1. Xcelsius, Web Application Designer, or SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer: A Detailed Guide to Choosing the Right Tool for Your Dashboarding Needs
Dr. Bjarne Berg
Comerit

2. In This Session …
You will see three demos of different dashboarding tools
Learn how to build Web application designer, Xcelsius® (now called SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards), and SAP NetWeaver® Visual Composer dashboards (three demos)
Learn when to pick one dashboarding tool over another
Find out the limitations of each tool and what skill sets are needed to be successful

3. What We’ll Cover … Introduction SAP Web application designer overview
Xcelsius overview
SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer overview
Lessons learned and limitations
Wrap-up

4. The Big Picture …
With the merger between SAP and Business Objects, we got access to new “best-of-breed” tools
Since there are varying experience levels in the audience, we assume no prior knowledge in either SAP BusinessObjects or SAP BEx tools and will cover all from a high-level standpoint
We will take a closer look at each tool in the demo sections
Source: SAP

5. The SAP NetWeaver Legacy Toolset
The SAP BI legacy SAP Business Explorer (SAP BEx) tool includes the Web template development environment known as Web Application Designer (WAD)
This tool has been used extensively by the SAP BI community for the last 10 years
Source: SAP
SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer is part of the SAP NetWeaver Composite Environment (SAP NetWeaver CE) and is not affected by the new SAP BusinessObjects tool set

6. What We’ll Cover … Introduction SAP Web application designer overview
Xcelsius overview
SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer overview
Lessons learned and limitations
Wrap-up

7. Web Application Designer
BEx Analyzer/
Query Designer
Dashboards and
Web Templates
Web Application Designer
Web application designer is an intuitive tool to build powerful Web applications and to interact with portals and custom templates
BW queries can be manipulated in Web application designer for better display
OLAP Processor
Web Service
Charting Engine
HTLM Templates
InfoProvider

8. The Web Application Designer Template
Web templates are used to simplify navigation, add graphs, and create dashboards
Basic dashboards can be developed in a few hours and provide low cost dashboards with total flexibility and native connectivity to SAP NetWeaver BW
Web application designer templates can be simple or complex
– Think of Web application designer as a complete Web development environment

9. The Web Application Designer Template — Edits
Once a Web template is developed, it is easy to edit it. You can change graphs, and present the data from a query in many ways. We can add navigation items (buttons, listbox, radio buttons) to make the dashboards more interactive.

10. Web Application Designer Template — Changing Graphs
By clicking on a chart item and selecting “Edit” you can use a wizard to modify the graph type. There are almost 100 pre-delivered graph types.
Plan on spending a substantial amount of time with your user acceptance team to validate the way you present data

11. Web Application Designer Template — Controlling Properties
Every object can be controlled in-detail in the property pane
The available properties depends on the type of object:
List box
Analysis item
Chart item
Document
Label
An item can be displayed with scrolling, headers, and navigation features turned “off/on” in a code-free development environment

12. Web Application Designer Template — The Use of Queries
Once you have built a Web template, it is easy to copy it and change the data provider or query that are being used
The developer's favorites, history, and InfoArea are displayed, and the queries are organized by roles as configured in BW
Do not develop dashboards on basic queries without performance testing them. You should consider using a naming convention for queries used in Web application designer to avoid people changing them

13. Step-By-Step Demo of Web Application Designer

14. Example 1: Building a Web Application Designer Template — Getting Started
Step-1: Create a blank template
Step-2: Drag an analysis item into the canvas
Step-3: Create a data provider called “DP-1” based on a query

15. Building a Web Application Designer Template — Adding Buttons
Step-4: Assign the analysis item to the data provider
Step-5: Add a button group. We will add one button for printing in PDF and one for jumping to a detailed Web query
Step-6: Use the wizard to create button-1: Export the template to PDF

16. Building a Web Application Designer Template — Adding Commands to Buttons
Step-7: Navigate to the command in the Wizard (we will export the Web template to PDF).
Benefit: Using the Wizards, we do not have to write any code
Step-8: We link the command to the analysis item. We can change paper size, orientation, headers, or footers, and allow for an export dialog panel to be displayed when the user presses the button.
Note: This is the same command we use to export the template to Excel.

