What's with SAP BO Explorer

Folks,

I am back after long time. Getting less time to do blogging. Today I would like to give an important update, which I thought would be very important to every one.

BO Explorer is one of the outstanding visualization tool launched by SAP. It has some very cool features. Here they are:

• In memory Processing - The Explorer indexes the data and keepts it in memory during the visualization of the dashboard. 
• Self Service BI - Provides options for end users or analysts to dynamically change the chart types and additional dimensions and measures.
• Flexibility to add and remove panes - Each pane contains one visualization such as either chart or table
• Export options such as excel, image and webintelligence format
• Interactive Filters

Even though all the above features are available, its still lack the speed of retaining good position in the Dashboards Portfolio when compared to niche players such as Tableau, Qlikview, Spotfire and so on.

SAP is also not clearly given any roadmap on how they will achieve as a leader on visualizations portfolio. Hope to see this would happen soon. 

Note: This entire view is my individual opinion. I try to keep the correct information. If you see anything wrong, please correct me by sending a comment.

Crystal Reports Enterprize 4.0 vs Crystal Reports 2008 / 2011

Folks,

You might have heard about Crystal Reports Enterprise 4.0. Initially I was in assumption that, it is similar to Crystal Reports 2008 with advanced options.

Later I came to now that, Crystal Reports 2011 is the upgraded version of Crystal Reports 2008.

Oh..then, you may ask a question to me, What's all about Crystal Reports Enterprise (CRE ) 4.0. I will refer as CRE 4.0

The CRE 4.0 is a new tool gets installed along with SAP BO BI 4.0

The CRE 4.0 is not a full pledge Crystal Reports tool. The tool is a limited version with lot of limited options. The CRE 4.0 just gives a look and feel about how crystal reports would look like.

For example,

• Doesn't have pre-defined cross tab styles in CRE 4.0. But you can use pre-defined crsoss tab styles in Crystal Reports 2008 and Crystal reports 2011.
• Doesn't have "Can grow" option for database objects. But you can do using Crystal Reports 2008 and 2011.
• Doesn't have "Fit in Section" a property for sections. But you can do using Crystal Reports 2008 and 2011.

 I just find out few options when I had a chance to take look at those tools.

Please update if you  know any such differences.

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Life is easier in SAP BO 4.0 for Bex Queries Integration

Folks,

I got chance to look at SAP Business Objects BI 4.0. The look and feel is great.

Now I am going to discuss about How to create reports on top of SAP BEX Queries in BO 4.0.

Before we go ahead, Let's talk about how the reports can be created on top of BEX Queries in BO XI 3.1

In BO XI 3.1, here are the steps we follow:

1. Identify the BEX Query
2. Create a Universe
3. Create a Universe Connection using SAP Client middleware and connect to it
4. Universe imports the BEX Query objects such as Characteristics, Key figures and so on.
5. If you observe there would be two dimension objects for each characteristic. They start with L00 and L01.
6. L00 - is for aggregate level data   & L01 - is for detailed data
7. Create WebI report on Top of Universe.

We cannot create Reports using WebI RICH Client on top of BEX Queries in BO XI 3.1

In SAP BO BI 4.0 - You can directly create WebI report on top of BEX Queries using WBEI Rich Client.

1.  Identify the BEX Query
2. Create a Universe Connection using SAP Client middleware and connect to it
3. Open WEBI Rich Client
4. Select the data source as connection which you created in Step2.
5. The interface opens with list of all Characteristics, Key figures and so on
6. The objects shows up in better way than BO XI 3.1. 
7. Only one dimension object is shown for each characteristic. Hierarchies are displayed as a detail object. 
8. When you select the detail object with a icon as hierarchies, the report takes care of alignment and formatting of Hierarchy.This is a great feature in SAP BO BI 4.0.

 Please post your comments if you like this post.

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How to capture technical names and descriptions from BEX Query?

