It seems like every year as corporate strategies change and as customers push for simplified licensing, SAP comes out with a new way to sell it’s products.  If you’ve been around a while you’ll recognize some of these:

• BusinessObjects Enterprise
• BusinessObjects Enterprise with Interactive Viewing
• BusinessObjects Enteprise Premium
• BusinessObjects Edge
• BusinessObjects Edge Premium
• Premium Package, Visualization & Reporting
• Premium Package, Query Reporting & Analysis
• BI Package
• BI Suite

What I’m not going to do is explain how SAP licenses it’s products.  That’s what the sales guy is for.

What I do want to explain is how the functionality within the licensing model breaks down and how it impacts you as the BusinessObjects administrator.

Licensed User Type

With BusinessObjects, licensing was pretty straight-forward.  You could either buy:

• CPUs – unlimited active users running on a limited number of cpus (cores typically counted as 1/2).
• Named users - one license per named system user on unlimited hardware.
• Concurrent users – a delightful combination of unlimited users set up on unlimited hardware, but only a given number of those users could log in simultaneously.  (This license went away for a while and now it’s back for specific situations.  Typically customers can figure on 10:1 rate of potential users to concurrent users).

When SAP acquired BusinessObjects all that changed.  SAP introduced the idea of licensing both the ‘platform’ as well as the user count.

SAP customers who use BusinessObjects must purchase licenses for the platform (cpu or named users) as well as a named user license for every person who accesses the BusinessObjects environment.  The only problem is that there is typically a big difference between the capabilities a power user/administrator needs and a casual user who only accesses the system occasionally.

In order to provide try and keep licensing simple, while at the same time providing a differentiation between power users and casual users, SAP created the concept of a licensed user type.

There are two:

1. Expert users – also know as Business Expert or Business Analyst Users
2. Standard users – also known as Business Analyst, BI Viewer or Viewer Users.

What Is My User Allowed To Do

I’ve created a table which breaks down the each product and explains what the user is able to do within that product.  Note that an expert user can do everything a standard user can, plus the additional items listed in the Expert User Rights column (which is the equivalent of ‘full access”).

SAP BusinessObjects Platform

SAP BusinessObjects Tools

Note that this information can change at any time,
so always check with your SAP sales team to make
sure you understand the capabilities of each license type.

Controlling Access

As administrators, it’s very important to make sure standard users are not using functionality of the expert users.  The good news, bad news is that in most cases this type of user differentiation is a paper license and not controlled by the license key.  This is good because it means that as SAP’s licensing model changes, you don’t have to run out and get new license key or download a new service pack.  The bad news is, you need to setup BusinessObjects security so that standard users don’t accidently extend the reach of what they are licensed to do.

Setting restrictions based on the tables above is pretty straight-forward for most of the application permissions.  In most cases access should be set to “View” and that takes care of it.  The one except is WebIntelligence.

Controlling WebIntelligence

In order to be a standard user, you should explicitly deny specific permissions within the WebIntelligence application.  To access these permissions from the CMC home page, choose Applications.  From the list of available Applications, scroll down the list to Web Intelligence.

Select Web Intelligence and select Manage > Properties from the menu (or user the right-click menu).  Next choose User Security from the navigation pane.

Add a new Principal (if one is not already there) or highlight an existing principal user or group.  We want to Assign Security and restrict WebI access.  The default access right should be View.  We will then want to modify this by clicking the Advanced tab and selecting Add/Remove Rights.  From the left navigation pane, select Application > Web Intelligence.

Manage WebIntelligence Application Security - Scroll down to see ALL the permissions

We are now going to explicitly deny the following rights:

• Desktop Interface – * all permissions *
• Documents – enable creation
• Documents – enable publish and manage content as web service
• Interfaces – enable Rich Internet Application
• Interfaces – enable web query panel
• Query script – enable editing (SQL , MDX…)
• Query script – enable viewing (SQL , MDX…)
• Reporting – create and edit breaks
• Reporting – create and edit conditional formatting rules
• Reporting – create and edit input controls
• Reporting – create and edit predefined calculations
• Reporting – create formulas and variables
• Reporting – insert and remove reports, tables, charts and cells

If you look under the permissions for WebIntelligence, you will now see the only permission you can modify on a per report basis is Edit Query, which no longer matters because here we’ve explicitly denied Query script – enable editing (SQL, MDX…) within the WebI application.

