1. A guide to integrating SAP BusinessObjects BI 4
A guide to integrating SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.2 with SAP ERP, SAP BW, and SAP BW on SAP HANA
Dr. Bjarne Berg
PwC

2. Agenda
Introduction
Tool simplification and Major New Features in BI 4.2
Analysis for Office and OLAP
WebIntelligence
Administrator support and Changes
New Connection updates
Wrap-up

3. SAP BI and Reporting Tool Simplification
SAP has simplified the Business Intelligence and reporting tools significantly.
Analysis for Office now takes over for many of the legacy tools like LiveOffice and BEx Analyzer
DesignStudio has also being significantly enhanced

4. BI 4.2 Major New Features - Overall
SAP has made improvements in tools like DesignStudio and WebI, as well as platform improvement that now supports better data access to SAP HANA and faster query executions through parallel refresh of data providers.
There are also new functionality in areas such as context specific comments and a new recycling bin.

5. New : Recycle Bin in BI 4.2
You can now restore content you deleted by mistake through the new recycle bin in BI 4.2.
Currently, only content and folder that are public is supported
If you leave the documents in the bin, the documents are automatically removed after a pre-set threshold to keep the system clean and smaller

6. This can also be made context specific.
New Comments Feature
In BI 4.2, we now get a ability to add comments to any of the reports, dashboards and applications.
This can also be made context specific.
It is a general CMC service that is supported by all clients and managed through rights via security on who can add, edit and view comments.
Note: In BI 4.2 SAP’s SQL Anywhere is now included in the CMS as well as in the Audit database.

7. Setting up the Comments Feature in BI 4.2
The comments can be stored in the audit database or you can pick your own dedicated database.
All changes and edits are then recorded in the audit database and security can be implemented at a very low level.
You can define who can add comments on both the folder level and/or for each individual report, dashboard or application.
Image source: SAP SE, 2016

8. The New Linked Universe Option in BI 4.2
You can now link universes and leverage these in a ‘core’ UNX universe using the Information Design Tool (IDT) in BI 4.2
The benefit is that changes in the core universe are pushed down to the derived universes (simpler to maintain), While each of the derived universes can be augmented with their own logic and additional fields.

9. Agenda
Introduction
Tool simplification and Major New Features in BI 4.2
Analysis for Office and OLAP
WebIntelligence
Administrator support and Changes
New Connection updates
Wrap-up

10. New Connection for Analysis for OLAP in SAP BI 4.2
SAP has also improved and added new connections for the web based version on Analysis (‘analysis for OLAP).
First of all there is a new web based (HTTP) connector to SAP HANA with support for both SPS09 and SPS10. SAP has also assured that both HTTP (web) and Java Data Base Connections (JDBC) can co-exists.
There is also new connection support for Added support for Oracle Essbase 9 and 11
You will also find a new OLAP connection type in the Central Management Console
Hint: you can turn on the HANA HTTP Connection using the property settings in Multi- Dimensional Analysis Server (MDAS) .
With these new connectivity options in the web based Analysis for OLAP, this edition of the tool now have very similar connectivity options as those found in the Analysis for Office version.

11. New Analysis for OLAP Support for BW Currency Conversions
SAP has now exposed the currency translation capabilities to Analysis for OLAP.
So, if you have multiple currencies loaded in your SAP BW system, and it is included in the underlying BEx query from BW, you can now leverage the translation and change the target currency as a run-time conversion.
This is supported for any BW 7.x system with, or without, SAP HANA.

12. Agenda
Introduction
Tool simplification and Major New Features in BI 4.2
Analysis for Office and OLAP
WebIntelligence
Administrator support and Changes
New Connection updates
Wrap-up

13. New WebIntelligence Access to SAP HANA Views
You can now use direct access to SAP HANA views without having to go through queries.
This means that logic can be pushed down from Universes and queries to the HANA database views, resulting in dramatic performance improvements.
Image Source: SAP Se, 2016

14. Performance Improvements in WebI
When running documents with multiple queries in earlier released of WebI, queries were executed sequentially
In BI 4.2 the multiple queries are now executed in parallel by default .
The settings can be turned off and resource balancing can also be made by limiting the max number of jobs that can be run concurrently.

