whenever we like.
There are two
options:
• Regular text
• HTML
(this allows you
to use HTML
tags to format
you text
The Compound Module with a Text Module
Using the Compound Module we
display many modules together, this
include text, dashboards, WebI reports,
Crystal reports, and Analysis for OLAP.
Creating a
compound
modules are so
simple, that
anyone with
Microsoft Word
or PowerPoint
skills can learn
it in less than 5
minutes!!
BI Workspaces Demo
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
The BI 4.0 Launchpad and Demo
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis (OLAP tool)
SAP BusinessObjects WebIntelligence (Ad-Hoc Querying)
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer (Data exploration tool)
Crystal Reports (Formatted reporting tool)
BI Workspaces and Modules - a Demo
Wrap-up
47
Who Gets to Do What?
•
•
•
The major decision for an SAP BI driven enterprise is to determine
who gets access to each tool
There is often a temptation for the IT community of wanting to keep
the tools under their domain – That is a mistake
The IT community should actively work with the power and casual
users to improve human capabilities and thereby teach them to
become more productive employees
Chinese Proverb
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What Tool to Select
•
All SAP tools have strength and weaknesses
 This is a subjective summary of each of the major tools
Target User
Development
Capabilities
Tool
End
User
Power ExecuUser
tives
End
User
Power
IT
External
User Author Developer Graphing Navigation
data
Web Application
Designer
-
-
-
Dashboard
Designer
(Xcelsius)
-
-
-
Visual Composer
External
web
services Simplicity
OLAP
-
-
-
-
-
-
Analysis Edition
for OLAP (web)
-
-
Analysis MS
edition
-
-
Crystal Reports
-
BO Explorer
-
Limited Support
-
-
-
Interactive
Analysis
ad-hoc (WebI)
Ad-Hoc
querying
Longterm
Strategy
-
-
Some Support
Good Support
-
-
-
-
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Resources
•
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0 Cookbook,
by David Lai and Xavier Hacking, Packt Publishing (book)
•
SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence: The Comprehensive Guide (2nd Ed),
SAP Press (700 pages, Oct, 2012) Brogden, Sinkwitz, Holden, Marks, & Orthous.
•
Creating Dashboards with SAP BusinessObjects (2nd Ed)
by Li and Delodder, SAP Press, (650 pages, April 2012)
•
SAP NetWeaver BW and SAP BusinessObjects: The Comprehensive Guide
by Heillig, Kessler, Knotzele, John and Thaler-Mieslinger, SAP Press (782
pages, Dec, 2011)
•
SAP HANA an Introduction,
by Bjarne Berg and Penny Silvia, SAP Press, (430 pages, Oct. 2012)
•
SAP BusinessObjects System Administration,
by Myers and Vallo, SAP Press (530 pages, Nov. 2012)
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7 Key Points to Take Home
Pick the right tools based on what you want to accomplish
 “Everything in the world is a nail, when you only have a hammer”
• The BW tool set has evolved substantially over the last two years
— Have you?
• Today’s presentation developer is much more than a query
developer. More than one skill set is needed
• Work hard on empowering your end users. You are not doing your
organization any “favors” by keeping BI in the IT organization
• Consider integrating more than one tool for you analytical needs
• You may want to consider splitting your backend BI operations
and creating a new reporting group focusing on the front-end
• Budget “real money” to get your organization proficient in the
new tools. This is not done overnight, nor cheaply
•
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Your Turn!
How to contact me:
Dr. Bjarne Berg
Bberg@Comerit.com
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Disclaimer
SAP, R/3, mySAP, mySAP.com, SAP NetWeaver®, Duet™®, PartnerEdge, and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their
respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other product
and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Wellesley Information Services is neither owned nor controlled by
SAP.
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