Once the changes are complete, you should be able to access existing WebIntelligence documents and see that a number of features are now disabled (grayed out).

Standard User Access WebIntelligence With Restricted Permissions

If you have additional questions about permissions and how they might have changed from older versions of BusinessObjects, you can access the information here:
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/index?rid=/library/uuid/f0543a8d-9155-2f10-c5a7-8d15688a5faa&overridelayout=true

I hope this blog has been useful.  Please do NOT leave any comments below about licensing.  I won’t be able answer these.

What I did want to answer is any questions about the difference between the different user types and show you how to modify the security within BusinessObjects to make sure you are in compliance with your license agreement.  Hopefully it’s mission accomplished.

«Good BI»

Hydro One was one of those customers and I wanted to highlight what they’ve done.

Mike Winters and Laura Formusa represented Hydro One in the session, Transforming the Hydro One Customer Experience with SAP Solutions.  It was clear.  SAP is making a serious difference.

The more information you can put in the hands of
the people on the ground, the faster they can restore
power.  Mike Winters

Delivering The Goods

Utilities have a large number of competing priorities and limited dollars by which to execute on those priorities.  Aging infrastructure, economic downturn, regulations, aging workforce are just a few of the challenges faced at Hydro One.  In fact, Laura reminded us that some of their infrastructure is more than 100 yrs old and much of their infrastructure was added after WWII.

In 2007 Hydro One purchased SAP ERP and Supply Chain to run their core business.  They then added HR, Finance, Payroll and BI and achieved a number of important business benefits around business process management and standardizations.  SAP was not an IT Solution but rather a stimulus for changing the culture of the company.

One example Laura highlighted was strategic sourcing, which is now enabling Hydro One to streamline it’s procurement process and deliver something for less.  In fact, they have see over $100M is savings since their SAP implementation.

The more we can control costs, the better off we are.
Laura Formusa

Smart Meters

Technology has not only changed the back office at Hydro One.  Thanks to SAP, Hydro One was able to successfully deploy 1.3M smart meters with virtually no issues and uses SAP for Asset Management.

It wasn’t that long ago that Hydro One was managing outages by sticking a pin in the map every time a customer called.  Now with data from smart meters, they are able to pin point outages and map this data to systems that can do instant triangularization.  This means that crews are deployed faster to the right, prioritized locations so they can restore power more quickly and ultimately increase customer satisfaction… but that’s not all.

More precise Outage data also helps Hydro One increase safety as Laura pointed out.  During bad winter storms in Ontario, it’s not uncommon for roads to be closed and for conditions to be hazardous.  By pulling together more granular outage information, field service workers will know precisely where to go.  This saves them unnecessary trips down potentially unsafe roads looking for downed lines.

Outage Data Goes Mobile

Mike demonstrated a iPhone app that Hydro One is currently working on which customers will be able to download.  This application will tell the customer of all the existing outages, how many customers are affected and how soon the service will be restored.  This means that customers can proactively check from their cell phones and avoid calls into the operations center.  (Avoiding the opportunity to listen to 30 minutes of Vivaldi).

Outage Information on the iPhone

Field Service Enablement

Mike also demonstrated a concept iPad app which would transform how their field service teams receive work order assignments, perform preventative maintenance and log their time.

Technicians will be able to:

• See the equipment via the iPad camera overlayed with status icons
• View assigned work orders and associated work instructions
• Identify historical issues with the equipment (temperature, oil pressure)
• Access Schematics of the equipment
• Enter Time Tracking Information
• Complete and close Work Orders

View Transformer with Augmented Reality

Technical sees historical trends of Oil Pressure

It was amazing.  You had to see it to believe it.