Folks,

Every one might have faced this issue. I too faced. After several searches in Google and with my peers, I came to know that there is no direct way we can capture BEX Query Meta data. ( I am not sure there might be a way, but at least I am not aware of).

After so much of struggle, I got a nice work around way to capture the meta data. I would like to share the same with you.


Let's go step by step:

Step1: Identify the BEX Query, for which meta data to be captured.

Step2: Use Snagit. ( If not available with you get it from www.snagit.com)

Snagit has a great feature, which captures a test in the selected screen. Once you select snag it select a area from which you want to capture text.

Step3: Snagit nicely captures the text from the selected area.

Step 4: The selected area of the text is as follows:

         [0XARLSUPP__0XADIVSUP] Supplier Diversity
         [0XARLSUPP__0XARWOMIND] Woman Owned
         [0XARLSUPP__0XARMINOWN] Minority Owned
         [0XARLSUPP__0XARSBUS] Small Business

         [0XSARBUYER] Buyer
         [0XSARBUYER__0XSARBUYORG] Buying Organization Obsolete
         [0XARMANORG] Management Organiz.
         [0XARORGSITE] Site
         [0XARCOCTR] Cost Center

         [0XARGLACC] G/L Account
         [0XSARDOCTYP] Document Type
         [0XSARAGID] Contract
         [0XSACSDAT] Contract Start Date

         [0XSACEDAT] Contract Expiry Date
         [0XSARINWOC] Invoice w/o Contract
         [0XSARFIDTYP] Transaction Type
         [0ASAPSPNR] WBS Element

         [0XSAPROJST] Project Status
         [0XSAPROJRSK] Project Risk
         [0XSAPROJPR] Project Priority
         [0XSAPROJPAD] Project Start Date

Step5: Select all areas as required and capture the metadata.

The above solution may not be the right one. At least it reduces lot of effort of manually capturing all such information. :)

Please post your comments if you like this work around :)

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Xpert4ms.com Reached 100 members in 80 days!!

Folks.... Our forum www.xpert4ms.com achieved another milestone.

Reached 100 members in 80 days!! Congratulations to every one for being part of this.

Please register yourself if you haven't registered yet.

The forum is created to help each other technically and post technical topics and questions and get answers from other members!!

Here is the forum link: www.xpert4ms.com

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SAP Business Objects SPM

Folks,

You might have heard about SAP Business Objects Spend Performance Management ( SPM ) in recent days.

What is it all about? You might have heard about Rapid mart Solutions. Now a days SAP is concentrating more on Rapid Mart Solutions.

A Rapid mart solution is nothing about a ready made solution. All basic building objects will be provided by the Product provider. Its just a plug in solution for a Business Problem.

We can go for such solutions, when clients needs immediate results.

So, SAP Business Objects SPM is a Rapid Mart Solution which is built on top of SAP BI / BW system.

Basically the SPM tool helps Business users analyze their spend and helps in improving savings.


Many times, people confuse about Business Objects name as part of this tool name. SAP is using just for branding purpose.

The idea is that, SAP wants to use Business Objects for all its reporting and analytic requirements. Even though SAP is not using Business Objects in building SAP BO SPM tool, the name is just included as part of name just for branding.

At present SAP SPM is coming up with 3.0 version. At present the version is SAP BO SPM 2.0  2.1

Thats all folks!... Will come back with more updates!

If you have any further questions, please post your questions at our forum: http://xpert4ms.com/viewforum.php?f=70

SAP Business Objects 4.0 Solution document Links

Since the new SAP Business Objects release information aired, lot of searches are being done in google for document links.

Here are few links which could be useful to acquire knowledge on SAP Business Objects 4.0.

1. http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/24606

2. http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/bi-solution-architecture

You could also like to check this link : BO 4.0 Release Update

Keep watching this space. Will come up with more updates.

