Administrators take note!

In case you missed it, the straight-forward upgrade between Service Packs has a little wrinkle that you need to be aware of.

Upgrading to XI 3.1 SP5

If it’s been a while since your last upgrade and you are still running BOE XI 3.1 SP2, you may be surprised to find out that you cannot go from SP2 to SP5 in a single upgrade.  I don’t have the details as to why other than the fact that SAP Note:  1664385 tells us it’s not supported.

Only the following upgrades paths are supported:

• BOE XI 3.1 + SP3 + SP5
• BOE XI 3.1 + SP2 + SP3+ SP5
• BOE XI 3.1 + SP2 + SP4+ SP5
• BOE XI 3.1 + SP3 + SP4+ SP5

I read through the note and there wasn’t any additional explanation as to why, but you can see for yourself:
https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1664385

Remember:  Always read the release notes.

«Good BI»

Back in September, Steve Lucas, Global Senior Executive for Business Analytics, stole the show with a hugely entertaining and well articulated discussion of innovation for Utilities.

REWIND

From beginning to end, Steve Lucas entertains as he communicates why better information is the key to creating real change.

If you are interested in:

• Seeing Why BI is a Strategic Enabler for Utilities
• Moving from a System of Record to a System of Engagement
• Following a path to flawless information execution

This is a great 30 minute keynote for helping communicate what SAP is doing in the Utilities industry.

SAP helps utilities run better.

«Good BI»

Software companies are beginning to give all customers an equal voice and I love it.  SAP had launched Idea Place – a great place for you to share you best ideas directly with the product developers.

In the past SAP has used user groups, product councils, customer suggestions via technical support, surveys and other methods to gather feedback on how to make our products better, but now you can get involved and it’s easy.

SAP is asking you to join the party and submit your best ideas for innovations, feature enhancements and all around great stuff.  SAP wants you!

SAP Wants You!

Have you ever thought:

• Why doesn’t the software let me do this?
• This interface doesn’t make sense!
• Why hasn’t anyone thought of adding this feature

Well – instead of being frustrated by great ideas and nowhere to send them, now you can post them on Idea Place.

Idea Place

Here’s how it works:

1. Join the party at https://ideas.sap.com/
2. Find your favorite product
3. Look at the ideas that other customers have submitted
4. Comment on the ideas of others
5. Add your vote to your favorite ideas

Next thing you know, you’ll be saying, “Oh, that’s a great idea – why didn’t I think of that!”

What I also love about idea place is that you can see which feature suggestions have been rejected, which are still under consideration and finally, which have already made it into the product and when.

Submit Your Own

If you have a great idea of your own, simply add it!

This website is all about building a community of people with a passion to make SAP’s product better.  Please sign-on the Idea Place asap so you can contribute your ideas to make your job easier and make the product better.

Each year we make resolutions to improve our lives.  Help improve everyone’s life – share your ideas and let your voice be heard.

«Good BI»

What did you get for Christmas this year?  Were you naughty or nice?

I guess I was pretty nice because Santa knew exactly what I wanted.  “She” must have been reading my tweets because I opened up the perfect tool for presentations.  It was the Logitech Professional Presenter R800, yeah baby!  I much prefer being able to present to an audience, walk around, and easily point to the screen.  I find it much more engaging.  I’ve already been able to use it, and I love it.   Sidenote:  The laser pointer is already great for driving my tropical fish crazy

My kids on the other hand wanted something cooler:  Skull Candy headphones.  The good news is for me is that most of their headphones were under $50!

Skull Candy is such a cool company and they are using SAP Business ByDesign to help their organization Run Cooler.  Nice.

I wouldn’t mind picking up a set of these headphones myself, but then again, I’m so old… or at least that’s what my kids tell me.

Have a Happy New Year!

«Good BI»

P.S.  What did Santa bring you?

I was on my way home from a business trip earlier this year when I noticed something strange.  Something that make my BI antennae stick up.

Single Version of the Truth?

How much longer until the train arrives?

That a simple question, right?  I can see on the monitor above the entrance to the Airport shuttle that the next train arrives in 33 seconds.  No problem – that’s easy.

Information Monitors Inform

But Are You Sure?