Hydro One is mashing together GIS information, BusinessObjects Augmented Reality, Grid Analytics, Asset Management, Work Management.

Everything is there.  Just a finger swipe away.

Cost Justification

Cost is probably the only reason why these concepts haven’t yet been put into reality.  Hydro One is working to determine the true value of everything they are doing.  Cost pressures remain.  Mike Winters said that so far all their projects have shown a positive return on investment.

Fact Not Fiction

Much of what Hydro One demonstrated looked like something you see in the movies – but it’s not fiction.  Given the right business challenge, customers are looking to SAP to over come difficult obstacles.

Hydro One is an early adopter, but it’s exciting to see this type of eye popping innovation in the Utilities segment.

SapphireNow has been a great event to see some of the solutions that customers have come up with — much of it leveraging out of the box analytics technology that comes with BusinessObjects.

Enjoy the rest of the show.

UPDATE: Session Replay
http://www.sapvirtualevents.com/sapphirenow/sessiondetails.aspx?sId=2468

«Good BI»

This standout session was a 20 minute information-fest on how to get the most out of analytics through the strategic deployment of business intelligence.

Deliver BI Programs

Keith Bowles is helping change the way Peabody Energy leverages analytics.  They are an $8 billion dollar utility with 8,000 employees and they have developed a BI program that is leveraging ever ounce of value out of the SAP Analytics Suite.  Peabody runs core SAP technologies and is very focused on leveraging standard tools and content — and it is paying huge dividends.

Stop BI projects and start delivering BI programs.  Keith Bowles

Peabody Energy is a BusinessObjects v4.0 FP3 ramp-up customer and Keith pulled back the kimono and let us see BusinessObjects running against their live environment.  They are leverage both legacy SAP BI technologies such as web application designer and well as deploying BusinessObjects centric technologies such as Xcelsius.

Your company doesn’t know what it doesn’t know, so it’s up to you to educate them about your BI capabilities.  In Peabody’s case they leverage a BI portal and provides monthly updates on topics like:  training, tips and tricks and technology innovations.

I particularly loved the idea of their program, Rent a BI Expert.  It’s a consultative training opportunity where the business can ask questions and focus on a specific “real world” reporting problem.  This helps them build momentum in the business as well as getting the business to take ownership of their analytic needs.

Information Without Context is Useless

Peabody delivers all their reports through the employee portal.  Instead of using the BI Launchpad, they simply use their SAP Portal technology to provide links to all their BI content.

When delivering reports Keith reiterated the critical importance of providing business data within context.  If you are producing 13 metric tons that doesn’t tell you anything, but if you say you are producing 13 metrics tons on a budget of 15, then that’s an entirely different story, which is why they always focus on context.

Peabody Uses Context to Deliver Insight

Red, Yellow and Green are three of the most important colors at Peabody.  There is so much information and the business is changing so rapidly, you have to manage by exception.

CIO Spend Dashboard Tracks Costs

In this CIO dashboard, Keith explained how the CIO tracks critical KPIs.  After clicking on a measure and seeing the high level details update, he can then link to other reports to see the financial spend details.  It’s like a web, focus on the central themes in the dashboard and allow the users to spin out from there.  Peabody’s spend dashboards provide one level of drill-down together with additional analytics showing time-series trends including monthly spend, YTD spend, historical spend (context), budget and headcount.

BI Widgets

Keith reminded me that sometimes older products can be easily overlooked.  BI Widgets is a great example.  I rarely talk about this solution anymore and yet this was the perfect solution for a use case for their executives.  Their Executive VP doesn’t want to have to log in or go to a portal, he simply wants to have the latest BI information on his computer desktop.

Enter BI Widgets.

Peabody created a Widgets bar, which allows them to easily swap back and forth between different dashboards and report visualizations.  It’s an elegant solution and perfect for their users.

Here’s the resulting desktop:

BI Widgets Deliver Real-time Insight on the Desktop

BI Mobile

With 177 iPads, Peabody has begun to deliver mobile analytics using standard SAP tools.  The hardest thing about rolling out mobile applications was getting their IT organization beyond the idea of VPN.  After some key discussions between both SAP and Peabody IT teams, they got the green light.  Getting Mobile BI up and running at Peabody took 8 days – 7 days for security and 1 day to deliver the application.  (Peabody is looking to deploy Afaria later this year.)