Best Strategy for defining Contexts in Business Objects Universe Designer

Well, when we talk about Universe, (hello we are not talking about universe in solar system) in  Universe Designer we mostly talk about loops, traps which in turn make us think about Contexts and Aliases.

We will discuss only contexts. I will probably come with another post on traps and aliases.

We use contexts when there is a loop among tables. For example consider there are 4 tables A, B, C and D.

Consider that there are joins from A to B, B to C and A to D & D to B. It clearly forms a loop.

So now the users want to pull objects from A & C tables. As there is no direct join between A and C which table it should use either B or D in order to form a query.

Contexts come in such scenario.

In simple terms, a Context defines a path. In the above example we can create two contexts.

Context 1 : A  to B to C
Context 2 : A  to D to C

Best practice to define contexts when we have multiple star schemas and snow flake schemas is to define one context for each schema.

In the above example we can consider B and D are two fact tables and A and C are two dmension tables. Total we have two star schemas. So we have defined two contexts.

The same we can follow for Snow flake schemas.

If you would like to discuss on the topics click here.

Please do comment to provide for better blogging!!

Keep watching this space!

SAP Business Objects 4.0 Release Information Update

I know every one of you are eagerly waiting for the new release of Business Objects 4.0.

The most awaited release with plenty of new features, new GUI look and much more advanced options.


SAP Business Objects 4.0 is live on on 16-September-2011. Click here for more details.

And you could find documentation on BO 4.0 releaseClick Here.


Keep watching this space for more details!!

SAP Business Objects eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL)

Hey..today let's talk about another interesting topic XBRL. XBRL stands for eXtensible Business Reporting Language.

As you may be aware, the Ministry of Company Affairs, Government of India has come up with a recent directive, General Circular No. 09/2011 on 31st March 2011, mandating filing of financial statements in XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) for certain classes of companies from the year 2010-2011 onwards. 

Given that the mandate for filing is as early as the last financial year ending 31st March 2011, SAP understands that there is an urgency to comply with this government requirement.

With the SAP® BusinessObjects™ XBRL Publishing application, you can extract data from any consolidation application or business software, prepare, review, and analyze data in XBRL documents – quickly and accurately. SAP BusinessObjects 

XBRL Publishing offers you a fast, efficient way to generate XBRL documents in-house. Now your business users can create a customized and adaptable XBRL document to meet your specific requirements.

Would you like to know more details directly from SAP. Then connect to the webnair will be conducted by SAP on Tuesday, 10th May 2011 from 12pm - 1pm.

1 hour Solution Overview & Product Demonstration webinar to cover the SAP solution for XBRL. The session would be covered by SAP XBRL expert Mr. Muthu Ranganathan - Global EPM COE Lead. During the session SAP intend to cover the following:

• Introduction to XBRL and the mandate in India
• SAP BusinessObjects solution for XBRL
• Solution Demonstration
• Question and Answer

 The Conference Login details:

Webinar Link: https://sap.emea.pgiconnect.com/I059675

Participation Pin: 803250

Conference Access Numbers: 

Location                        Toll NumberIndia                               044 2370 2370

Mumbai                          022 2821 3311,  022 2821 8855

Delhi                               011 2685 2727,  011 2644 8899

Bangalore                      080 2532 6215

Hyderabad                            040 2799 2211

Pune                                 020 2445 0506, 020 2445 0507

Kolkata                           033 2559 0707

Gurgaon                         0124 289 1000

Toll Free Number (All India)

1800 425 4061,  1800 425 4250, 1800 22 4061, 1800 425 1300 

Enjoy the Session. Its very useful one. I have already attended on 06th May.

Business Objects Versions History

1. Business Objects 3.x
2. Business Objects 4.x
3. Business Objects 5.x
4. Business Objects 6.x
5. Business Objects XI.R1
6. Business Objects XI R2
7. SAP Business Objects XI R3.0
8. SAP Business Objects XI R3.1 ( current release )
9. SAP Business Objects  Business Intelligence 4.0 ( Released on 16-Sep-2011 ) - Click here for more details

For detail information about Business objects evaluation click here

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"ALL" Prompt Value in Business Objects!