15. WebI in BI 4.2 Can Now Shared Elements
To make development faster and more consistent, you can now share and reuse the most common objects. To get started, you simply go to the WebI design more and create the objects you want to reuse.
The data is excluded in the shared components (depends on each report where it is used)
However, the shared components automatically will
include formatting, variables, data source and provider
The shared elements can then be placed in the public folder and be leveraged by anyone with access to this area

16. New Geo Map Capabilities in WebI
The Map features in WebI has been significantly improved in BI 4.2
You can now map your data by name to cities over 100,000 populations, or to sub-regions, regions and countries.
In WebI 4.2 there is an integrated database with mappings and graphs. You can even map your data by latitude and longitude
There is also 3 new chart including; a new Geo Pie char, a Geo Choropleth and a new Geo Bubble chart

17. Inserting Custom Elements in WebI in BI 4.2
WebI 4.2 is not restricted to consuming only the pre-delivered elements.
You can now use charts from Lumira and from other external sources.
Developers can even make their own elements through the new development framework and manage the custom elements in the Central Management Console (CMC)

18. WebI Connectivity to HANA Views
WebI does not require a universe to access HANA. You can simply access any views using either the OLAP or the relational connection
This is available in both the Java and the HTML interfaces and you can create you WebI documents directly on the HANA views, without the need for a query.
This means that the HANA view acts as a ‘semantic layer’ that masks database complexity to the report writers in the same manner as the universes in BI 4.x
Even hierarchies in HANA is now supported through the OLAP connection (not in automatically available in the relational connection)

19. WebI Connectivity to HANA Views (continued)
When connecting to a HANA view you can push logic, filtering, calculations and sorting to the HANA database server.
This means that you leverage the speed of HANA better and also can reduce the data transfer between the database and the application server. Thereby, reducing network traffic, connectivity overhead and overall increase the speed of your WebI documents.
When accessing a HANA view, you no longer will see the query panel in WebI document, and behind the scene there is no longer a ‘microcube’ being created (increased speed by direct connection).
Note: If you are missing some reporting features, you can switch back to “standard mode’ as needed.

20. Agenda
Introduction
Tool simplification and Major New Features in BI 4.2
Analysis for Office and OLAP
WebIntelligence
Administrator support and Changes
New Connection updates
Wrap-up

21. The BI Administrator Cockpit in 4.2
The new administrator cockpit in BI 4.2 allows system managers for quickly identify the status of the system, job that are running and what jobs have failed
Form the BI Admin Cockpit you can click and drill-down to details without leaving the interface.
Administrators can cancel, restart and delete jobs and also monitor performance statistics on historical and current data.

22. The BI 4.2 Upgrade Manager Improvements
SAP has improved the upgrade manager tool in BI 4.2.
You can now export instances and reuse these in other systems (i.e. Development and Production box syncs)
The upgrade manager also allows you to decide what level of user interface logging you want to keep.
You can also see the approximate size the content and thereby be able to estimate server size footprints before doing an upgrade.

23. BI 4.2 Promotion Manager
SAP has improved the Promotion manager in BI 4.2 and is no longer using Adobe Flash.
The Promotion manager is also much faster than in the past. It has now less performance impacts on the application server and larger promotions of multiple objects may therefore be done during normal working hours (in most cases).
You can now also pick individual objects you want to promote between systems from the LCMBIAR file (Life-Cycle Manager).
Note: The web application server that comes with BI 4.2 is Tomcat 8. However you can change this if you want to use a different server.

24. New BI 4.2 User Notification Capabilities
Many BW developers have used BEx broadcaster to mail reports to end users. With the new broadcaster feature in SAP BI 4.2, you can now target reports and applications to be broadcasted to either groups or individual users.
You can even set the time for when you want the reports to be visible (by setting an ‘end date’)
You can send the report as an , and the notification can also be seen in BI 4.2 under ‘my alerts’ and within the BI LaunchPad.

25. New User Notification for Apple Users
With SAP BI 4.2 we now have improved support for Apple users.
The BI platform can now connect to the Apple notification framework and users can subscribe to new document updates when a new document is shared in the users BI inbox.
With this new iOS Mobile alert feature, users on iPads and iPhones can get notifications from BI 4.2 when new items are shared by the system, or by their co-workers.