17. Step-9: Save the Web template Step-11: Try the new PDF button
Building a Web Application Designer Template — Testing the Functionality
Step-9: Save the Web template
Step-10: Click “Run”
Step-11: Try the new PDF button
Step-12: Since we set this up in step 8, the user sees a dialog panel and can control their own layout

18. The Result
If you have an idea on how a BI Web site should work, you can probably do this in Web application designer
In the next example, we will use a button to jump to a detailed query

19. Example 2: Adding a Jump-to from Web Template to Web Query
Step-1: We use the second button from the previous example and call it “start analysis”
Step-2: We use the command Wizard and select the “transfer state” option. This transfers the navigational status between the Web items
Step-3: Select the item we want to “jump-to”

20. Testing the Functionality
Step-4: We have linked the Web template to the internal link, the data provider and the analysis item – the work is all done!
Step-5: We save the template, and run it to test the new functionality

21. The Result
Step-6: We can jump between templates and queries to see details
Key concept: Web template for management and easy navigation, Web queries for other users

22. Summary — Web Application Development (WAD)
BENEFIT: Web application designer can be used to create powerful, custom cockpits and dashboards with custom features. You are not confined to standard SAP functionality
DRAWBACK: Requires more technical skills to develop good dashboards

23. What We’ll Cover … Introduction SAP Web application designer overview
Xcelsius overview
SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer overview
Lessons learned and limitations
Wrap-up

24. Xcelsius
Dashboards can be built using Xcelsius (now called SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards)
Xcelsius was launched in March 2010, and is the flagship product for data visualization and dashboards
Web application designer is not enhanced further beyond SAP NetWeaver 7.1.

25. Adding Interactivity in Xcelsius
To make dashboards useful for more than one person, you should plan to offer navigation and interactivity instead of static images and graphs

26. Adding Interactivity in Xcelsius (cont.)

27. Xcelsius — The Basics and Options

28. Xcelsius — Some SAP SDN Examples
Source: Chintan Doshi, SAP sdn, 2010

29. Xcelsius — Some SAP SDN Examples (cont.)
Source: SAP

30. What We’ll Cover … Introduction SAP Web application designer overview
Xcelsius overview
SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer overview
Lessons learned and limitations
Wrap-up

31. SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer Is a Tool to Visualize the Data
SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer is a browser-based modeling and design tool for rapid application development in a code-free development environment

32. There Are Two “Versions” of SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer
SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer 7.0 is for SAP BI development, 7.2 is for the Composite Environment (CE). There are different SDN forums and blogs for each – This can be confusing!
SAP and VC:"With the new version of SAP NetWeaver CE 7.2, you are able to design and develop your "own practices" as business rule-based, SOA-enabled, composite business processes & applications with the Eclipse-based SAP Developer Studio" - SAP AG, 2010 (sap.com) 32

33. Our Target Dashboard
We will build a dashboard based on two queries called country and customer view, and present this with tables and graphs as well as navigational links between them (passing variables between the queries)

34. SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer — Building a Complete Dashboard

35. SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer 7.0 and Xcelsius
SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer 7.01 (or 7.02) SP5 or higher allows you to use existing Xcelsius UI controls and use them inside SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer
You can also use any Flex component made by Adobe Flex Builder (Flex 2 SDK)
You can download flash objects and “how-to” on 35

36. External Web Services
External Web services such as , stock quotes, news services, and weather maps can also be integrated into your SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer cockpit

37. External Data Providers — Web Services
Each Web service may require different input, so you have to spend some time trying out what works for your site and how to format it

38. What We’ll Cover … Introduction SAP Web application designer overview
Xcelsius overview
SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer overview
Lessons learned and limitations
Wrap-up

39. SAP BusinessObjects Integration Options — BICS Connector!
Notice that DF Facade and SAP BusinessObjects Data Federator are separate products that are currently licensed separately from the SAP NetWeaver BW licenses
DF Facade
Source: SAP AG, Dec, 2010
WebI = SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence, BWA = SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator

40. What Tool to Select All SAP tools have strength and weaknesses
This is a subjective summary of each of the major dashboard tools

41. What We’ll Cover … Introduction SAP Web application designer overview
Xcelsius overview
SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer overview
Lessons learned and limitations
Wrap-up

42. Resources Xcelsius® sample dashboards
SAP BusinessObjects Community and blogs
Evan Delodder and Ray Li, Creating Dashboards with Xcelsius: Practical Guide (SAP PRESS, 1st Edition, 2010).
Carsten Bönnen and Mario Herger, SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer (SAP PRESS, 1st edition, 2006).
How to Integrate Visual Composer Applications and BEx Web templates

43. 7 Key Points to Take Home
There is more than one tool for dashboarding, plan accordingly
RAD is always the preferred development methodology
Xcelsius (now called SAP BusinessObjects Dashboard) will be the most common dashboarding tool for most companies (90% probability)
Ad-hoc analysis (SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence) is a great ad-hoc tool with some graphical capabilities
It is not a dashboarding tool
Web application designer is a good tool for IT developers, but does not have as many Web 2.0 features as Xcelsius, nor is the dashboards as interactive and flexible
SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer is an option for simple dashboards
Spend about 25-30% of the project on designing and User Acceptance Testing (users don't know what they want until they see it)

44. Your Turn!
How to contact me:
Dr. Berg

45. 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.