In this topic, we will discuss about "All" value in prompts.

This is the most frequent scenario, which comes across Business Users and developers, why this option is not available in BO. It is till XI R2. But in XI R3.1 SP3 it got little push-up. Even though, its not yet upto the mark when it comes to implementation in Universe Designer.

Let's take an example. There is a Region dimension object which contains values as "INDIA, CHINA, US, JAPAN, MEXICO".

When we define a prompt object, user can select one or multiple regions. If the user wants to select all regions, we must select one by one and pull it into required list of regions. To avoid that, if we have an "ALL Regions" or "ALL" or "*" option to consider all regions in report, that would make Business Users easier.

1.  Create a conditional object.
2. @(Location\Region) = @Prompt('Select Region','A','Location\Region',mono,free,Not_Persistent,, user:1)
3. The above condition is defined in general if we want to allow users to select one region from list of available regions. You can get details info here
4. Now we will incorporate "ALL" option here.
5. @(Location\Region) = @Prompt('Select Region','A','Location\Region',mono,free,Not_Persistent,,user:1) or "ALL" =@Prompt('Select Region','A','Location\Region',mono,free,Not_Persistent,,user:1)
6. We just added a additional expression  or "ALL" =@Prompt('Select Region','A','Location\Region',mono,free,Not_Persistent,,user:1). 
7. This expression is added with an OR clause. This condition is valid when the user provides "ALL" as input value. 

Keep watching this space. Will come up with more interesting topics!

Business Objects Information Design Tool 4.0

Today, I want to discuss about Business Objects Information Design Tool ( IDT 4.0 ).

SAP has overcome the restriction as one connection at a time in universe designer in IDT. There is no more universe designer from Business Objects 4.0 even though it is available for smooth transition from previous versions to IDT 4.0.

The IDT 4.0 interface looks like Business View Manager Interface. If you have worked on BVM, the IDT interface has got the similar look and feel.


The Business View manager has the functionality of connecting to multiple connections at once. So IDT has this functionality included same like Business View manager.

So more or less IDT 4.0 = Universe Designer Functionality + Business View Manager ( interface + multiple connection functionality)

Will come up with an another interesting topic. Keep watching this space!

SAP Business Objects Business Intelligence 4.0

I have attended a SAP Business Objects Business Intelligence 4.0 RKT (Ramp-up knowledge transfer) virtual lab training by SAP in March 2011.

Can you give a guess what it all about? Yes, you are right. We are talking about SAP Business Objects next release 4.0 after XI3.1. SAP has removed the part XI and added Business Intelligence as part of the new release.

Now the next release of Business Objects is called as "SAP Business Objects Business Intelligence 4.0"

The new release is quiet good and simplified by merging its multiple core products and coming up with a stronger product line.

One good part is SAP considered the existing investors who has invested a lot in Business Object. So SAP has provided a smooth ramp-up transition from previous releases to 4.0.


At the same time, there are some negative shades such as removal of Desktop Intelligence which might hurt some of the existing Deski lovers and investors as it is no longer available from 4.0 release. On the other side, SAP is incorporating all those features into WebIntelligence 4.0

Here is the a snapshot of SAP Business Objects product portfolio.

Would you like to discuss more on this click here
Keep watching this space for more updates!!

First blog...

Its been quiet long time, I am planning to start my blog in Business Objects to share my knowledge and get their views from readers.

I have been working in Business Objects for 5 years. There are lot of challenges which I have faced and learned from my peers.

I always believe in sharing the knowledge is the most important thing in our techie life which in turns helps me getting outstanding  readers comments that makes me thought provoking.

I would like to get back to the blog quiet frequently with updates and quiet important posts!

Keep watching this space!!