Peabody delivers key content to 177 iPads

Keith reiterated the speed of delivery of new analytic content.  Although most of your reports may have cool charts and graphics, continue to think out of the box. Within a few taps of the screen, Keith showed show the CIO is able to get the latest summary detail around IT projects and since Peabody is in the ramp-up program and running BusinessObjects v40 FP3 in production, they are able to use the latest collaboration features to allow for annotation direction onto the report.

Latest BusinessObjects Mobile delivers on screen annotations

SAP Experience

Peabody is also using the latest SAP Experience mobile application as well.  They are leveraging the new Exploration Views capabilities which have been added to BusinessObjects Explorer.  This means Peabody BI team can provide more self-service interactive dashboarding to business leaders.

New Exploration Views deliver self service dashboards

If you’ve not taken the time to download SAP Experience to your iPad, I recommend you do it today.

What Better BI?

Don’t have dashboards today?  I smiled when Keith suggested that you find out what your organization is bonused on and then put that information into a dashboard.  “Guaranteed you will have users using dashboards now.”

He’s right.  And he’s talking about alignment.  Alignment is critical.

Review board goals, strategic plans and LOB goals when identifying KPIs to track and report.  Understand the long and short term goals of your organization.  If you do that it should be much easier to get that essential foundation of any successful BI project, executive sponsorship.

Companies need to embrace BI more holistically.  Stop doing BI projects and run BI programs.  This will allow your organization to increase standardization and reuse.  It will also allow you to reallocate your time to take on other challenges such as governance, information management, mobility and develop your strategic BI vision.

UPDATE:  Link to the recorded session:
http://www.sapvirtualevents.com/sapphirenow/sessiondetails.aspx?sId=2254

«Good BI»

Influencer Summit

http://www.sapvirtualevents.com/influencer-summit/Sessions.aspx?NavId=139

Simply login using your sap.com login.

This event wasn’t that long ago, December 13-14, 2011.  There is some great content here.  I especially liked the customer testimonials given in Analytics: Systems of Engagement & Customer Showcase.  Steve ribs Howard Dresner about coining the term Business Intelligence.

Keynote from BI 2012

http://www.insiderlearningnetwork.com/go/bonus/BI2012_Keynote?ts=1333034563

Signing up for a login to the Insider Learning Network is free, so enjoy!

BusinessObjects User Group 2011

http://www.asugonline.com/#

Click on the 2011 Ondemand Videos and you’ll find about 92 videos from the conference, unfortunately a lot of the ASUG News slots are mini-advertisements for the sessions.  They do however provide some of the highlights of what was discussed which is still valuable.  You can also access SESSION PROCEEDINGS and download the powerpoint presentations that were provided by the speakers.  Note that there are a lot of sessions listed here, so use the left hand navigation to select the correct BOUC session.

Although this website has an amazing look and the video quality is spectacular, the navigation is a little less obvious.  To search the recorded sessions, open the SEARCH on the left hand side.

SapphireNow 2010/2011

http://www.sapvirtualevents.com/SapphireNow/Sessions.aspx?isReplay=true

There are nearly 600 recorded sessions on offer for you!  If you can’t remember what was talked about last year or if you simply want to review what you heard, this is a great resource.  This website combines sessions from 2010 and 2011 and I’m sure will soon host all the sessions from 2012.  Using the Year filter on the left, you can select only the sessions from a specific year.

Note that SapphireNow Madrid should also be available:  http://www.sapphirenow.com/madrid/online, but the website appears to be down at the minute.

TechEd

http://www.sapvirtualevents.com/teched/default.aspx?NavId=1

For all the technical content you want, check out this TechEd Website.  Note that some of the content in the Archive is dated, so you’ll probably want to stay with the videos under the Content and Lectures sections.

