0. Dr. Bjarne Berg Comerit Inc.
SAP BusinessObjects 4.0 Solution Portfolio: Picking the right tool for the job
Dr. Bjarne Berg
Comerit Inc.

1. In This Session …
We will look at all major SAP BusinessObjects front- end 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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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

9. 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.

10. 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

11. 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

12. SAP BI 4.0 Demo and Launchpad and Dashboards

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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…

19. 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

20. 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)

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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!

24. A Step-By-Step Demo: Searching
Load the SAP BusinessObjects Explorer Web interface into a browser
Search for “sales”
Get the search results and a list of “information spaces”
The search result list is sorted based on an internal “relevancy” score

25. A Step-by-Step Demo: The Initial View
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

26. Searching in a Result Set and Measures
Again, we are interested in sales around Texas, and can search the initial result set
By changing the Measure from “margin” to “sales revenue” all graphs and tables change

27. Changing Charts and Drill Down
We can change the chart by selecting from the left menu options
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:

28. Try several graphing options before deciding on “your” view
More Graphing Options
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

29. Explore More — Filtering
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.

30. We now see only the (product) lines sold in three states
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

31. The Visualization Panel
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

32. Other Display Options
You can view the data in relative size by using a comparison graph
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

33. Sorting and New Calculations
Any data panel can be sorted in many ways
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”

34. Downloading a Data Set
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

35. Configuring Measures
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

36. SAP BusinessObjects Explorer — Big Picture
Source: Dr. Berg, Comerit Inc.

37. 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

38. 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

39. SAP Crystal Reports Is Available as a Free Trial Version
Today there are two versions:
SAP Crystal Reports (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:
P_Crystal_Reports_2011/index.epx
SAP Crystal Reports has been embedded with SAP BW since version 3.0B in 2002

40. 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

41. 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.

42. 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.

43. 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. 43

44. 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 44

45. 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!! 45

46. BI Workspaces Demo

47. 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

48. 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

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

50. 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)

51. 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

52. Your Turn!
How to contact me:
Dr. Bjarne Berg

53. 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.