If it were only that easy.  You see.  There are actually two answers.  If you looked closely at the yellow TV below, you would see some contradictory information.

Information Monitors Confuse

So what do you think now?  Which number is correct?  33 seconds or 40 seconds?  In my case, it didn’t really matter – it was just the matter of waiting, but in the same of CFO accountability and financial scrutiny, it could be a significant problem and even land you in jail.

Do Yourself a Favor

I’m not sure where these train monitors are getting their information but clearly they are NOT doing it the same way because the monitors are presenting two different answers.  This does nothing but spread distrust and confusion.  Help!!

We talk a lot about the strong semantic layer at the foundation of the BusinessObjects Product Suite.  It’s essential to not only make information easy to access and consume, but to know that it’s trusted.  It’s absolutely critical that if two users ask for the same information they get the right results.

Do yourself a favor.  Save yourself hours of time arguing about who’s spreadsheet is right. In an Enterprise Business Intelligence environment, you can provide an environment where regardless of who the user is – if two users ask the same question they will get the same answer.  We call this Single Version of the truth and SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence makes it possible.

As far as the Atlanta Airport is concerned – as my 16 year old would say:  FAIL!

«Good BI»

Last week I watched Forrest Gump with my kids and when talking with a customer today was reminded of his phrase, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.”  Sometimes it’s the same with a new release and the sample content… you never know what you are going to get.  The customer was at XI 3.1 and asked:  What happened to the old Launchpad and Query Builder from XIR2?

Good-Bye Launchpad

The Launchpad was a default landing page that would allow an administrator to access the CMC, ePortfolio/InfoView and other sample SDK applications in one place.  This landing page was an HTML page that was part of Crystal Enterprise and was included in the XI release.  In XI 3.0, this Launchpad was discontinued.  Instead, users and administrator are provided up to three direct URL links:

1. BusinessObjects Enterprise Central Management Console, http://boserver:8080/CmcApp
2. BusinessObjects Enterprise Java InfoView, http://boserver:8080/InfoViewApp
3. BusinessObjects Enterprise .NET InfoView, http://boserver/InfoViewApp/logon.aspx

NOTE:  The URL's are CaSE SEnSITivE on Java.

I’ve also been told that unlike in the past where the default URL changed for every release, this won’t be done in the future.  I chuckle to myself when I remember: enterprise10, enterprise11, enterprise115… if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re probably better off.

Hello, Sample Applications

So what about the sample applications.  Where are they today?

The Query Builder application is the only sample application that continued forward with XI 3.0.  You can access this application if you are using a Java Application Server.  The URL is:

• Query Builder, http//boserver:8080/AdminTools/

Query Builder Interface

Once you log in via the interface, you will see the familiar Query Builder application interface.  It’s a great little sample application.

You can also find other sample applications published on SDK library on SDN.

Bring On XI 4.0

XI 4.0 will go into ramp-up (limited release) later this year.  I’m looking forward to seeing what new things we’ll discover in the samples that are provided there. 

«Good BI»

I recently received an urgent email from a customer who was days from going live with their new SAP BusinessObjects environment.  After checking the supported platforms guide, they suddenly realized that their combination of products wasn’t listed in the document.  They said:

According to the BO website Product 5.x will not be certified
until BusinessObjects XI 3.1 SP3.  We need Product 5.x to be
certified on BusinessObjects XI 3.1 SP2 ASAP.

How Do I Know If I Am Supported?

You need a copy of the Supported Platforms Guide for your product.  This guide contains the list of our supported product combinations.  That means this combination of those product versions together with BusinessObjects have been tested to work together prior to the release.  Should problems arise with your configuration, our product team will escalate the issue in an attempt to resolve the issue.

Where is the Supported Platforms Guide?

The first thing I discovered after doing some research is that it has been moved.  The guides are still accessible from SDN but they may not be the most up to date.  Unfortunately you’d never know it.  I downloaded the latest guide from SDN for Windows dated March 2, 2010 and it looked good.  It was only after talking to a colleague that I discovered a more recent version (with an updated SAP layout).  This is where you can find the latest information:

https://service.sap.com/pam

Historically these guides have been called a number of things:  Supported Platforms Guide, BusinessObjects PAR (Product Availability Report).   Now I introduce you to PAM -  The Product Availability Matrix.