You may also find some additional TechEd content on SCN:
http://scn.sap.com/community/events/teched/content

TechEd Beijing

http://www.sapteched.com/china/11/en/news/home.asp

The teched website above didn’t include content from Beijing, so you can find that separately.  The video highlights from Beijing only include the following ‘english’ keynotes from:  Vishal Sikka, Bill McDermott, Hasso Plattner.

SAP for Utilities

http://sap-for-utilities.com/videos_2011/videos.php

Unfortunately here you’re only able to see a sample of 6 videos.  I also provided a link to the keynote session by Steve Lucas here, which is excellent.  If you are a Utility I recommend you check it out:  http://www.trustedbi.com/2011/12/16/utilitiesconference/

Bottom Line

SAP hosts some great events, but budgets are tight and you can’t always attend all the events that you’d like in order to keep up with ongoing education.  Do yourself a favor and take advantage of these free resources.

Learning never exhausts the mind.   Leonardo da Vinci

«Good BI»

The software stack comes with the hardware provided by the hardware partners, whereas the license has to be obtained from SAP.  SAP HANA is sold in 64GB units.  Although the product is non-discountable, it does come in tiered pricing which means the more you buy the cheaper the units are.

One other interesting caveat with the hardware is that you do not necessarily have to license the entire appliance, so if you want to purchase a large box today, you are required to license at least half the addressable memory.  In other words, if the box is 1TB, you must license between 512GB and 1024 GB (or 8 to 16 units).

In addition to the software license associated with the appliance, SAP HANA also requires SAP Named Users.

For information on available hardware appliances, check out:  http://help.sap.com/hana_appliance/

HANA Editions

HANA is currently available in 4 flavors.

HANA Platform Edition -This is the basic edition.  This contains the software stack needed to use SAP HANA as a database, including the SAP HANA database, SAP HANA Studio for data modeling and administration, the SAP HANA clients, and software infrastructure components.  This is primarily for customers who already have Data Integrator licenses.

HANA BW Edition – This new edition of HANA is for existing SAP BW customers who want to continue doing all their data warehousing within the BW modeling environment.  In other words, you can do whatever you can do today with standalone BW, except that now BW is running on HANA.

Note that this edition does not allow the combination of both SAP and non-SAP data using a transient Info Provider.  That would require the Enterprise Edition.

Example of a Transient Data Provider

HANA Enterprise Edition – This edition extends the HANA Platform Edition with the software licenses needed for customers who want a single solution to import in data from SAP and non-SAP sources.  This edition includes SAP LT replication or ETL-based replication.  The ETL-based replication is provided by SAP BusinessObjects Data Services and the license only allows for the movement of data from external data sources into SAP HANA.  This also includes data distribution rights similar to Open Hub.

HANA Enterprise EXTENDED Edition – This edition extends the HANA Enterprise Edition with the software licenses needed for customers who need replication server to replicate non-SAP data into HANA from DB2.

Let’s drill into the requirements for moving to BW on HANA in more detail.

BW on HANA

AKA:  SAP Netweaver Business Warehouse 7.3, powered by HANA.

This product went GA a month early.  SAP reported a great response from the ramp-up process and news that everything went extremely well was welcome news.  As a result, I’ve seen many BW customers asking about what is required to move to SAP HANA.

The good news is it’s pretty easy.  The migration process is pretty straight-forward.  Assuming you are already on BW 7.3, it requires about the same amount of work as migration from Oracle to DB2.

Here are some details on the minimum requirements for running BW on HANA.

• The BW environment must be running BW 7.3
• BW must be running Unicode
• BW must have updated analysis authorizations
• SAP HANA requires a split ABAP/Java stack.  If you are running the dual stack on a single server, they must be broken apart.  This was recommended in BW 7.0 but now it’s a requirement.  In some cases I’ve seen customers who had them both installed but were only using the ABAP stack.  Make sure you need both.

How Much HANA Do I Need?