26. Agenda
Introduction
Tool simplification and Major New Features in BI 4.2
Analysis for Office and OLAP
WebIntelligence
Administrator support and Changes
New Connection updates
Wrap-up

27. Improvements in Connection to BEx Queries from BW and ERP
You can build single sourced universes in that is based on BEx queries from both BW and ERP.
This means using the BICS interface and thereby have BW take care of security functions like authorization relevant objects, and time dependent masterdata.
In BI 4.2 you get an automatic business layer where you can rove unwanted fields and also rename fields with more business friendly names.
Variables in the BEx query simply becomes prompts in the universe.
IDT and normal universe security can also be leveraged and additional modeling can be done in IDT.

28. Improvements in Crystal Reports Connections
SAP has also added new connections and updates version support for other connections in Crystal reports
This includes new connectors to
Greenplum 4.3
IBM Netezza 7.1
IBM DB2 z/OS 11
PostgreSQL 9.3
Sybase IQ 16
Oracle 12c
SAP HANA SPS9 and SPS 10
Teradata 14.1 and version 15

29. New Data Access Methods, Connectors and Security in BI 4.2
In addition to the new connection options already covered, SAP has made a significant amount of new changes and updates to existing connectors.
Additional connection for Hadoop Hive (v.0.14) and Apache Spark 1.1, as well as updated support for Impala Hive.
You can now also use Simba drivers to connect to SalesForce (SFDC).
There is also improvements in how SAP handles authentication for queries based on the Open Data Protocol (oDATA) with new x509 based authentication for single sign-on (SSO).
You will also find similar SSO support in JDBC, as well as new security support for Unix ODBC 2.3 to databases such as SQL Server and IBM’s Netezza database.

30. Connecting to SAP BW 7.5 on HANA
For most customers going to BW 7.5 the connectivity to BW should either go through the SAP BW BEx queries and the BICS interface.
For ADSOs, you can also use the HANA views, but have to be aware of limitations by not going through the BEx queries

31. Why SAP BW 7.5, edition for SAP HANA together with BI 4.2
Simplified administration
Faster development time
Easier to maintain by having less replicated objects and data
Smaller HANA memory footprint
Better modeling interface in Eclipse
Centralized development and admin interface
Note: With BI 4.2, the SAP BW landscape on HANA is totally integrated and the BI platform allows you to share analytics from the data warehouse in a more agile way than using other 3rd part tools.

32. SAP BI 4.2 integration to SAP BW 7.5 Edition for HANA
As you plan to move to SAP BW 7.5, you can still leverage the older objects, but long-term you should migrate to the new BW 7.5, edition for HANA objects.
You can then use HANA views to access the data in BW though the SAP BI 4.2 platform and start developing on only the new objects in BW

33. Other Connectivity Support and Depricated versions

34. Agenda
Introduction
Tool simplification and Major New Features in BI 4.2
Analysis for Office and OLAP
WebIntelligence
Administrator support and Changes
New Connection updates
Wrap-up

35. Where to Find More Information
What's New for BI4.2 L2
SAP BI Platform Support Tool
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform 4.2
What is New in BI 4.2 Analytics - Youtube
SAP Insider Leveraging SAP BusinessObjects Lumira with SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.2
Lumira-with-SAP-BusinessObjects-BI-4-2

36. 7 Key Points to Take Home
BI 4.2 platform has major new integration features such as commenting, hana connections, parallel query execution and recycle bins.
There are significant more data access options and support in BI 4.2 versus older versions
BW access has been improved by both HANA universes, automated generation of universes and currency conversion support
Modeling in IDT allows you to create complex universes that leverages other universes, without having to build all from scratch every time you start.
The management interface and admin cockpit provides new monitoring, upgrading and simpler promotion support with less stress on the application server(s).
Custom elements, element sharing, new maps, commenting, direct HANA view access and performance improvement in WebIntelligence alone is a strong business case to go to 4.2
BI 4.2 install or upgrade should be on everyone’s roadmap for the fall of 2016 and spring 2017.

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Dr. Bjarne Berg
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