Navigating the Product Availability Matrix (PAM)

You will need to navigate the PAM to find your supported platforms guide.  I suggest the following step-by-step navigation.

1.  From within the search box, search for: XI 3.1

2.  Next scroll down the list until you see SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1

3.  Next, click on the product you are looking for.  In this case SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1.

Notice you can see all the supported platform guides for all the releases and Service Paks.  This is where you will always find the LATEST supported platform guides which outline what versions of what supplementary products we support with SAP products.

So What If My Product Version isn’t Listed?

Just because your combination of product isn’t listed doesn’t mean it won’t work.  Unfortunately, there isn’t time or resources to test every possible combination of products, so we choose a few to test prior to each release.

Vendors are constantly fixing bugs and providing incremental enhancements to their software solutions, which means hte target is always changing.

So what about incremental releases?  Our general policy around “Incremental Release Support” is mentioned under the sections for Application Servers and Portal Servers.  Here is the text:

Application Server Incremental Release Support Policy

Specified application servers versions have been successfully tested by
Business Objects. Incremental releases of the specified versions defined
by the last number in the application server name will be supported as they
are made available, but may not have been tested by Business Objects.
Exceptions in support will be documented.

In general, this policy is also true for device drivers and other integration points.  The first thing to do is to check the vendor’s website and see what statements they make about compatibility.

• Here is a sample page from Netezza talking about ODBC driver compatibility.  http://www.netezza.com/data-warehouse-appliance-products/compatibility.aspx

The main question for the vendor is whether the new product release just a cumulative set of bug fixes and performance enhancements, or if new functionality was introduced which might affect backward compatibility.

• For example,  if the BusinessObjects product guide refers to Netezza ODBC v4.0 and Netezza ODBC is currently v4.6, and v4.6 comes from the within the v4.0 product umbrella with cumulative bug fixes, etc, then SAP BusinessObjects will support you.

In the past BusinessObjects has recommended that customers with legacy databases get supported by upgrading their database drivers.  For example, after Oracle 9 went out of support within the BusinessObjects Platform Guide, customers were able to access their Oracle 9 data through their “supported” Oracle 10g database drivers.  This was supported because ORACLE provided 100% compatibility of Oracle 10g drivers against Oracle 9 databases… and BusinessObjects Platform Guide supported Oracle 10g drivers.

• Using the Netezza example again, since Netezza says their v4.6 driver is compatible with v5.0 and THEY guarantee compatibility, then you can infer that BusinessObjects can also run the v4.6 driver against the Netezza v5.0.x Appliance Software.

Just Checking

In the case of SAP BusinessObjects, if the technical support team suspects that another vendors software might be causing an issue and the version of the software is not on our recommended product list, then the SAP team may ask you to move the software onto a “certified” release.

• Let’s say I decided to roll out Netezza ODBC v5.0 and I called technical support with an issue.  If we troubleshoot the issue and determine that the issue could be driver related, you may be asked to install Netezza ODBC v4.5.  If after doing this, if the test still fails, the issue can be escalated.  If the test is successful and it points to the vendor’s software, you may be asked to move to a supported version, e.g. Netezza ODBC v4.5.

When Things Don’t Work Out

Although it is rare, occasionally an incremental release by a database vendor introduces new bugs or functionality that renders the software incompatible with BusinessObjects.  One case in recent memory was Oracle v9.0.21.  The release was so buggy that customer EITHER had to downgrade to an earlier supported Oracle release or wait for the next Oracle release.  After tech support looked into the issues, it was clear that the problem was related to this release of Oracle.  In such cases, BusinessObjects would not escalate the issue to product team.  Additional support would have to come from the database vendor.  In such cases we provide a “best effort” to support the configuration.

Another example was the release of Sun’s JVM 1.6 client-side with BusinessObjects XIr2.  BusinessObjects only supported 1.5.2+ and this was an issue for many customers– compounded namely by the fact that may customers had their Java Client software using default settings which automatically installed updates.  This was fine until the first release of 1.6 came out.  We recommended firstly that customers return to Sun JVM 1.5.2+.  However, due to the pervasive nature of the problem, the issue was escalated to product support anyway and BusinessObjects did provide additional fixes to address the issue .