If you need to do sizing for a BW environment, it’s pretty straightforward.  SAP Note 1637145 walks you through the process.  Use the link below to access it:
https://websmp230.sap-ag.de/sap%28bD1lbiZjPTAwMQ==%29/bc/bsp/spn/sapnotes/index2.htm?numm=1637145

NOTE:  The  HANA sizing script that runs against BW assumes that Unicode is not currently configured.  Unless there are lots of text fields, the impact of already having unicode enabled will be negligible.

For non-BW environments (including SAP ERP) you should leverage this note:
https://websmp230.sap-ag.de/sap%28bD1lbiZjPTAwMQ==%29/bc/bsp/spn/sapnotes/index2.htm?numm=1514966

Here is a final note on HANA Sizing:
https://websmp230.sap-ag.de/sap%28bD1lbiZjPTAwMQ==%29/bc/bsp/spn/sapnotes/index2.htm?numm=1609322

The sizing of your HANA environment will depend on the type of data compression you can get from the HANA platform.  Typically organizations are seeing an average of 7x compression, which is pretty good.  Depending on the type of data it can be even larger.  Most of the SAP Notes use a very conservative 5x compress.

#1 Thing to Remember When Sizing

The only thing to keep in mind is that when you are sizing HANA for every 1GB of storage space, you also need 1GB of working space.  Therefore if you have 500 GB of data, you will need an additional 500 GB of working space, therefore you will need to license a 1TB HANA appliance, therefore when doing the HANA sizing it’s best to see how much raw data there is and then divide by 3, that will give you the amount of GB space you will need to license for HANA.

The Value of HANA

It’s critical that you understand the value of HANA for your organization.  Although I have no doubt that HANA can provide value for every organization, it’s important look at the business problem and calculate a solid ROI.  The top three use cases we are seeing our customers leverage HANA is:

• Analytics & Operational Reporting – Often these are issues around a need for real time, detailed data which represents large data sets which currently have unacceptable query times or data latency issues.
• Accelerate ECC Transactions – In some cases, there are batch processes with a large number of read operations.  These processes if run through HANA can happen as much as 350x faster than in a traditional database.  If there are any batch processes that have a limited batch window, you should consider how HANA might help you reduce the overall processing time.
• HANA Based Applications- HANA provides the ability to create applications that have never been able to exist before because the data and algorithms applied to that data was so complex, that they were simply unrealistic to consider.  SAP is now working with customers to develop a number of “killer apps” running on the HANA platform.I loved Steve Lucas’ analogy.  Think of HANA as the Gaming System (e.g. Xbox, PS3) and HANA based Applications as the game that makes you buy the platform (e.g. Halo, Uncharted).

In my next post I’ll be writing about why you should leverage SAP to help deliver HANA Value workshops.

«Good BI»

Here is a link for you to commit to memory…

http://www.sap.com/LearnBI

Here you will find several getting started tutorials for end-users.  It’s a great way to get familiar with some of the basic capabilities of the BI Suite, so if you’re helping new users learn about BusinessObjects, this is a great site to leverage.

For products that are not completely new, there are What’s New overview tutorials and individuals tutorials for new features.

There is also some comparison tutorials including:

• Crystal Reports 2011 vs.Crystal Reports for Enterprise.
• Universe Design Tool vs. Information Design Tool

Subscribing to New Content

If you are one of those folks who always wants to have a look at the latest and greatest learning content, I recommend you subscribe to the eLearning channel.

RSS Feed for eLearning:
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/servlet/prt/portal/prtmode/rss/prtroot/feedserver?rid=/webcontent/uuid/c0875d43-1c07-2b10-36a6-917f5d779a2c

Or if you prefer, you can follow the BI Suite eLearning on twitter:  @SAP_learn_BI

Enjoy.

«Good BI»

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»

There’s nothing stopping you!

No, not even the fact that iOS doesn’t support flash.

Antivia’s new XWIS Anywhere bring a new product to their already popular suite of BusinessObjects extensions.

Antivia XWIS Anywhere

Antivia’s XWIS Anywhere is going to overcome a technology hurdle that SAP has been unable or unwilling to clear — Xcelsius (aka SAP Dashboards) on the iPad.