UPDATE!  Typical Support Workflows

After some additional questions about the process I thought it would be good to include the following two workflows.

This first workflow is a typical one.  We have a customer who is on an “unsupported” platform but technical support is still able to reproduce the problem.  At the end of the workflow we are still able to escalate the issue to our product team.

This second workflow is the situation whereby the problem becomes more difficult to reproduce and there is some difficulty in determining what is causing the problem.  In this case, are ability to escalate the issue is determined by our ability to reproduce the problem on the support, “reference” software version.

Hopefully that will bring additional clarity to any questions you might have.

Conclusion

SAP BusinessObjects is committed to the  success of your BI deployment.  They also provides guidance to help ensure that best possible change for success.  Because they cannot test and support every possible combination of every vendor’s product release, SAP BusinessObjects provides the supported platforms document for guidance.

You should make every effort to say within the same product release “umbrella” as what you find in the platforms guide.  Make sure that if you use an incremental release, that it is not a new code base and includes only bug fixes and performance enhancements.  Know Your Software = No Problems.  You can’t just look at the version number to see if there were significant changes.  You need to check the release notes:

• Tomcat 4.1 vs. 5.5 – Significant
• Netezza v4.0 to v4.6 – Insignificant
• Windows Server SP2 to SP3 – Significant (Yes, even SP’s can be significant)
• Teradata V2R5 to V2R6 – Significant
• Hyperion Essbase Client 9.2.1 to 9.2.5 – Insignificant

In all cases, you should rigorously test your BusinessObjects environment before going live on a new release.

«Good BI»

Compared to Who?

Every BI vendor in the marketplace today tries to put their software is the most favorable light.  They like to rattle off words like: world-class, best, only, leading, #1, best-in-class, complete, etc.  Here are some of the leading statements:

• Actuate Corporation – Dedicated to providing business intelligence solutions that increase the richness, interactivity and effectiveness of enterprise data, for everyone, everywhere
• IBM Cognos – Leading provider of technology and services for Business Intelligence (BI) and Performance Management,
• Microstrategy – Leading Independent Provider of Business Intelligence
• SAP BusinessObjects – World’s leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions
• SAS – The leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t mind that everyone wants to be leading.  It depends how you measure it right?  Revenue?  New Customers?  OEM Partners?  Downloads?  I’m sure everyone is #1 is some category.  Just ask the airports.  No one can decide who’s the busiest.  Are you measuring number of flights or number of passengers?

It’s all marketing.

…but what I don’t like are deceptive practices backed up by dubious legal statements.

Key Differentiators

Microstrategy’s website shows you how they compare against all the competition.  Allegedly.  Actually I’m not legally allowed to say.  You see if you do a Google search for Microstrategy Comparison, it takes you to a website called Microstrategy vs. Competition.  At this point you might expect to be able to see a chart which explains the products… and yes, of course Microstrategy is going to come out on top.  Funny how that works.

What I didn’t expect was a legal disclaimer!

MicroStrategy's Legal Notice

Legal Notice

My goodness what are they afraid of?

Here is the text from the website (the italics/bold are mine):

Don’t let the Truth get in the way of a good Story

Well, I would love to say that maybe they are afraid of the truth, but I wouldn’t want to go negative.  What I will say is that I wouldn’t trust what you read.  I’m sure I’ve seen some of these key differentiators mentioned in snopes.com. 

If you are in the process of evaluating BI solutions, don’t be afraid to tell the BI vendors who you are comparing them to.  Each vendor will try to put their software is the best possible light, but at the end of the day it shouldn’t be about features and functions.  Don’t add features to the evaluation just because the BI vendor says you need it.  Know your requirements and longer term BI Strategy.

Your BI Vendor should be able to:

1. Meet the key business requirements
2. Offer multiple training options for different user needs
3. Get you going quickly with services (their own or via partners)
4. Explain and help you of product best practices
5. Provide the lowest possible TCO

You are going to have your BI solution is place for a long time.   Consider the criteria that is important to you as well as all the on-going costs, not just licensing and maintenance.

Who To Trust

Never trust another vendors evaluation of their competitor’s product.  Always try it out for yourself.  Pepsi or Coke?