Antivia provided an in depth 55 minute presentation about Antivia XWIS Anywhere.  They are committed to:

• Mobilizing Any Xcelsius Dashboard
• Providing a Native iPad Experience
• Full Catalog and Management inside SAP BusinessObjects
• Additional iPad Security (for locally cached content)
• Quick Deployment (hours instead of days or weeks)
• Allow Offline Slideshows  (Screenshots of Xcelsius dashboards)
• Access to WebIntelligence and Crystal Reports

Notables

It is important to note that because XWIS Anywhere is leveraging the SAP BusinessObjects repository, if the dashboard does not exist in the repository then it will not be available for the iPad.  A perfect example of this is the Xcelsius BICS connectivity for Netweaver.  These dashboards must be published to SAP BW and run from within the context of the Netweaver application server.  However, this is only a short term limitation.  SAP does plan to support BICS  connectivity for Dashboards saved into the SAP BusinessObjects repository with the next release, SAP BusinessObjects v4.0 SP3.

One glaring feature that seemed to be missing over the similar solution from Exxova is the zoom in/zoom out capability.  With Exxova, it works very much like the native iPad browser.  Users can use two fingers to zoom in and zoom out of their Dashboards.  This is great when viewing dashboards which might be hard to read – or helpful for executives who have difficulty with small print.

UPDATE:  XWIS Anywhere does support pinch and zoom (using native iPad gestures)

Here is a sample dashboard view:

Hospice Dashboard - Standard View

By placing two fingers on the screen and pulling them apart, Exxova allows you to zoom into a specific area of the dashboard and at the same time a small thumbnail (indicated by the red arrow) shows you a small red box indicating where you are on within the context of the dashboard:

Same Hospice Dashboard - Zoomed In

Future of SAP Dashboards

Donald MacCormick indicated during the webinar that Xcelsius/SAP Dashboards will be move to HTML5 in 2012.  That means he expects some subset of functionality available by the end of 2012.  What does that mean for you?   It means you can invest in Antivia today, move your dashboards to the iPad today, and when SAP eventually provides full Xcelsius HTML5 functionality (that could be some time), you can move ahead at your own convenience.

You will be prepared for change before it happens.  Because the XWIS Anywhere application is a native iPad application with a “screen emulation” technology in the middle, when HTML5 becomes available, Antivia will simply replace the existing “screen emulation” technology with the HTML5 SAP Dashboards output.

Keep your users happy.  Make dashboards available on the iPad today.

You won’t regret it…

«Good BI»

That said, there is ONE change I make every time I do an installation.

History of the Embedded Database

On Windows, it’s gone from SQL Server Embedded (CE10) to MySQL (for support of Unix and Linux) and back to SQL Server.  Now that SAP has acquired it’s own database technology, don’t be too surprised if it comes bundled with Sybase in the future.

Personally I’ve never liked uses the embedded database and I wouldn’t recommend you use it either.  In fact, I recently has a situation with a client who due to any overly restrictive server/firewall configuration was unable to get the embedded database working and we wasted hours trying to troubleshoot the problem.

Installation Best Practice

I always choose “Custom Install” so that I can:

• Modify the installation location
• Uncheck the default embedded database (for the CMS)

I really don’t like to include the embedded database because I want to give BusinessObjects as much on-server resources as possible – especially with v4.0.

Always create space in an existing database environment to support BusinessObjects.  There are many supported CMS databases including:  SQL Server, MySQL, IBM DB2, Oracle, MaxDB and Sybase.

NOTE:  Always test connectivity to the database from the server on
which you will be installing BusinessObjects to make sure the connectivity
is working.

During the installation you will want to NOT include the embedded database.  That means doing a CUSTOM install and deselecting Integrated Database.

De-Select the Integrated Database

What I love about the installer is that it will check the database connectivity before the installation begins.  If there is an issue with the database client configuration, permissions, etc., the installation will warn me of the situation and not continue.  This gives me the confidence to know that assuming I have enough hard drive space, when I select “Begin Installation”,  it will complete successfully.

«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»