One final point:  Don’t be afraid to tell those vendors who didn’t make the cut why they didn’t.  Your feedback may improve their product(s) which will ultimately help drive better competition in the marketplace.  It also helps vendors understand how customer’s needs may be changing over time.

Overall analysts do a good job and evaluating BI vendors and ranking them accordingly.  I recommend you look at Gartner’s BI Magic Quadrant (Compliments of SAS believe it or not!), Forrester BI Wave and BIScorecard.  When it comes to product comparisons, the old adage remains true: You get what you pay for.  When it comes to understanding how BI tools compare with each other, it might be worth it to hear what the analysts are saying.

«Good BI»

SAP BusinessObjects delivers great Business Intelligence solutions so that organizations can report off their existing data sources.  But what is the point of reporting of data that isn’t accurate anyway?  Although it is true that accurate data is pretty useless if you can get access to it, the converse is also true.  What is the point of a great end-user enabled system that includes inaccurate data?

My Top 5 Customers – Really?

Take a look at the report below.  (If you want to download this Xcelsius Model it is available below.)

Who are my top 5 customers?

Top 10 Customers

Did you say:  General Electric, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Home Depot and Walmart?

Well, Sorry.  I’m afraid, that would be incorrect.

You see, what often happens in real-world situations is that organizations think they have more customers than they actually do.  That’s because within their CRM system, employees are able to add the same customer multiple times with multiple spellings.  This has happened in our case as well.  Let’s apply BusinessObjects Data Quality to this real-world situation.  With SAP BusinessObjects, you can take company names, customer names, addresses, etc. and standardize them, e.g. UPS = United Parcel Service = UPS Inc., WalMart = Wal*Mart = Wal-Mart, First Commerce Bank = 1st Commerce Bank.

My Top 5 Customers – Really!

Let’s have a look at this same report with Data Quality applied:

Top 10 Customers with Data Quality

Do you see the changes?

Walmart has jumped up into second place and United Parcel Service is now in fifth place.  We can also see the our profitability at Walmart is higher than we thought (26.8% instead of 18.7%) and United Parcel Service is actually lower that we thought (28.6% instead of 26.3%).  When you are making business decisions off your corporate data, it’s imperative that it is accurate and complete.

Here is the source data behind this chart and you can see how the lack of standardization has led to the incorrect results.  I have highlighted the offending records for you:

Raw Customer Data Behind the Top 10 Customers Report

Once we apply data quality and standardize the names, the order changes and I have a new top 5!  Often times our biggest customers, vendors, partners and products don’t get the credit they deserve for contributing to our success.  Once you’ve got data quality, you can know that you know that you know, the true numbers.

I’ve introduced this topic under the name of Data Quality, but Data Quality really falls under the broader topic of Data Stewardship or Data Governance.

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

The bottom line around data quality is that you don’t know what you don’t know.  If you manage a data warehouse which accepts feeds from dozens of systems, then it’s highly likely that you have a data quality problem and don’t even know it.  It’s a critical aspect of data warehousing.  Operational systems are notorious for bad data.  Last year, I read an excellent, practical guide to data quality called, Data Quality Assessment.  The book itself does not endorse a specific software vendor but all the principles found in the book would apply to any organization looking to improve their corporate data quality.

Downloads – See It Live

If you’d like to see an Xcelsius model of this chart live, I’ve made it available for download.  The source code for the .xlf is also available:
http://trustedbi.com/files/Importance of Data Quality.zip

Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

Sometimes in life you run across situations that are hard to believe.  Here is an example where truth is stranger than fiction.  When you want to get someone’s attention when it comes to data quality, just tell them this example.  This data quality situation really happened and the results were disastrous.  This video is from Timo Elliott. When you click on it, it will take you to his website:

Timo's Data Quality Presentation (2min)

Do you have any good stories to share?  I’d love to hear them.

«Good BI»

Putting this blog together and sharing it has been a ton of fun.  I’m soon going to be moving my blog to a new domain and relaunching it.  I’m hoping you’ll like the new layout. I am also planning to do at least one post/week in the new format and I’ll try and be better about mixing it up among the different products.

Thanks for all your support!!

–david